better generation

Britain is far behind EU targets on renewable energy generation and must speed up measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if it is to achieve its target of a 34 percent cut in emissions by 2020. This was the message expressed in a report released today by the UK governments' independent advisory body, The Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

In a pre-report statement the committee highlighted that "a step change in the pace of underlying emissions reductions is still required if the UK is to meet its legislated carbon budgets". The report also details how faster progress in implementing policies in needed, including those concerning loft and cavity wall insulation, new car efficiency and encouraging the use of public transport.

Vast arrays of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants set to be built in the Sahara desert will start generating clean, reliable energy for Europe within the next five years, says European energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger in a recent interview.

The EU, together with big energy names such as Siemens and E.On are investing £240 billion to fund the large scheme of solar projects in Northern Africa called the Desertec Initiative. The objective is to meet the target of 20% of Europe's energy coming from renewables by 2020, with a subsequent goal of providing 15% of Europe's electricity demand by 2050. By tapping into the "largest, technically accessible source of energy on the planet" the Desertec Initiative will transmit the energy through a network of low loss transmission cables to pipe electricity into the existing European grid, via Spain.

h₂ope (Water Power Enterprises), the social enterprise responsible for the country's first community owned hydro schemes in Derbyshire and North Yorkshire, will be running a workshop in London this Friday, July 2^nd, letting people know how to go about setting up a community owned hydro site.

As the sun reached its most northerly point this week, work was beginning on a new research project to harness energy from our Solar System's celestial sizzler.  The University of Sheffield's Solar Farm is set to occupy a 70m² area and will provide an area for developers and researchers to field test new and experimental PV cells.

The World Cup is well under way in South Africa so there's no better time to take a look at the state of renewable energy in the rainbow nation and the steps being taken to green up the greatest show on earth.

For the first time, Barack Obama will deliver an Oval Office speech to the nation tonight and there are no prizes for guessing that he will be talking about the still ongoing BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Day 55 of the spill will see the US President call for an "Oil Reform Programme," where oil use and pollution are reduced and new solar and wind installations are dramatically increased.

A temporary wind turbine was installed in Leicester square today, new turbine projects are popping up everywhere and the wind turbine industry is anticipating huge growth over the next ten years, however, the right-leaning press are still on the warpath against "these worshipped pylons."

Last week, huge auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers released an analysis of the Solar PV markets across Europe and particularly the UK. The report claims that the solar panel industry in the UK is on the brink of a bright future with the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) promising a new dawn for Photovoltaic systems.

A small hydroelectric power station in Brazil has provided the carbon offset to the England team's flight to the football World Cup. The team flew out last night and the FA and Department of Energy and Climate Change today jointly announced that a project by the name of ‘Braco Norte IV,' has supplanted the fossil fuels which would have been burnt and the carbon dioxide which would have been released into the atmosphere, allowing England to travel to South Africa guilt-free for a month of probable sex scandals, virtually certain missed penalties and the slender expectation of victory.

Rotherham Council's planning committee yesterday gave the go-ahead to the ‘Penny Hill Wind Farm' near the junction of the M1 and M18 motorways in South Yorkshire. The application to develop the site was approved despite an organised local opposition movement who had declared that the turbines would reduce house prices and affect people's health.