www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

Search behemoth Google has set out its desire to generate green energy that is “cheaper than coal”.

On Tuesday Google stated that it is investing in solar, wind, geothermal and other emerging energy technologies. The initiative, known as RE< C (Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal), is recruiting energy experts and engineers in order to develop clean renewable sources. Google is expecting to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in mainly solar thermal and advanced geothermal technologies.

With so much investment and a track record of employing some of the sharpest talents in its search and technology business, Google is sure to attract the right people. With the huge injection of cash and the finest minds, Google is aiming to have the technology to generate a Gigawatt of power cheaper than coal, the idea is to develop the technique so rapidly that carbon emissions can be tackled in a matter of years rather than decades.

Google.org, Google’s investment arm headed up by the aptly named Dr. Larry Brilliant, has plans to invest in a number of strategic grants. Two companies with promising energy technolgies are eSolar Inc and Makani Power Inc. eSolar are involved in solar thermal energy and Makani Power are wind energy technologists.

Google has already stated its intentions to green energy but this is also a shrewd business decision too. With the number of data centres that Google has, the cost of energy is bound to soar as resources dwindle. In addition with oil prices up and coal generating 40% of the world’s electricity, not to mention the huge surge in demand for power from emerging economies like China and India, a clean and green source of power will not only benefit all of us but Google too. And a healthy return on their investment would not go amiss too.

We may have been a bit harsh asking How Green is Ecotricity but we’re only being honest.

It’s a shame that “green energy” suppliers are really “a bit green” energy suppliers. Granted, Ecotricity are 25% green but still 75% of the green energy you think you’re buying from them is still coal, gas and nuclear. Sure, nuclear is a “clean” energy when its being generated, but what about the nuclear waste issue? We won’t even talk about coal & gas…

Anyway, we digress from the point here of Green Energy League Tables. One of our readers pointed out the website WhichGreen and they’ve produced an at-a-glance table of how much investment is put into green and renewable energy. The table works by working out how much, per customer, each energy provider puts into investment into new, clean renewable energy and guess what…

Ecotricity come top by a mile!

Strangely enough, Good Energy, the self-proclaimed “100% renewable electricity supplier” are very thin on the ground in terms of actually providing renewables and invested far far less than even some of the brown energy generators. See what WhichGreen had to say about Good Energy. They seem to be more into drumming up green business and taking your green than generating clean power.

Lets not single out Good Energy because Green Energy are at it too, apparently investing as much as Good Energy in the 2006 energy market. As WhichGreen say:

“It’s nice to know that they want to invest half their profits into new green, but it’s still a world away from actually doing it.”

So let’s keep an eye on these people shall we?

There’s also a 3-year league table detailing the investment by power companies over a period from 2004 to 2006. Once this year’s figures come in we’ll be able to see who’s really green and where the greenwash is.

If you’re a keen gardener or just doing all those good things that make up the green lifestyle, then you’ve probably got a compost bin in your back garden.

At this time of year the decomposition process slows down due to the cold and wet conditions, so here are a few autumn & winter composting tips to keep your composting process healthy during the colder months.

• Use a gardening fork to turn the material over every week to ensure oxygen gets into the compost pile.
• Place a layer of insulation on the top of the compost pile and inside the compost bin itself; sheets of cardboard, and old piece of carpet or reuse old bubble wrap are good insulators.
• Wrap the compost bin with insulation on the outside; again you can recycle and reuse that old bubble wrap packing, the carpets you were going to throw out or big sheets of cardboard that were destined for the recycle bin. Bear in mind it’s going to be wet so the cardboard would need a layer of carpet or bubble wrap over it. Tie the whole outer insulation with strong twine. Alternatively you could use hay bales to insulate your composter.
• You might occasionally want to pee on your compost heap. A healthy dose of human urine is high in nitrogen and good for your decomposition process.
• If the composting process slows down too much you may need to keep your kitchen scraps out of the outdoor composter and consider using an kitchen composting bin.

Yep, it’s Buy Nothing Day tomorrow (Saturday) in the UK. Tonight I shall visit my local brewery the Hog’s Back Brewery in Tongham, Surrey, to spend a few shillings on locally produced real ale, so once that silver is spent I shan’t be contributing to the cult of rabid consumerism for a whole day.

Spread the word, tell your friends, send them a Buy Nothing Day postcard “Shop Less, Live More”

This year’s Doodle for Google competition was based on the them “My future” and British schoolchildren were invited to submit their entries.

A couple of days ago Claire Rammelkamp’s “This or This?” doodle was seen atop every google search page.
Her Google logo entitled “This or This?” shows both a destroyed planet and a green planet and is accompanied by the statement:

“Our actions today can determine how we live in the future. Which would you rather see in 100 years’ time; a polluted wasteland, or a thriving utopia? The choice is ours. Be recycling and using renewable energy sources we can keep our Earth beautiful.”

If we could replace some of our world leaders with 14 year olds, there might be some hope yet…

See all the UK logos.

As a subscriber to The Ecologist magazine every month I regularly see an advert for Ecotricity, “The World’s First Green Electricity Company” asking for subscribers to sign-up for an Ecotricity tariff and help fight climate change.

The fact of the matter is that although Ecotricity is admirably trying to push the green energy agenda it is unable to totally fulfil the promise of providing clean, green, environmentally-friendly energy. For the moment that is.

Take a look energywatch, the energy watchdog’s, list of suppliers’ fuel mix disclosure. What it reads is that Ecotricity IS the greenest of the main suppliers (apart from Good Energy), providing 24% of its energy from renewables up to March 2007. However it still has a similar amount of energy from gas (23.8%), coal (22.8%) and an even higher amount of nuclear energy (25.9%). According to the figures the amount of nuclear energy making up ecotricity’s offering is above the national average (18.6%)
Well, it would be nice if everybody could sign-up and get 100% green energy but the truth of the matter is that there isn’t enough of that green energy to go ’round.
But wait, that fuel mix disclosure chart noted that Good Energy is providing 100% renewable energy, so how come we never see campaigns for Good Energy?

We’re not knocking Ecotricity, merely pointing out that they’re not quite as green as the general perception of them tends to be, but more customers equals more profit which leads to further investment in renewable energy. That’s got to be a good thing.

HSBC are the latest corporation to want your green.

“Why not do your bit and help the environment by Going Green with an HSBC current account?”

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation are currently promoting themselves in a “go green” promotion where they promise not to send you paper bills and to contact you only via email or phone wherever possible in order to save paper.

In return for you, the consumer, “doing your bit” they promise to donate £5.00 to a good cause for every new “green” current account they open. Well, in fact it’s three good causes – WWF, Earthwatch and The Climate Group.

Now this isn’t really new news as HSBC were keen to go green back in January and in March. Then they donated £2.00 for every green account opened to the same charities and contributed a total of £50,000 (split three ways) as a result of the January promotion.

We know that companies and corporations that are publicly being seen to “go green” boost their reputation, but ethics and social responsibility are also part of the deal…

HSBC have recently lost a lot of money in the US subprime mortgages crisis. Subprime lending is basically lending money to people who are less likely or able to pay the money back, therefore they are charged higher premiums for the risk involved to the lender. Is that socially responsible or ethical behaviour from the world’s 5th largest company?

The lure of going green may be enough to tempt new customers who haven’t done their homework and simply think that paperless billing & a donation to an “earth charity” is enough to go green.

The issue is far deeper than that: who do HSBC handle money for, who do they invest in, where does their money go? Shouldn’t the consumer know that there are other far greener and ethical options such as The Co-operative Bank (The only UK high street bank to have a customer-led ethical policy) or Triodos Bank?

Well you do now.

A report by the CBI today has noted that “green credentials” are increasingly important to people when it comes to the reputation of companies.

The bulk of the poll attributes great customer service, quality of products & services and the meeting of customers’ expectations as the key factors in the building of great reputations for companies.

However, Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, noted that “Environmental credentials and social responsibility are also becoming increasingly more important to consumers’ purchasing decisions.”

He went on to single out Marks & Spencer for their ‘Plan A‘ which ties great products and excellent customer service with what he called “an ambitious but credible environmental and ethical campaign.”

In the unprompted poll Marks & Spencer were also voted as the UK’s most reputable company ahead of The John Lewis Partnership, so the fact that they’ve gone green (or are in the process of going green) has boosted their reputation.

Despite their high profile attempts at “greening up” their image, there are no oil companies in the top ten (see greenwash)

For the full details, see the CBI press release “Consumers Will Pay Premium For A Great Reputation“

German-made cars have seen their CO2 emissions go UP according to a report from the European Federation for Transport & the Environment (T&E) whereas French, Italian and Japanese car manufacturers saw their vehicles’ emissions go DOWN.
T&E says that the figures for 2006 when compared to 2005 show that French, Italian and Japanese CO2 emission figures actually dropped by an average of 1.6% whereas the German cars’ emissions increased by 0.6%.

Now this may not be a massive increase but it’s ironic that the country that has been most influential in pushing for climate change targets should be the country whose car manufacturers seem to be doing the opposite.

Let’s be fair here, it’s not all German car-makers who are at fault. BMW have actually reduced their cars’ emissions by 2.5% whereas it’s Volkswagen whose emissions have gone up, by just 0.8%, and Daimler-Chrysler (Daimler) have seen their emissions rise by a nasty 2.8%!

The report indicates that weight is an issue with vehicle emissions and that weight-saving has reduced CO2 output whereas the heavier cars have seen an increase.

You can read the full report “Study reveals increasing climate divide between
Europe’s carmakers”.

Japan is making very good progress with Toyota in particular singling out praise for cutting around 5% on their vehicles’ emissions.