Rubbish Design!

Over the recent years a number of architects have taken it upon themselves to take the principle of Recycling to whole new levels, there has been a plane that uses a whole Boeing 747 in its creation, swimming pools made out of shipping containers & a whole host of other wild & wacky creations made out of rubbish. But its not just architects, almost anything can be created out of waste, what one man calls waste could be what another man calls home. I’m not talking about recycling here – I mean people have well & truly built their houses out of rubbish!

Gold & Its Dirty Little Secret!

By Adam Bowe

Recently Channel 4’s Dispatches exposed the ugly truth about the International Gold Trade; despite the fast growing movement for more responsible mining, the use of child labour, extremely dangerous working conditions and masses of the environment being destroyed remains widespread. Dispatches also revealed during its program that some UK jewelers are telling their customers that their Gold or other precious metals are mined responsibly, but when confronted on this their details on their supply chains were either very unclear or just plain wrong.

Vertical planting

Vertical Planting

Do you have a hankering to be sustainable but you don’t have much space? Consider vertical planting, you can pack a lot of growth space in a small area. If you only have a small town garden, (or even just the space beside your front door,) you can grow some plants in a sustainable way. Whether you’re using you vertical garden to grow some Vegetables or if you just have decorative flowers grown on your walls, there is a great deal of benefit that can be observed from vertical planting.

Energyshare

The Energyshare is a website offering the opportunity to gain funding for energy sharing projects in local areas, the ATC have put forward their own project on the site & we would like as much support as possible to push the project forward. There is a lot of power in the valley & this project could be the key to unlocking it.

The Implications of the E.Coli Outbreak

In recent weeks figures suggest up to half of Britons are avoiding the suggested culprits behind the recent outbreaks of the bug. It has killed 22 people and left 3000 ill in Germany. Due to cucumbers being attributed to the outbreak originally there have been figures suggesting around a quarter of the UK have decided to shun the vegetables. Bean sprouts are another vegetable receiving a wave goodbye from our shopping lists in the coming weeks, after German examples have been discovered to be the likely bearer of the bug.

The UK’s Energy Targets

After a break, I have returned to the realm of blog writing, with weekly updates to commence from here in. I have written a some what more controversial blog entry here, reflecting more of my own views than the ATC’s on recent events.

We have seen various numbers being flung around by the government in the past, mostly to no avail, other than that they push a few meagre (albeit appreciated) energy schemes through when it’s getting to the last minute & they are realising that they haven’t a hope of reaching their target. So the new target? – A limit on the total amount of greenhouse gases to be emitted by the UK between 2023 & 2027 to be a reduction of 50% 1990 levels and furthermore this is to enable the UK on the way to a cut of 80% of carbon emissions by 2050. I think I can be forgiven for thinking it seems a little far fetched. This is supposedly showing this government’s commitment to being the greenest government ever. Despite the fact it is going to be a very short lived & disrespected government – this target seems as though they are once again not doing anything about the problem, only extending deadlines so that they sound more impressive, but instead – alas just pandering it off to the next government who then look worse when the plans don’t come to fruition.

CHP

Combined Heat & Power (CHP, Cogeneration, Total Power) is a means of generating electricity out of the waste from other processes It comes in varied scales – from generating hundreds of megawatts using the super heated steam waste from large power stations, to Micro CHP systems that generate electricity via the steam from your boiler. The methods are generating electricity from what is otherwise considered waste.

High Altitude Wind

High altitude wind could be a large step towards our targets of renewable energy in the future – whilst the wind at ground level is very apparent to us & we can effectively harvest it for its energy, the rewards for wind at high altitudes are even greater. With much more consistent levels of faster wind than at the surface. Now that technologies are available which can harvest this wind, maybe we should start looking up to the skies for our energy. It is approximated that over their lifespan, the various technologies of high altitude wind farming can generate electricity for 1-2 pence per kW/h, which is cheaper than the 3.7 – 5.2 pence that it costs for generating electricity at onshore wind farms. This figure is even lower than the 2.2 pence per unit generated at coal power stations.

The Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI)

On 10 March 2011, the Government announced the details of the Renewable Heat Incentive policy to encourage changes in the way heat is generated and used in buildings and homes.

Heating

The heat used in our homes, public buildings, businesses and factories is responsible for around half of all the energy consumed in the UK, and accounts for roughly half of all the UK’s carbon emissions.

Solar Cookery

Last week we experimented with solar power, and in particular, attempted to harness the energy of the sun in order to cook various food stuffs. We had varying degrees of success in our attempts – but our creations definitely attracted some attention!