Exploring an onshore wind farm

There was a lot of discussion last week about the merits of offshore renewables, following the launch of "The Offshore Valuation", the latest report from the Public Interest Research Centre.

I agree with their findings but not with some of the interpretations of this report in the press. For example, George Monbiot argued that this work shows that onshore wind is not worthwhile in comparison with offshore wind, wave and tidal power.

Last week, I took the train from King's Cross to Aberdeen to visit the Centrica's 20-turbine wind farm in the Glens of Foudland, near Huntly. The airports were closed that morning by volcanic ash so there wasn't a spare seat to be had on the train. The plus side was that the emissions per passenger-kilometre were absolutely minimal on this journey. Actually, I was pretty confident that, during April and May, Eyjafjallajokull was responsible for more carbon emissions reductions than the wind farm I was visiting - but that's not a popular sentiment amongst our erstwhile-airborne friends and colleagues. I have to confess that the return journey, with about 30% occupancy on the train, was a lot more comfortable.

The windfarm was commissioned in April 2005 and is ideally situated at an altitude of 330m on rocky hills set in a wide, windy valley. Because of this situation, it has achieved a consistently high load factor (ie., proportion of its theoretical peak output) throughout its 5 years of operation. It is now reaching the end of its manufacturer's warranty period so there were several engineers on site, checking each of the turbines for faults and preparing to change the gearbox oil (which, I was assured, is taken away for reconditioning and reuse). With the right build quality and the appropriate level of care, these turbines will continue to generate renewable energy from free fuel for a quarter of a century.

Wind turbines are very valuable assets and their components operate under extremely high stress - just imagine the weight of a turbine blade (which can now be up to 60 metres long) turning full circle every few seconds, bolted onto a steel shaft driving a generator through a huge gearbox on top of a hollow steel tube, in a highland gale.

Now picture the same construction glued onto another 100-metre pile driven into the seabed, battered by waves and corroded by salt spray. The maintenance challenges are much more extreme than for these onshore wind turbines but the access is unimaginably difficult and expensive. So, while I agree that the longterm prospects for renewable energy from Britain's offshore territories are superb, I am certain that we need to continue erecting onshore wind turbines in suitably windy locations across the country. Britain faces energy supplies issues from the middle of the current decade and we need to be working flat out to install do-able renewable energy technologies now, at the same time as we are developing next generation renewables for the future.

The other piece of the puzzle which was written up by Jamie Bull, one of the researchers for the PIRC report, but not developed within the report, is the return on energy invested in building and maintaining renewable energy assets. Along with tidal range schemes like the lagoons proposed as a alternative to the Severn barrage, wind turbines yield the greatest return on energy invested in their manufacture, installation and maintenance. They are about three times as efficient as solar electricity panels, for example. And that goes for both onshore and offshore wind installations. So let's keep putting more wind turbines in windy places, where the load factors will be as high as possible and where the ground won't be damaged (for example, installing wind turbines on peatland dries out the precious peat, causing large-scale methane and CO2 emissions) and let's get used to their visual impact. After all, we have covered the countryside with pylons and cables for distributing electricity - let's put up with these bigger pylons that actually make it, for free!

My thanks to British Gas, for covering the costs of my rail fare and accommodation for this visit, and to Matthew Walsh, the extremely knowledgeable and able manager in charge of the operation and maintenance of Centrica's wind farms. He's one of those unknown soldiers in the fight against climate change and I take my hat off to him.

First "Sustainable Windsor" Newsletter

It's two weeks since we had our first meeting to launch Sustainable Windsor and we have just published the following newsletter to report all the great ideas that came out.

This new community organisation has a bright future ahead: email cutyourcarbon@gmail.com if you'd like to be added to our distribution list.

Local people form "Sustainable Windsor", a community organisation to promote sustainable living.

Sustainable Windsor, a community group inspired by the 10:10 initiative to reduce our carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 (www.1010uk.org), had its first meeting in April. We enjoyed a good turnout at The Alma pub in Springfield Road, with plenty of lively debate and many practical ideas across a range of subjects. Please feel free to pass on this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested. Details on how to get involved with Sustainable Windsor are at the end of this newsletter.

We started on waste and composting. We heard about the Composting Coach, who teaches companies how to compost their organic waste matter, and that Transco (who run the National Grid) are planning to build a huge biogas plant for London.

We talked about the "Green Point" logo, owned by Valpak, that obliges consumer goods manufacturers to fund the recycling of their packaging in Germany but not in other parts of Europe. We also recognised the missed opportunity to recycle valuable cans and bottles that are drunk "on the go" and thrown away in our high streets. We agreed on the need to campaign for on-the-go recycling points in our town.

We also liked the idea, emailed by one of our members, of collecting the red rubber bands that are dropped all over town by our dear postmen and women. We could then make them into balls and bounce them into the Post Office in Windsor for reuse, with a friendly journalist on hand to witness this simple action on litter and waste!

We learned that British business uses brown and clear glass whereas green glass is principally reused in Spain, for European wine bottles. The current trend of mixed glass recycling ends up as aggregate (replacing gravel) for surfacing roads, meaning that the UK glass industry has lost its free supply of recycled material. Waste sorting companies can readily segregate recycled glass into separate colour streams, renewing this valuable supply of clear and brown glass as raw materials for British manufacturers.

The last point on waste was mixed plastics recycling. Several of us have been fobbed off by the council, who say that collecting plastics (other than bottles) for recycling is prohibitively expensive and that there is no market for these plastics. Peter considers both these points to be false and is working with the Royal Borough's waste management team to find a solution for mixed plastics recycling in Windsor, as soon as possible.

We moved on to local food and allotments. It was noted that, although the council have long waiting lists for allotments in the Royal Borough, many of our allotments are currently lying fallow. Anne offered to contact Geoff Lane, the allotment manager in Eton Wick, to dig deeper (excuse the pun) into the reasons for this. Laura suggested that we partner up with the Windsor Allotment Society (WAGGA) to drum up more support for their summer fair and sales of produce from the allotments.

Neil proposed that we need to, "live like a village, not a town". This captures perfectly the essence of community actions for sustainable living. He suggested that we can arrange to collect all the windfall and unwanted apples across the town this summer, to make community cider. We loved this idea and will seek the help of our friends at the new Windsor & Eton Brewery.

Suzie thought we should co-opoerate with the CPRE, Civic Voice and the Civic Trust, to support our open spaces and wild areas.

Next came home energy use, looking at the latest LED lights that can replace low-voltage halogen lamps. We talked about the carbon club, called "Windsor Sustainable Living", on the imeasure website at www.imeasure.org.uk. Anyone signing up to imeasure is asked to enter their weekly energy usage, in the form of meter readings, and you can then see the emissions of CO2 per person from your house, in comparison with all the other users of the site, or with the other members of the carbon club if you decide to join. It's a great way to see how you're doing compared with like-minded people and the element of competition pushes you to turn down, switch off, and save a little more than you might otherwise do. Peter would be more than happy to offer informal, free advice to anyone wishing to reduce their home's energy use. Indeed, he was heard on Radio 4's "You and Yours" programme last week, extolling the virtues of saving energy - and money - at home. You can hear him here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007k260.

We then considered how to promote cycling in Windsor. Peter pointed out the little-known bye-law that permits children aged 12 and under to cycle on pavements in the town. We agreed that this should be publicised, together with the need for courtesy towards pedestrians, to encourage families to help their young children to begin cycling more safely. Hand-in-hand with more use of pavements, we recognised that the anti-social practice of parking on pavements is becoming prevalent in some parts of town and needs to be addressed pro-actively by both the council and the police. We also felt that the Windsor cycle network needs to be more integrated - particularly in the light of the major redevelopment of the Imperial Road roundabout that is due to begin shortly.

We addressed media and communication with a proposal that the Fire Station Arts Centre could screen an amazing eco-film festival this autumn, with titles such as "The Age of Stupid", "Eleventh Hour", "The End of the Line" and many more. Hannah, Laura and Neil all know Dan and the team at the Fire Station so we have a real opportunity to put together a major event in the civic calendar for Windsor, and attract a wide range of new members to join Sustainable Windsor.

Finally, we thought about education and the benefit of speaking to children at school, to engage them and their families in Sustainable Windsor. This will be more practical once we have some teachers amongst our membership, which should happen naturally as we continue to recruit local people through our initiatives and activities.

Having talked through so many topics at our first meeting, we look forward to a second meeting in a couple of months time - probably late June or early July. In the meantime, please email me your comments and suggestions on the points raised in this newsletter and any other matters you feel we could usefully cover in our next meeting.

To find out more about Sustainable Windsor or to be added to the email list, please contact cutyourcarbon@gmail.com

Earth Day and St George's Day

Thursday 22 April was the fortieth Earth Day, when people around the world reflect on our ecological impact and try to change their behaviour in some way that lessens this impact. An article in "Slate" (an American online magazine) this week has reviewed research published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology (which sounds like an oxymoron to me) on how to reduce the environmental impact of households.

Their key recommendations are: insulation, energy-efficient appliances, drive fuel-efficient cars (and drive less), eat less meat and dairy products, eat more locally produced food and drinks and more foods in season.

I cannot disagree with any of these but the important thing for me is to encourage people to look beyond their household and feel part of their community. This week, Hannah Masters-Waage, Laura Spence and I launched "Sustainable Windsor", a community organisation focused on making Windsor a little more sustainable. I will write up the outcomes of our first meeting separately but it was a really positive start.

Speaking of Start, The Prince of Wales has launched a campaign called Start which encourages people to begin changing their behaviour now, with the things that matter most to them. Prince Charles is known to be the lead member of the Windsor household for sustainability and I look forward to seeing this campaign grow.

Another initiative launched for Earth Day was GreenMyParents and its Facebook page. This is a great movement for young people to influence their elders and to spread the message by teaching their peers to do the same. It has a commercial side (they are selling a book) but the basic message to young people and their parents is to work together to save money and the planet through simple, everyday actions.

And now it is St George's Day. There could be no more sustainable way to celebrate our Patron Saint than with a pint of Guardsman ale, the first product from the Windsor & Eton Brewery.

Produced within a mile of my home by the father of two of my Scouts, and three of his friends, this beer epitomises the local economy. Its launch today has been eagerly anticipated by thousands of Windsorians through their remarkable use of social media to link up local people online. And I am looking forward to joining the Brewers, and the newly-appointed Mayor of Windsor, for my first taste of Windsor beer at the Two Brewers in Park Street, right next to the Long Walk. It is auspicious that today's Google header shows the exact location of the Two Brewers - it is in the first "O" of Google!

Resigned to our fate?

Listening to James Lovelock on the Today programme this morning was deeply disturbing. You can hear his interview with John Humphries here.

I am not troubled by his comments on the so-called 'climategate' emails from the University of East Anglia. He hasn't read the transcripts and, if the scientists involved have fudged the data in any way, then I would agree with his dismissal of any dishonest practices in science.

What really concerns me is his fatalism. He asserts that it will take us 20 - 30 years to rein in our carbon emissions and that this will lead to the cumulative total addition of a trillion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. He describes this as "civilisation has pulled the trigger" and says we'll be lucky if the world population is as high as a billion people in future. Although Lovelock does not give a date for this future population in this interview, he did refer to the earth's population being well below a billion people in 2100 in his recent book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia". In a similar interview on The Guardian website yesterday, Lovelock stated that the inertia of humanity is such that we can't do anything meaningful about climate change.

In my opinion, everyone who cares about the future of humanity and life on earth should take this as a personal challenge and set about making Lovelock wrong on this point. After all, as Greg Craven has so powerfully observed, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?"

A visit to the Council

I have been collecting mixed plastic packaging (ie., food trays, tubs, pots, etc. but not bottles, bags, expanded polystyrene or film) at home for the past two years and have tried throughout that time to contact the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and ask them to recycle it.

In February, the local paper carried this story, with a picture of me glaring from a mountain of binbags full of our accumulated plastic. This led to an invitation to addresss the Council's Sustainability Panel, which met last night.

I had the honour of speaking before presentations from the Head of Packaging at each of our two largest retailers. My message was that many residents of the Royal Borough labour under the mistaken belief that their local authority recycles mixed plastics. These are therefore carefully cleaned and placed in the purple recycling boxes, along with bottles and cans, for kerbside collection by the council's contractor, Veolia, who then strip them OUT and send them to landfill!

Since 64% of our waste still goes to landfill, I said, it is the duty of the local authority to extract these valuable materials from our waste stream and recycle them. Pure picked polymers (ie., mixed plastic packaging SORTED into separate types) have a commercial value of £50 - £150 per Tonne.

I was saddened by the response from the council officers responsible for waste management, who said that reclaiming additional plastics from the waste stream would add greatly to the cost and would not make much difference to the tonnage going to landfill (because of the low density of plastic packaging) and also by the somewhat cynical allegation that many other authorities across the country are only 'pretending' to recycle these materials while actually burying, burning or exporting them to the developing world.

On the other hand, I was heartened to learn that the borough's contract for waste management is up for renewal in 2012 and that stringent environmental criteria could be included in the specifications for tender. My comments in response were that the Goverment's Waste and Recycling Action Programme (WRAP) had made the case for mixed plastics recycling and that RECOUP has developed comprehensive tools and analysis to enable more local authorities to do this in future.

When the senior packaging people from Tesco and Sainsbury addressed the Council, their presentations were inspiring, impactful, relevant and positive. It was a privilege to hear these thoughtful and informed contributions and this confirmed my view that retailers really are striving to green their operations because their customers expect this of them.

I was particularly moved by the forceful support for my position on post-consumer recycling of mixed plastics from one of these speakers - who told the Councillors that the myth of '36 types of plastic to sort' is an archaic hang-up from the past. There are just 4 or 5 high value polymers to sort and there are automated sorting facilities in operation around the country.

He went on to say that non-bottle PET is a high value material that can't be left to go to waste, that polypropylene (PP) is the next high value target for collection and that 'on-the-go' bottles and cans, thrown into street bins, are a problem that must be solved.

He said that his customers send him more letters about the availability of local recycling facilities than anything else and that bringback facilities in store car parks are destined to be replaced by kerbside collection as Councils increasingly fulfil their responsibility to recycle more of the domestic waste stream.

I was invited to visit the waste management officers in the coming weeks and am optimistic that, away from the political atmosphere of a Council panel, there is much that can be achieved and that there will be a shift in Council policy towards greater recycling in the coming years. Bring it on.

A day for 10:10

Hannah, Laura and I have been working together for a few weeks, preparing to promote the 10:10 campaign to our local community.

It was a great pleasure to visit the 10:10 office in Camden last week and meet the team who are running this amazing initiative, many of them volunteers and all of them incredibly committed to inspiring the public at large to make personal commitments to combat dangerous climate change. They kindly lent me a 2-metre high 10:10 banner and gave us lots of handouts and even the coveted 10:10 tags to sign up lots of new recruits.

Yesterday, we spent 8 hours in Waitrose, chatting about climate change and this simple pledge to cut 10% of our carbon emissions right now, in 2010. This certainly improved our sales techniques, to the point that I could now sell "The Big Issue" if things go wrong on the domestic front.

There is definitely a 'fear factor' to be overcome when talking to the public and you have just milliseconds to allay their suspicions and convince them that you're not after their money or their time and that you're not going to sell their email address to spam marketing outfits!

In our experience, many people who got as far as understanding what 10:10 means were happy to sit down at our laptop and add their name to our campaign. The only disappointment was the number of shoppers who support the idea of 10:10 but do not use email. We did keep their telephone numbers, to invite them to be part of the sustainability group that we plan to set up in our local community as a result of yesterday's promotion.

We are incredibly grateful to Waitrose for their hospitality in allowing us to talk to their customers in the comfort of the store. We are also grateful to Julian, Shaun and Theo who gave their time yesterday to catch people's eyes and charm them into hearing what 10:10 is about.

Many lovely people signed up on the spot, or went away with literature and agreed to sign up online later. Some told us that what we were doing was important and worthwhile, for which we were grateful.

A few were forthright in telling us what's really going on!

One gentleman explained that it's the human population that has gotten out of control (I'm with him so far) and that this has shifted the Earth on its axis, resulting in the climate getting hotter.

Another said that it's all these damn wars (again, nothing to disagree with to this point) and, now we've pumped all the oil out of the ground, there's nothing left to absorb the noise of all those bombs and they are warming the planet by ringing it like a bell.

Other than these contrarian theories, the only objections to the idea of 10:10 came from serving and retired cabin crew - because the town is not far from Heathrow. In the words of Upton Sinclair, quoted by Al Gore in 'An Inconvenient Truth', "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Hannah, Laura and I felt privileged to present such an important message to the people of our town and were delighted with the response we received. It was an enlightening way to spend our Saturday and will lead, we hope, to a small reduction in the town's carbon emissions.

Finally, LED replacements for 12-volt halogen spotlights!

It's almost 3 years since I replaced the many mains-halogen GU10 bulbs in my house with compact fluorescent alternatives. At about £8 each they were a significant investment but they have been paying me back in reduced bills ever since.

I was still stuck with about a dozen 12-volt halogen lights known as MR16. No CFL alternative exists and sufficiently bright LEDs have only recently started to come to market. I have now found suppliers for LED bulbs that are bright enough to replace MR16 halogen bulbs, at £10 - £25 each. I can't spare £25 a bulb but I am happy to pay £10 a pop to get rid of my remaining, wasteful MR16 halogen lamps.

There is a catch, however! Buried in the small print on the LED bulb packaging is the warning that they must not be used with standard, 12-volt halogen power supplies. Instead, they must be run using dedicated "LED drivers" which will not supply excess voltage when using such small loads.

There are two solutions to this situation:

1) If you have room above or behind the light fitting, for example in a recessed downlighter, you can simply rip out the MR16 socket and its 12-volt power supply, and fit a GU10 connector in its place.

This photo of our bedroom shows 4 LED bulbs (240 volts, GU10 fitting), each using just 3 watts - that's 12 watts in total. Each has a single LED and a lens to focus the light. While they are less bright than the halogen bulbs they have replaced, they do project the same lighting shapes on the bedroom wall and are as aesthetically pleasing.

They have replaced 4 halogen spotlights (12 volts, MR16 fitting) and 4 separate power supplies, using over 200 watts. Total saving 190 watts, at a cost of £50 for the bulbs and the GU10 connectors.

If these 4 LED lights are used for 3 hours a day, they will save £25 a year on electricity (paying for themselves in just 2 years) and avoid 90 kg of CO2 emissions annually.

2) Many halogen light fittings are multi-spot designs. It is not possible to switch these over to mains operation, using GU10 connectors. Instead, you can buy an LED driver (mine cost £8 from TLC-Direct) and wire it up inside the light fitting in place of - or alongside - the existing 12 volt power supply.

Then replace the halogen bulbs with MR16 LED lights, as shown in the "flying pig" multi-spotlight on the ceiling of my son's bedroom. These LED bulbs and drivers are using 9 watts in place of 60 watts that the original halogens consumed.

Once converted to LED lighting, you must ensure that halogen bulbs are never refitted in place of the LEDs as this would destroy the LED driver and could cause a fire hazard.

While it is straightforward and legal for a competent, non-qualified person to fit LED lighting in place of halogen lights, as described in this blog, you should pay a qualified electrician to do the job if you are not sure of your capabilities. If you are doing it yourself, make sure the lights are off before you start work and that nobody will wander in and turn them on!

Here is the third and final example of LED lighting that I have fitted this week. Our very dated drinks cabinet incorporates three incandescent light fittings, each with a 30 watt striplight. I was able to replace these with 2 watt LED striplights for £10 each, from RS Electrical, saving 84 watts. If used for 3 hours a day, the annual savings resulting from this conversion will be £11 and 40kg of emissions.