Shades of Grey

(A bit of clicking to follow the sources here, all should open in a new window).

IT is a notorious consumer of Energy, with huge data centres gobbling up Megawatts.

Bit what about Telcos? They are even worse, but they are on the case. From three years ago:

British Telecom has announced a three-year plan to get all of its energy needs from renewable sources - the biggest such project in the world.

…The plan comes after the government’s call for 10% of the UK’s energy to have come from non-polluting renewable sources by 2010, in an effort to halt global warming. (article here)

So, how much green energy do we have available in the UK? Are we close to that 10% yet? It seems not.

present policies would enable the country to get 5 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, (article here)

Oops, another target missed. How much Energy does BT use?

BT is going green in part to avoid being targeted by environmental activists after it emerged that that it now uses 0.75 per cent of the UK’s electricity. (Article)

¾ of a % of maybe 5%- well it leaves plenty for the rest of us. Many FTSE Companies will declare on their Corporate Responsibility websites that they are getting 100% renewable energy as well, such as this one (Royal Mail).

We have exceeded our target for the procurement of renewable electricity – with 100% of our electricity in Great Britain coming fro (sic) certified renewable source

You pay a premium for green energy, but apparently you now pay an equivalent cost for non-green energy as well. I smell a rat, though, as it seems that it is easy to get a green tarrif. Can we fully account for the sums of FTSE250 usage at 100% being less than 5%? Perhaps we need an investigative journalist. Or, we could just look HERE to see that green tarrifs aren’t always what they seem.

Green tariffs offered by the major electricity companies and smaller ‘green’ companies come in three main types.

• Green supply - If a company sells you ‘green electricity’ it must purchase the equivalent amount of electricity from renewable sources. For example, some companies claim to provide you with 100% of your electricity from renewables.

• Green fund - Some of your tariff goes to fund renewable energy projects.

• Carbon offsetting - Some of your tariff goes to support offsetting of the carbon emissions generated by producing your electricity.

And the same report shows there is a big paper chase along the way

A report on green electricity by the National Consumer Council in 2006 found that only Good Energy and Scottish and Southern Energy retired any of their renewables obligation certificates.

Even the Greens pour scorn on this scheme: (pdf)

The opaque and complex system of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), and the way they are traded by electricity suppliers is threatening to undermine consumer confidence in renewable electricity altogether.

You mean we had some in the first place?

Even the Government admits it is a lot more complex than just banging up new windmills (pdf)

Co-firing biomass along side fossil fuels in existing powerplants can also significantly lower their carbon emissions because the fossil fuels are replaced by ‘carbon neutral biomass. Trials of wood co-firing with coal are ongoing a coal-fired power stations in the UK, for example, at Drax.
Biomass energy crops are currently more expensive than coal, although by co-firing biomass, power stations operators can earn Renewables Obligation Certificates(ROCs) which makes co-firing economically viable. In 2001 a dedicated biomass gasification plant (ARBRE) was constructed in the UK, but technical difficulties forced it closure. In 2005, E.ON announced plans to build the UK’s largest dedicated biomass plant (44MW) in Lockerbie, Scotland due to commence operation in 2007.

This carbon footprint assessment of the various forms of electricity generation skirts around the big issue of renewables- their variability and unpredictability. Even bio-mass would involve silly amounts of agri-land devoted to growing willow trees or the like.

Meanwhile, we just keep on boiling those kettles: