The Greenhouse

No, not another story about nimby-ism. Instead, it's the unfortunate impact of wind turbines on bats. I imagine the antipathy to wind farms in Transylvania must be considerable...

I guess it's the height of the skyscrapers that means this idea doesn't fall foul of the 'urban wind turbines are inefficient' brigade?

Meantime, while we can't make our mind up about them in this country, we seem capable of exporting a good idea.

The regular appearances on this blog of the Great Chelker Windfarm Debate should have alerted readers to the fact I hail from the north, even though I am currently exiled in Sussex (very nice, but no hills to speak of). It'll come as little surprise then to learn that I was unimpressed by the Policy Exchange's report suggesting many northern cities are beyond revival.

Continue reading "It's grim up t'north" »

Back in Sussex it's always a joy to read the local free papers that are crammed through the door while you've been away. Until they tell you that yet more houses are due to be built on your doorstep thanks to SEEDA's latest plans (well, it seems that close sometimes). I forget the exact number now (once you get over a few thousand it just seems like a lot - too many in fact) but the fact that even the local rag had had the wit to juxtapose this latest announcement with the assertion that the planned extra rail capacity would now not be sufficient brought a melancholy smile to my face. Sustainable economy and sustainability in any other form still seem as divorced from each other as ever, at least in the minds of those in positions of power.

Here's an extra reason to insulate your loft. It will help save CO2 emissions, and lots of embarrassment...

While following the news from the climate camp at Kingsnorth, and the plans to replace coal with, er, coal, I was prompted to think further about coal in a trip to Hatfield colliery last week.

Continue reading "More coal trouble - in India, and Kent" »

Or before one's built near you, anyway.

Yes, you've guessed it - I'm back from the land of the Chelker wind farm, but still with mixed feelings about wind power.

I drove past the site to check out the potential scale of two behemoths replacing the current four tiddlers (everything's relative). My thought was that those proposed would be bigger than I'd choose to see, but probably not unbearable.

Continue reading "Do move if you live next to a wind farm... and then put one on your roof?" »

I've recently been doing some work on a report into the Indian economy and came across some startling and alarming facts relating to both its energy production and consumption.

First, India's current installed power generation capacity is already a staggering 143,000 MW. The UK, by comparison, is around 75,000 MW.

Continue reading "India's coal conundrum" »

I'm off to the land of the Chelker wind farm tomorrow, and will report on the potential merits or otherwise of replacing four small-medium turbines with two behemoths. In the mean time I thought you might like to know that according to the Independent, and via them RICS, turbines do not necessarily damage house prices in their vicinity in the long term. Good news - people can now campaign against wind farms with impunity and without the risk of being accused of NIMBYism...

Brilliant. It takes a genius to come up with the blindingly obvious (also known as the 'too ludicrous to be true'), and Vincent Callebaut is clearly a genius. How else could you describe (in polite company and before the watershed) somebody who comes up with the idea of floating cities? If you think that's a bit barmy, not to mention dealing with the symptoms of global warming rather than the cause, consider his 'anti-smog ' and 'the perfumed jungle' projects (I use the word in its loosest sense). Clearly a man capable of thinking the unthinkable - and the unbuildable. That's architects for you.