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Mine e-waste, not the Earth, say scientists

Posted on by dishanth
Mine e-waste, not the Earth, say scientists

The recycling of e-waste must urgently be ramped up because mining the Earth for precious metals to make new gadgets is unsustainable, scientists say.

One study estimated that the world’s mountain of discarded electronics, in 2021 alone, weighed 57 million tonnes.

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) says there now needs to be a global effort to mine that waste, rather than mining the Earth.

Global conflicts also pose a threat to supply chains for precious metals.

The RSC is running a campaign to draw attention to the unsustainability of continuing to mine all the precious elements used in consumer technology.

  • Waste electronics to outweigh Great Wall of China
  • Millions of old gadgets ‘stockpiled in drawers’

It points out that geopolitical unrest, including the war in Ukraine, has caused huge spikes in the price of materials like nickel, a key element in electric vehicle batteries.

This volatility in the market for elements is causing “chaos in supply chains” that enable the production of electronics. Combined with the surge in demand, this caused the price of lithium – another important component in battery technology – to increase by almost 500% between 2021 and 2022.

 

Demand for lithium batteries is only expected to grow

 

Some key elements are simply running out.

“Our tech consumption habits remain highly unsustainable and have left us at risk of exhausting the raw elements we need,” said Prof Tom Welton, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry, adding that those habits were “continuing to exacerbate environmental damage”.

 

Elements in smartphones that could run out in the next century:

  • Gallium: Used in medical thermometers, LEDs, solar panels, telescopes and has possible anti-cancer properties
  • Arsenic: Used in fireworks, as a wood preserver
  • Silver: Used in mirrors, reactive lenses that darken in sunlight, antibacterial clothing and gloves for use with touch screens
  • Indium: Used in transistors, microchips, fire-sprinkler systems, as a coating for ball-bearings in Formula One cars and solar panels
  • Yttrium: Used in white LED lights, camera lenses and can be used to treat some cancers
  • Tantalum: Used in surgical implants, electrodes for neon lights, turbine blades, rocket nozzles and nose caps for supersonic aircraft, hearing aids and pacemakers

 

All the while, the amount of e-waste generated is growing by about two million tonnes every year. Less than 20% is collected and recycled.

“We need governments to overhaul recycling infrastructure and tech businesses to invest in more sustainable manufacturing,” said Prof Welton.

New research by the RSC also revealed a growing demand from consumers for more sustainable technology. In an online survey of 10,000 people across 10 countries, 60% said they would be more likely to switch to a rival of their preferred tech brand if they knew the product was made in a sustainable way.

The survey also suggested that people did not know how to deal with their own e-waste. Many respondents said they worried about the environmental effect of unused devices they have in their homes, but did not know what to do with them or were concerned about the security of recycling schemes.

Elizabeth Ratcliffe from the Royal Society of Chemistry, told BBC Radio 4’s inside Science that many of us were “unwittingly stockpiling precious metals in our homes”, in old phones and defunct computers.

Previous RSC research showed that millions of us are unwittingly stockpiling precious elements by keeping old devices in our homes

 

 

“Manufacturers and retailers need to take more responsibility,” said Ms Ratcliffe. “Like ‘take-back’ schemes, meaning people can return their electronics to a retailer and be assured they will be recycled securely.

“All this volatility in supply chains really just reinforces the fact that we need a circular economy for these materials. At the moment, we’re just mining them out of the ground constantly.”

The society hopes to encourage people to take old and unwanted devices to recycling centres, rather than stuff them into drawers and forget about them. It points UK consumers to online resources where they can find the nearest centre that pledges to recycle computers, phones and other devices securely.

“The thing we always say is reduce, reuse and recycle. So perhaps keep a phone for longer and maybe sell an old phone or give it to a relative,” says Ms Ratcliffe. “It will need everyone working together to scale up these processes and put the infrastructure in place, so we can all recycle our devices.”

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Source BBC

UK consumers able to track renewable energy hourly under new plans

Posted on by dishanth
UK consumers able to track renewable energy hourly under new plans

Consumers will soon be able to check where their energy is coming from hourly, and get a discount on bills if they use electricity when renewables are in surplus.

Under plans by the startup Granular and energy giants including Elexon and National Grid, energy companies will allow UK consumers to track their power source.

This could help the country reduce emissions, as it will be easier for people to choose energy companies that are transparent about exactly how much renewable energy they use.

Because there are times of day when renewable energy is less available – for example when it is less windy or sunny – consumers could be incentivised to use power when it is in oversupply by offering a discount on their bills. This could lead to less gas being used.

The current system is based on annual matching, in which the energy provider looks at the previous year’s energy use and matches it with the equivalent amount of renewable energy, but there is a growing trend to move to hourly matching instead. Companies including Google and Microsoft have been calling for the move as it could lead to organisations being able to definitively say they use renewable energy 24/7.

It will also increase consumer demand, say experts, as they will be able to choose more renewable options. This is likely to lead to companies investing in renewables, and in battery technology for more efficient storage.

Toby Ferenczi, a co-founder of Granular, said consumers could be seeing this change by the end of the year. He said: “Long term, what this is enabling an acceleration towards a completely carbon-free grid as it is harnessing consumer spending power to source energy from carbon-free sources each hour.

“This drives investment in not just renewables but in energy storage and flexibility. Eventually customers will be able to buy green energy from their energy supplier by the hour.”

He said the method could allow people to get discounts on their bills. “It’s an incentive for load shifting and demand response so we want to provide a revenue stream for people who do that – renewable energy should be cheap when it’s in oversupply and more expensive when undersupplied, so it would give an incentive for consumers to shift their demand towards when it’s oversupplied.”

 

 

Source The Guardian

Boots to phase out all plastic-based wet wipes by the end of the year

Posted on by dishanth
Boots to phase out all plastic-based wet wipes by the end of the year

High-street chemist Boots has pledged to stop selling all wet wipes containing plastic fibres in response to growing consumer demand for sustainable toiletries.

The chain has announced it will phase out plastic-based wet wipes and replace them with plant-based biodegradable products by the end of 2022.

Eleven billion single-use wet wipes are used in the UK every year of which around 90 per cent contain plastic, according to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

Boots openly admits to having sold 800 million disposable hand wipes, baby wipes and make-up removal wipes in the past year in its stores and online. The retailer accounted for an estimated 15 per cent of beauty wipes sold in the UK in that time, with more than 140 different lines stocked across skincare, baby, tissue and healthcare.

Most wipes are made from a non-woven fabric resembling cotton, but despite their soft texture they are woven together with plastic fibres such as polyester and polypropylene. Once disposed of, they break down into microplastics, which then pollute the oceans and enter the food chain.

Wet wipes should not be disposed of down the toilet, despite the labels on some products claiming they are flushable, because they end up clogging the sewers. The cloths cause hundreds of thousands of blockages every year and lead to “fatbergs” – rock-like masses of waste matter in the sewer system formed by the combination of flushed non-biodegradable solids and fat, oil and grease deposits.

Announcing the plastic-based wipe ban, Steve Ager, chief customer and commercial officer at Boots UK, said: “Our customers are more aware than ever before of their impact on the environment, and they are actively looking to brands and retailers to help them lead more sustainable lives.

“We removed plastics from our own brand and No7 wet wipe ranges in 2021, and now we are calling on other brands and retailers across the UK to follow suit in eliminating all plastic-based wet wipes.”

Healthcare chain Holland & Barrett announced a complete ban on the sale of all wet wipe products from its UK and Ireland stores in 2019, while Tesco – which sells 4.8 billion individual baby wipes each year – stopped stocking branded wipes containing plastic last month, after reformulating its own-brand wipes.

Environment minister Rebecca Pow praised Boots’ “encouraging commitment” to prevent the damaging plastics in wet wipes from entering the environment while MCS chief executive Sandy Luk described the announcement as a “fantastic step in the right direction”.

Ms Luk added that MCS volunteers collected nearly 6,000 wet wipes during its latest annual Great British Beach Clean.

“[That] is an average of 12.5 wet wipes for every 100 metres of beach surveyed,” she said.

 

 

Source iNews

DIY waste disposal will no longer incur charge under new plans

Posted on by dishanth
DIY waste disposal will no longer incur charge under new plans

Households in England and Wales will no longer have to pay to get rid of waste created by DIY activities under new plans set out by the government on Monday.

At the moment, some local authorities are allowed to charge for the removal of waste such as plasterboard, bath units and bricks, but the proposed changes outlined in a technical consultation would stop this.

The move, which is part of a fresh attempt to crack down on fly-tipping, could save consumers up to £10 per individual item, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

The government banned backdoor charges for individuals disposing of household rubbish at waste centres in 2015. However, about a third of local authorities still charge for certain types of DIY waste, applying rules to residents designed for construction waste.

The environment minister Jo Churchill said: “When it comes to fly-tipping, enough is enough. These appalling incidents cost us £392m a year and it is time to put a stop to them. I want to make sure that recycling and the correct disposal of rubbish is free, accessible and easy for householders. No one should be tempted to fly-tip or turn to waste criminals and rogue operators.”

Local authorities handled 1.13m fly-tipping incidents in 2020-21, during the Covid-19 pandemic, up 16% on the year before.

New council grants totalling £450,000 will be awarded to selected authorities to help them fund a range of projects to catch fly-tippers in action or deter them from dumping waste in the first place.

Projects include the use of covert and overt CCTV cameras at hotspot locations; educational programmes to influence behaviour change; and a “no bags on the street” policy to prevent rubbish collections outside business premises.

Buckinghamshire council also plans to use artificial intelligence at fly-tipping hotspots, such as rapid deployment cameras and automatic number-plate recognition. These tools link the vehicles of fly-tipping suspects to the disposed-of items in real time, allowing investigating officers to track down culprits quickly.

The other councils set to receive the grant are Durham, Newham, Eastleigh Borough, Stevenage, Winchester, Dover, Thanet, Telford and Wrekin, and Basingstoke and Deane.

The government is also considering measures to make manufacturers of the most-dumped items – such as furniture and mattresses – responsible for the costs of disposing of waste created by their products.

Jacob Hayler, the executive director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA), said he was pleased by the range of measures announced by the government to deter “this deeply antisocial, criminal behaviour”.

He said: “In addition to helping individuals recycle their household waste materials at HWRCs [household waste and recycling centres], of particular importance is stopping this material from falling into the hands of organised waste criminals, leading to larger-scale fly-tipping, which is why the ESA also strongly supports digital waste-tracking and reform of the licensing regime for carriers, brokers and dealers of waste material.”

Digital waste-tracking involves those handling rubbish recording information from the point the waste is produced to the stage it is disposed of, recycled or reused. It is hoped this will make it easier for regulators to detect illegal waste activity.

Marcus Gover, the chief executive of the sustainability charity Wrap, said: “Minimising waste is central to this, and the introductions of grants to reduce fly-tipping across England and Wales are necessary to help prevent the continual environmental cost of this illegal activity.”

 

 

Source The Guardian

New funding to support sustainable future of space

Posted on by dishanth
New funding to support sustainable future of space
  • Space debris is a major threat to the satellite services we rely on
  • 13 projects involve industry and academia across the UK

The UK Space Agency is providing £1.7 million for new projects to support sustainable space operations, Science Minister George Freeman announced today.

The 13 new projects will help track and remove dangerous debris in space. They include an AI-based tool which can take autonomous action to avoid a collision and another which will see multiple small spacecraft fired at debris before taking it into the atmosphere to dispose of it.

The Science Minister, UK Space Agency CEO Paul Bate and representatives from the UK space sector met at the Harwell Space Cluster in Oxfordshire to discuss the sustainable future of the space environment today (Monday 31 January).

Orbital congestion created by space debris is one of the biggest global challenges facing the space sector. There are currently an estimated 330 million pieces of space debris, including 36,500 objects bigger than 10cm, such as old satellites, spent rocket bodies and even tools dropped by astronauts orbiting Earth.

Space debris can stay in orbit for hundreds of years and present a real danger to the rapidly increasing number of new satellites being launched each year which provide vital services, including communications and climate change monitoring.

 

Science Minister George Freeman said:

Like debris on Everest, the first generation of space exploration and satellite launch has left millions of pieces of dangerous satellite fragments and 4,000 redundant satellites in orbit.

As our reliance on satellites for everyday activity grows, and the UK becomes a leading hub of small satellite design, manufacturing and launch this year via Virgin Orbit in Cornwall, this debris now poses a serious threat to our £16 billion space sector.

That’s why we have made debris mitigation and removal – and the long-term importance of space sustainability – key elements of our National Space Strategy.

These projects will help put the UK at the forefront of both protecting the space environment for future activity, and accelerating UK technology leadership.

 

The UK’s National Space Strategy set out a bold vision for the sector and recognises the need for the UK to lead in making space safe and sustainable. The new funding supports the development of underlying technology or data processing capabilities for space surveillance and tracking to support the removal of orbital debris.

In the past two years the UK Space Agency has provided £2.7 million for UK industry and academia to develop new technology for Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) and debris removal, as well as investing around £16 million on space sustainability through the European Space Agency in 2019.

The UK is the largest contributor to ESA’s Space Safety Programme. This new funding comes from a joint call from the UK Space Agency’s Space Surveillance and Tracking and National Space Technology Programme.

 

Managing Director, Astroscale Ltd and Co-Chair of the IOSM Working Group, UKspace, John Auburn said:

We need to act now to build the UK’s capability with the right level of UK investment; enhanced UK regulation and policy; supply chain development, and international partnerships. The In-orbit Servicing and Manufacturing (IOSM) working group, part of UKspace, is comprised of more than 65 members.

This rapidly expanding group is driving forward a shared vision to gain first leader commercial advantage in the in-orbit servicing and manufacturing sector. We must accelerate our efforts to secure a safe and sustainable space environment and see it as a natural extension of the Earth’s environment. This will help to protect vital services, including those monitoring climate change, weather forecasting, disaster management and digital services for citizens and ensure we can provide them for generations to come.

 

In 2021 the UK Space Agency worked with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to support the next stage of international efforts to promote space sustainability and provided funding to research a UK-led mission to remove junk from space.

 

The 13 projects in detail

 

Plasma thruster based Automated Deorbiting-Block system (PAD-B)

  • Lead: Magdrive
  • Partners: University of Southampton
  • Funding: £199,500

Magdrive and the University of Southampton are investigating the feasibility of the Plasma thruster based Automated Deorbiting-Block (PAD-B) system. A mothership will carry many of these ~1 kg nano-spacecraft, which can be fired at debris from afar. These will attach and work together to autonomously bring the debris into the atmosphere to dispose of it. Through this project the team will investigate the feasibility of PAD-B and deliver flight hardware for a subcomponent prototype space flight in June 2022.

 

The Great Eye: AI-based Space, Surveillance and Tracking (SST) Tool

  • Lead: Oxford Dynamics Limited
  • Partners: In-Space Missions Ltd
  • Funding: £157,500

Oxford Dynamics (OD) and In-Space Missions (ISM) are collaborating on the development of an innovative AI-based Space, Surveillance and Tracking (SST) tool, known as, “The Great Eye”. The project builds upon work by OD to provide the foundations for a satellite payload able to take autonomous collision avoidance decisions.  The project also includes a novel ground ops Graphical User Interface (GUI) to demonstrate the tool’s capabilities. It will use OD’s expertise in payload development and AI machine vision, and ISM’s expertise in the design and supply of small, cost-effective satellites, to address an identified global market opportunity.

 

Supermagdrive ADR

  • Lead: Rocket Engineering
  • Partners: Magdrive Limited, Tokamak Energy
  • Funding: £198,500

High thrust electric propulsion will enable new space missions and businesses to thrive in space, allowing highly efficient precision manoeuvring in low orbits, a key requirement for space surveillance and tracking. The critical underpinning capability is harnessing high plasma densities with ultra-strong magnetic fields. This project will combine electric propulsion technology developed by Magdrive with superconducting magnet technology developed by Tokamak Energy for use in fusion power plants. Testing of key components aims to raise the technology readiness of thruster designs in a partnership between Rocket Engineering, Magdrive and Tokamak Energy.

 

Hyperspectral Imager for Space Surveillance and Tracking (HyperSST)

  • Lead: University of Strathclyde
  • Partners: Fraunhofer UK Research Ltd, Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics
  • Funding: £169,500

Project HyperSST will demonstrate the use of new hyperspectral imaging sensors to detect and characterise objects orbiting around the Earth. HyperSST will mix advanced hyperspectral technology with modern deep learning techniques to better understand the composition of space objects, their motions and predict their intentions. This project will demonstrate the use of hyperspectral imaging and AI for both on ground and in-orbit sensing and the detection and characterisation of objects of different size and nature, from active satellites to derelict upper stages.

 

Advancement of UK capabilities to identify the attitude state of resident space objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

  • Lead: Astroscale Ltd
  • Partners: Northern Space and Security Ltd, Lumi Space Ltd
  • Funding: £55,000

The goal of this proposal is to advance the development of UK capabilities to determine how an uncontrolled object, whether it’s an inactive satellite or piece of debris, is spinning in space. An object’s spin or tumble is important to know when planning missions to clean up space by removing them from orbit. Capturing these objects safely requires delicate and precise manoeuvring, and if the space object is tumbling too fast or in a way that makes it tricky to capture, this needs to be understood before the servicer spacecraft is in orbit. This grant will help develop UK capability to ensure this information is available for such missions in the future.

 

ODIN detector TRL Advancement

  • Lead: ODIN Space
  • Partners: N/A
  • Funding: £91,000

ODIN Space is developing state-of-the-art, on-orbit detectors that will track lethal fragments of space debris, enabling essential risk management across the entire space ecosystem. ODIN Space detectors are sensitive to the tiniest pieces of orbital debris (0.01 – 2 cm) that are invisible to existing tracking solutions. Using a network of detectors, this will map the orbital debris environment, providing essential insights into the position, size, speed, trajectory and number of dangerous objects in LEO and GEO. The ODIN Space team is currently developing a deployable, flight-ready framework that will serve as the foundation for a future in-orbit demonstration of their detection technology.

 

Artificial Intelligence for Space Surveillance and Tracking (AI4SST)

  • Lead: University of Strathclyde
  • Partners: Imperial College London, D-Orbit UK
  • Funding: £153,500

This project will use the Computational Agent for Space Situational Awareness aNd Debris Remediation Automation (CASSANDRA) framework, which uses advanced artificial intelligence technology to help operators to manage traffic in orbit and avoid collisions between satellites and space debris.  Project AI4SST will endow CASSANDRA with the ability to accurately forecast the position of space objects starting from radar observations. CASSANDRA will then be able to assist operators to make informed and reliable decisions on whether to perform a collision avoidance manoeuvre or schedule a new radar observation.

 

Extended Exploration of Census Program

  • Lead: D-orbit
  • Partners: N/A
  • Funding: £34,000

D-Orbit will build on a successful project last year to exploit a new capability to enable routine, targeted space-based low Earth orbit Space, Surveillance and Tracking (SST) observations. By using D-Orbit’s ION Satellite Carrier, an orbital transportation vehicle with a multi-year lifetime and propulsion capability, D-Orbit can offer an unprecedented opportunity to observe debris both passively and actively. ION cameras will be repurposed to capture images of space objects for processing on board and on ground, as well as exploring how the capability can be augmented by system upgrades.

 

Optimised Observations and Machine Learning for Space Safety

  • Lead: Cranfield University
  • Partners: University of Oxford, University of Surrey
  • Funding: £196,500

This project aims to improve our understanding of how we can monitor space objects in orbit, and to develop efficient tools to help us plan and implement safer ways to operate spacecraft. It aims to support UK leadership in this field, and an important output of the project will be an upgrade to the open-source software Kessler, which implements machine learning techniques to significantly accelerate predictions of space object close approaches.

 

Advancement of UK Capabilities in Satellite Laser Ranging

  • Lead: Lumi Space
  • Partners: University of Surrey, Durham University, SJE Space Ltd
  • Funding: £85,500

This project pushes Lumi Space forward in developing an advanced satellite laser ranging (SLR) system which is a simple but powerful method that uses light to track satellites. Continuing the work carried out last year, this project advances novel aspects of laser ranging technology and levels-up the technology readiness of the company.  Lumi Space continues to strive for a more sustainable and accountable use of space, by bringing the UK closer to commercial SLR capabilities.

 

Beacon for Evaluation of Attitude and Position – BEAP

  • Lead: UK Launch Services Ltd
  • Partners: Alta Range
  • Funding: £79,000

This involves a study to look at the commercial and practical feasibility of a novel Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) service which is built around the principle of ‘tagging’ space objects. The system would allow active tracking, at very low cost, and with minimal impact and intrusion on the space objects themselves.

 

PAssive raNging anD ORbitogrAphy for mega constellations for STM – PANDORA

  • Lead: GMV NSL
  • Partners: N/A
  • Funding: £86,000

The PANDORA project will assess the potential to deliver an innovative new Space Surveillance and Tracking system for Low Earth Orbiting satellites based on the use of a ‘Passive Ranging’ concept. This concept uses communications signals from LEO constellations as ranging measurements to feed precise orbit determination and prediction of LEO satellites.

The orbital knowledge of LEO satellites is becoming increasingly important as part of future Space Traffic Management (STM) concepts and operations. The PANDORA project will quantify the performance of the passive ranging technique in delivering accurate predictions and manoeuvre detection of LEO satellites. It will prepare a roadmap towards the commercial implementation and exploitation of this new capability within the UK.

 

Fast determination of satellite re-entry and fragmentation

  • Lead: University of Strathclyde
  • Partners: Imperial College London, D-Orbit UK
  • Funding: £199,000

Fast, physically accurate tools for the analysis of the re-entry of controlled and uncontrolled objects are critical to many in the space sector. In particular, improved modelling and simulation of the deformation and fragmentation is paramount to design systems for safe demise and assess the associated risk. Joints are critical components of a spacecraft when it comes to fragmentation, this project will develop models to predict the structural failure of primary joints and hinges on satellites subject to high aero-, thermo- and flight dynamic loads, integrating the models and tools into an existing open-source framework for analysis of atmospheric re-entry. This will allow the UK to achieve a competitive edge against European counterparts in the challenging race towards a sustainable use of space.

 

 

Source Gov UK

On board with net zero: the transport boss trying to drive down emissions

Posted on by dishanth
On board with net zero: the transport boss trying to drive down emissions

David Brown of Go-Ahead is promising that his company’s bus and train operations will be carbon-free by 2035.

‘Personally, I think that’s quite cool!” David Brown, 60, is beaming like a young boy, having just recognised the bus controller at the terminus outside Victoria station as a colleague who joined London Transport at the same time as him, almost 40 years ago. “People stick in transport a long time. That’s what I love about it. They’re doing a frontline job, I’m just doing mine, there’s no difference really.”

Except Brown is trying to steer not just buses but a multinational transport group as chief executive of Go-Ahead – in particular, to wrestle its emissions down to net zero, as the sector faces up to being the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases. This year he will leave the group – whose operations include Thameslink, Southern and Southeastern trains and buses in London and nationwide – after a decade at the helm.

While Covid threatens to unravel a lot of the work done to build up rail and bus services during Brown’s career, he is clear that climate change is the bigger long-term issue. Transport has far surpassed energy generation as the biggest CO2 culprit – making up a quarter of UK emissions – and last week Go-Ahead made a pledge that its 5,000 UK buses and trains would be entirely zero-emission by 2035, cutting its CO2 by 75%. It aims to hit net zero by 2045, before the national target, by offsetting the remainder.

Although Go-Ahead’s decarbonisation strategy – edged off stage by the government’s, which was published the same day – sets out many ambitions, it admits that many are not in its own hands. So what exactly is the point?

“It’s galvanising 30,000 people to get behind a climate strategy,” says Brown. “It’s a sense of purpose. What we deliver is helping solve climate change problems – if you get people on to public transport you’re taking them out of their cars.” About 55% of transport emissions are private cars, he says; just 3% come from buses, and 1% from trains.

The pledges assume continued government spending on hydrogen and electric vehicles, and subsidy for green operations. Brown lobbied for a change announced in the government’s decarbonisation plan, improving bus operators’ grants for running electric vehicles to 22p per kilometre. “It transforms the economics for investing in new buses.”

 

A high-speed train belonging to Southeastern, one of Go-Ahead’s rail franchises Photograph: Johnny Green/PA

 

He thinks there are opportunities for more hydrogen buses, but is cautious: “The capital cost is huge and it’s unknown what the ongoing operating costs and lifetime costs will be.”

Go-Ahead’s north London depot at Northumberland Park will be what Brown bills as “the first bus-to-grid virtual power station”, where electric buses charge slowly overnight, and put energy back into the network from their batteries when supplies are needed, as wind and solar supplies – and prices – fluctuate.

In all this, as the small print of the strategy makes clear, there is a commercial imperative: “If Go-Ahead does not take action on this issue, our competitors will – and those with more climate-friendly reputations could ultimately take market share from us. This would weaken our business.”

Brown happily concurs. “There’s an altruistic view, and a commercial reason for doing it, in terms of positioning. And a people reason: younger people especially are attracted to work for companies who have purpose and are doing the right thing environmentally.”

Right now, though, public transport faces a more immediate crisis, with passenger numbers still only about half of pre-pandemic levels. And there is a renewed focus on the risks with Covid cases soaring, particularly as mask-wearing becomes optional on trains in England.

Brown frowns. “Whenever anyone talks about a tight, packed environment, they talk about public transport – and I want to scream and say hold on, the average journey time on a bus is 18 minutes max, the doors are opening all the time, fresh air is coming in and out, the windows are open on the top deck. You really aren’t exposed as you would be in a packed pub sitting there for two hours, there’s no comparison.”

He doesn’t mention names, but the prime minister, Brown’s former boss when mayor of London, suggested even as he was removing the legal requirement to wear masks that people “might choose to do so in enclosed spaces, such as public transport”.

 

We used to bring 150,000 people into London Bridge every morning. They’re not coming at the moment.That affects everyone. – David Brown, Go-Ahead

Brown argues: “There seems to be a little bit of demonising it and that shouldn’t be the case. There is no evidence that anyone can catch Covid on a train or a bus, none whatsoever.”

That conviction comes despite the Covid deaths of a significant number of bus drivers. Brown says Go-Ahead believes none contracted Covid at the depot or while working.

Another factor may be at play, he suggests, comparing the clamour to travel abroad on planes, which are more enclosed than buses or trains: “People are choosing to do that because the prize at the end is going on a holiday. They might not be choosing public transport because the prize at the end is going to work.”

He sees a similar phenomenon with rail: “We have much busier trains at the weekend now, people are going to the coast – they love it, they don’t worry about what’s happening in the trains in those circumstances.”

On the mask issue, he says, he wants transport “to be treated the same as other parts of the economy”. If he could choose, “I’d want to say, everyone should be doing it everywhere, in any environment, I want that consistency”. Come Monday, he will still wear a mask. “It’s not protecting you, it’s protecting other people … it’s just a polite thing to do.”

Covid, he says, has only accelerated underlying changes towards working from home and ordering goods. “I don’t think we’ll go back to packed trains, because social trends are changing. Commuter journeys are going to become more discretionary.”

But net-zero targets depend on people returning to public transport, rather than the car, he says. “We have to find ways of getting people back on the railways, and we have to tackle the costs, because the cost base is not sustainable now.”

 

However, he points out that public transport is often seen abroad as part of the “fabric of society”, and subsidised accordingly. ”You need to cut your cloth, attract customers – and you may need government money, because of the social benefits.”

Nowhere is this more apparent to him than in the capital. “We used to bring 150,000 people into London Bridge every morning. They’re not coming at the moment. That affects everyone. The big fear I have for places like London is how do you keep that vibrancy of the city centre, if you don’t have all those people coming in? You need all that activity and buzz – otherwise, you’re just in the suburbs.”

It seems inconceivable to remember, he says, that in the job-scarce 1980s, when he started as a graduate trainee, the discussion at London Transport was about cutting back the Bakerloo and the Northern lines because the population of the capital was in decline.

But without public transport, “it wouldn’t move, it wouldn’t function”. The challenge now for operators, he says, is “making sure that when people do come back, that we’re ready and we’re there for them. If they don’t find that the 7.25am is still operating or we don’t have the same frequency of service, then we’ve got a problem.”

 

 

By @GwynTopham

Source The Guardian

Why it’s the end of the road for petrol stations

Posted on by dishanth
Why it’s the end of the road for petrol stations

The big worry for most people thinking about buying an electric car is how to charge the thing.

But the real question you should be asking is how you’re going to refuel your petrol or diesel vehicle if you don’t go electric.

That’s because electric cars are going to send the petrol station business into a death spiral over the next two decades, making electric vehicles the default option for all car owners.

Why? Because charging electric vehicles is going to become much more straightforward than refuelling petrol and diesel cars.

This isn’t just because the government has banned the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

Imagine we were going the other way, replacing electric cars with fossil fuel power.

You are writing the risk assessment for a new petrol station. You want to dig a big hole in the ground in the middle of town, put in some tanks and fill them up with an enormous amount of highly flammable fuel.

Then you’re proposing to attach a really powerful pump and invite in random members of the public.

They’ll arrive in vehicles with hot engines. You’ll hand them the really powerful pump that sprays the highly flammable liquid.

 

As petrol is hazardous, refilling has to be done at petrol stations GETTY IMAGES

 

Without any supervision they’ll use it to transfer large quantities of the highly flammable liquid into their hot vehicle, they’ll pay you and drive off.

Are you OK to sign off on that? Do you think Health and Safety will give it the green light?

My point is that fuelling cars with petrol and diesel is dangerous, which is why we do it at specially-designed centralised refuelling points.

 

Ubiquitous power

Electricity, by contrast, is pretty much everywhere already. Where’s your car now? Do you think it might be near an electricity cable? Exactly.

The only challenge is how to bring that electricity a few feet to the surface so you can start getting it into your battery.

And you don’t need to be Thomas Edison to work that out.

 

The goal for the electric car industry is to have recharging anywhere you can park GETTY IMAGES

 

If you live in a flat or a house without a drive, don’t worry. The aim is to have an electric vehicle (EV) charging point at virtually every parking place.

Erik Fairbairn’s electric vehicle recharging company, Pod Point, wants to be part of this effort to rewire the UK.

“You’ll get to a point where you barely ever think about energy flowing into your car again,” he predicts.

Of course, we’re a long way from that utopia, and that should be no surprise.

We’re just at the beginning of the electric revolution: just 7% of new cars are electric and they make up a tiny fraction of vehicles on the road, so there isn’t a huge market.

But, as I argued in my previous piece, change is coming fast and investment in charging infrastructure is coming with it.

There will be good profits to be made when millions of us want to recharge, just as there was a boom in petrol station construction at the dawn of the age of the car a century ago.

 

The first people to get charging technology at home are those with driveways who can run a cable to their electric cars.

They can already install special charging points that recharge car batteries overnight from the power supply to the house, often using the cheapest possible rates.

Typically this is a slow process. For every hour of charging you’ll get 30 miles or so of driving, but who cares when most people leave their cars parked overnight anyway and you are only paying a couple of pence a mile?

Some local authorities have begun to install similar chargers in lampposts, designers are working on charging points that can be built into the kerb and some workplaces are already putting in chargers for their employees.

We’ll be seeing lots more of all of these innovations in the years to come.

We are also starting to see some businesses putting charging points in for their customers.

 

You can expect to see charging points everywhere in years to come GETTY IMAGES

 

In fact, free charging is likely to become like free Wi-Fi, a little bribe to lure you into the shop.

Electric vehicle optimists paint a world where you can plug in anywhere you park – at home while you sleep, as you work, when you are shopping or at the cinema.

Pretty much whatever you are doing, energy will be flowing into your car.

At this point, says Erik Fairbairn, 97% of electric car charging will happen away from petrol pump equivalents.

“Imagine someone came around and filled up your car with petrol every night so you had 300 miles of range every morning,” he says. “How often would you need anything else?”

In this brave new world, you’ll only ever pull over into a service station on really epic, long journeys when you’ll top up your battery for 20-30 minutes while you have a coffee and use the facilities.

 

Death sentence

If this prediction is correct it is a death sentence for many of the 8,380 petrol stations in the UK.

And the decline of the industry could come surprisingly quickly. Think about it. As electric vehicles begin to edge out petrol and diesel there will be less refuelling business to go around. Those service stations on the edge of viability will begin to go to the wall.

That’ll make it that little bit harder for petrol and diesel drivers to find a service station to fill up in and the remaining operators may also feel the need to up their prices to maintain profits.

So, fewer and quite possibly more expensive petrol stations. Meanwhile, it will be getting easier and easier to charge your electric car. What’s more, as the market scales up, electric vehicles will become cheaper to buy.

You see where this is going: the more petrol stations close, the more likely we all are to go electric. In turn, more petrol stations will be forced to close. And so on.

That’s why I called it a death spiral.

 

As petrol stations become scarce, electric cars will become more attractive GETTY IMAGES

 

And don’t worry about where the electricity to power all these new cars will come from.

The National Grid says it won’t have a problem charging all the electric vehicles that are going to come onto our roads.

In fact, it isn’t expecting much of an increase in demand, just 10% when everyone is driving electric.

That’s because we drive much less than we tend to imagine. The average car journey is just 8.4 miles, according to the Department for Transport.

And, explains Isabelle Haigh, the head of national control for the National Grid, there is already quite a lot of spare capacity built into the system.

“Most charging will not be at time of peak, and peak demand has been reducing over the years so we are very confident there is enough energy to meet demand,” she says.

That’s because the grid is designed to meet the moments of greatest demand – half time in the Cup Final when we all put the kettle on, for example.

The rest of the time some generators sit idle. Electric vehicles will be able to make use of them and, because people typically charge overnight when demand is low, they are unlikely to raise the peak demand at all.

Smart charging systems will also help. They allow your charger to talk to the grid to work out the best time for your car to charge.

The idea is to make sure you get the cheapest power and also help the grid smooth out the peaks and troughs in demand.

Smart charging also helps make maximum use of renewable resources, allowing drivers to cash in on the plentiful and therefore cheap electricity available on a windy day, for instance.

 

Seances and convenience stores

However, the end of the service station should not be a cause for celebration. They are the only retail outlet left in some small towns and villages, and a lifeline for many people.

So, can they find an alternative role? Jack Simpson believes some will be able to.

 

The site of the Hyde Park Book Club was a petrol station for more than 80 years GETTY IMAGES

 

He’s converted an old petrol station in Leeds into a plant shop/bar/music venue/restaurant/art gallery called the Hyde Park Book Club. It has even hosted seances.

“People were popping in for dinner and I was like, Oh I’m really sorry, there’s a séance going on,” explains Jack.

He says the site’s central location, large forecourt and roomy buildings make it a very flexible venue.

“I think it also fits in with this post hipster obsession with 20th Century Western culture,” he says.

Brian Madderson, the chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), is more down to earth. The PRA represents 5,500 independent fuel retailers who account for 70% of all forecourts and Mr Madderson says his members have started adapting to the post internal combustion engine world.

Many are already investing in full convenience stores, high-quality take away food and automated car washes to boost their income and, he says, they will continue to enable motorists to fill up their petrol and diesel vehicles for as long as is feasible.

He thinks the transition away from petrol and diesel will take decades. “These vehicles will simply not disappear off the roads overnight. Petrol and diesel stations will be essential in keeping the country mobile beyond 2030,” he says.

Maybe. Yet technological change can be very rapid and very disruptive.

Look what happened to the horse and cart at the turn of the 20th Century.

Some service stations will certainly live on – those on motorways, for example – but many are likely to go the same way as the people Jack Simpson’s guests were trying to reach at their séance – unless they can find new ways to bring in cash.

 

 

By Justin Rowlatt
Chief environment correspondent

Source BBC

Bus depot bid to be UK’s largest electric vehicle charging hub

Posted on by dishanth
Bus depot bid to be UK’s largest electric vehicle charging hub

Scotland’s biggest bus operator has announced it is building the UK’s largest electric vehicle charging hub.

First Bus will install 160 charging points and replace half its fleet with electric buses at its Caledonia depot in Glasgow.

The programme is expected to be completed in 2023 with the first 22 buses arriving by autumn.

Charging the full fleet will use the same electricity as it takes to power a town of 10,000 people.

The scale of the project means changes are needed to the power grid to accommodate the extra demand.

First Glasgow managing director Andrew Jarvis told BBC Scotland: “We’ve got to play our part in society in changing how we all live and work. A big part of that is emissions from vehicles.

“Transport is stubbornly high in terms of emissions and bus companies need to play their part, and are playing their part, in that zero emission journey.”

 

Source BBC

 

First Bus currently operates 337 buses out of its largest depot with another four sites across Glasgow.

The new buses will be built by Alexander Dennis at its manufacturing sites in Falkirk and Scarborough.

The transition requires a £35.6m investment by First with electric buses costing almost double the £225,000 bill for a single decker running on diesel.

But the company says maintenance and running costs are then much lower.

The buses can run on urban routes for 16 hours and be rapidly recharged in just four hours.

This is a big investment which the company wouldn’t be able to achieve on its own.

Government grants only cover 75% of the difference between the price of a diesel and an electric bus so it’s still a good bit more expensive for them.

But they know they have to do it as a social responsibility and because the requirements for using Low Emissions Zones are likely to become stricter.

The SNP manifesto committed to electrifying half of Scotland’s 4,000 or so buses within two years.

Some are questioning whether that’s even achievable in the timescale, given the electricity grid changes that would be necessary for charging.

But it’s a commitment that environmental groups will certainly hold them to.

1px transparent line
Source BBC

 

Transport Scotland is providing £28.1m of funding to First Bus as part of the Scottish government’s commitment to electrify half of Scotland’s buses in the first two years of the parliamentary term.

Net Zero Secretary Michael Matheson said: “It’s absolute critical that we decarbonise our transport system and what we have set out are very ambitious plans of how we go about doing that.

“We’ve set out a target to make sure that we decarbonise as many of the bus fleets across Scotland as possible, at least half of it over the course of the next couple of years, and we’ll set out our plans later on this year of how we’ll drive that forward.”

Transport is the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland which are responsible for accelerating climate change.

In 2018 the sector was responsible for 31% of the country’s net emissions.

First Glasgow has been trialling two electric buses since January 2020.

Driver Sally Smillie said they had gone down well with passengers because they were much quieter than diesel buses.

She added: “In the beginning it was strange for them not hearing them coming but they adapt very easily and they check now.

 

“It’s a lot more comfortable. You’re not feeling a gear change and the braking’s smoother. I think they’re great buses to drive.” – Sally Smillie

 

 

By Kevin Keane – Environment correspondent BBC Scotland

Source BBC

UK councils lead international call to stem fossil fuel supply

Posted on by dishanth
UK councils lead international call to stem fossil fuel supply

A small town in East Sussex and an ex-coal mining community in Derbyshire have become some of the first places in the world to back an international climate campaign to end fossil fuel extraction.

On Wednesday, Amber Valley Borough Council voted to support plans for a new “fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty”, which would phase out the supply of coal, oil and gas and help the world transition to cleaner energy.

It followed Lewes Town Council, which unanimously endorsed the idea earlier in the month.

The campaign, launched in September, aims to get all countries to commit to end the extraction of fossil fuels, which are the single biggest human source of greenhouse gases. Those behind it see the threat of climate change as just as serious – if not more so – as nuclear war and want a proportionate response.

Tzeporah Berman, chair of the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty steering group and international programme director of climate campaign Stand.earth, said most international discussion on the climate crisis has been focused on reducing emissions, with less thought given to their main cause, which is fossil fuels.

“There are very few mechanisms to constrain the expansion of fossil fuels within the Paris Agreement, and the words ‘oil’, ‘gas’, ‘coal’ and ‘fossil fuels’ don’t even exist in it. There’s this collective delusion that somehow we can get off fossil fuels while continuing to produce them.”

 

Artist’s impression of the new Woodhouse Colliery near Whitehaven (West Cumbria Mining)

 

Experts agree that the vast majority of fossil fuel supplies need to be left in the ground to meet the Paris Agreement’s target of keeping global warming to “well below” 2C.

Vancouver in Canada was the first place in the world to endorse the treaty campaign followed by Barcelona in Spain. New York and Los Angeles are now vying to be next in line.

Next to those bustling cities, Amber Valley is a modestly sized borough of about 130,000 people with a landscape shaped by both coal and hydropower. In 2019, it became one of hundreds of councils across the UK to declare a climate emergency and established itself as a “frack-free zone”.

 

So when the council’s environment deputy Emma Monkman was contacted by the team behind the treaty campaign last year, she said it “felt like a natural fit”.

Councillor Dr Wendy Marples, who submitted the motion to Lewes Town Council, said her own council had also already declared a climate emergency but still had some way to go to being truly sustainable.

With three-quarters of the UK’s councils having now declared a climate emergency, more are expected to back the treaty campaign over the next year.

Their endorsements will shine a spotlight on Westminster’s mixed record on stemming the flow of fossil fuels in the run-up to the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.

On Wednesday, the government refused to rule out new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea and has attracted huge controversy over plans to open a new coal mine in Cumbria.

 

The UK has promised to end investment in overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of the month, having already spent billions subsidising the industry abroad. However, it also faces legal action from Friends of the Earth for spending around $1bn in financial support on a huge liquified natural gas development in Mozambique.

A key aim of the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty campaign is to transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy in a fair way.

That’s why the first step is to build a comprehensive global database of fossil fuel production, said Ms Berman. “Just like nuclear weapons, we have to know who’s producing what.”

That’s a lesson Amber Valley knows well. Alfreton, a town in the borough, was one of many in the UK hit hard by the coal industry’s decline, said Ms Monkman, which led to high levels of unemployment.

 

“One of the areas we’re looking at a solar farm is Alfreton and the reason is we want to work with the university to offer green tech jobs and degrees,” said Ms Monkman.

Ms Monkman hopes the endorsement will attract more funding for green measures within Amber Valley.

“It’s only part of the tapestry of things we need to do to get to a steady state economy,” said John Beardmore, co-founder of renewable energy firm T4 Sustainability who campaigned vociferously against a new opencast mine in the area in the 2000s.

Ms Berman said the response from cities around the world has been positive. “By banding together they can use their political and communications power, similar to what happened in nuclear non-proliferation.”

The initiative is getting strong interest from indigenous and youth groups, as well as from the burgeoning divestment movement, although Ms Berman said some people see the idea as unrealistic. “Even proposing the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is creating the conversation we need.”

Endorsing the treaty has certainly linked a corner of Derbyshire with like-minded communities. “We’ve been connected with the different people that have endorsed, like Barcelona,” said Ms Monkman. “You become part of the club of people sharing ideas.”

 

 

Source Independent

UK leads G20 for share of electricity sourced from wind

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UK leads G20 for share of electricity sourced from wind

Nearly a quarter of the UK’s electricity came from wind turbines in 2020 – making the country the leader among the G20 for share of power sourced from the renewable energy, a new analysis finds.

The UK also moved away from coal power at a faster rate than any other G20 country from 2015 to 2020, according to the results.

And it ranked second in the G20, behind Germany, for the proportion of electricity sourced from both wind and solar in 2020.

However, Britain is still lagging behind when it comes to fossil gas, according to analysis by the climate and energy think tank Ember.

The country sourced 37 per cent of its electricity from fossil gas in 2020, placing it ninth in the G20 and above the global average of 23 per cent.

 

“It’s crazy how much wind has grown in the UK and how much it has offset coal, and how it’s starting to eat at gas,” Dave Jones, Ember’s global lead analyst, told The Independent.

But it is important to bear in mind that “we’re only doing a great job by the standards of the rest of the world”, he added.

 

UK is second behind Germany in G20 for share of electricity sourced from wind and solar (Ember)

 

Ember’s Global Electricity Review notes that the world’s power sector emissions were two per cent higher in 2020 than in 2015 – the year that countries agreed to slash their greenhouse gas pollution as part of the Paris Agreement.

Power generated from coal fell by a record amount from 2019 to 2020, the analysis finds. However, this decline was greatly facilitated by lockdowns introduced to stop the spread of Covid-19, which stifled electricity demand, the analysts say.

Coal is the most polluting of the fossil fuels. The UK government hopes to convince all countries to stop building new coal-fired power stations at Cop26, a climate conference that is to be held in Glasgow later this year.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has also called for all countries to end their “deadly addiction to coal”.

At a summit held earlier this month, he described ending the use of coal in electricity generation as the “single most important step” to meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

“There is definitely a concern that, in the pandemic year of 2020, coal hasn’t fallen as fast as it needed to,” said Mr Jones.

“There is concern that, once electricity demand returns, we won’t be seeing that decline in coal anymore.”

 

 

By Daisy Dunne Climate Correspondent

Source Independent