Fuel from paper!

While on cars and fuels, Tulane University scientists have discovered a novel bacterial strain, dubbed "TU-103," that can use paper to produce butanol, a biofuel that can serve as a substitute for gasoline.

TU-103 is the first bacterial strain from nature that produces butanol directly from cellulose, an organic compound.

Cellulose is found in all green plants, and is the most abundant organic material on earth, and converting it into butanol is the dream of many. In the United States alone, at least 323 million tons of cellulosic materials are known that could be used to produce butanol are thrown out each year.

TU-103 is the only known butanol-producing clostridial strain that can grow and produce butanol in the presence of oxygen, which kills other butanol-producing bacteria. Having to produce butanol in an oxygen-free space increases the costs of production.

As a biofuel, butanol is superior to ethanol (commonly produced from corn sugar) because it can readily fuel existing motor vehicles without any modifications to the engine, can be transported through existing fuel pipelines, is less corrosive, and contains more energy than ethanol, which would improve mileage.

So, pick your choice, hydrogen or butanol?

Hydrogen filling stations soon

Germany will become the first country completely accessible to fuel cell vehicles in 2015, when carmaker Daimler and the Linde technology group will build 20 new hydrogen filling stations.

The result will quadruple the number of public stations available and make it possible for a fuel cell vehicle to reach any location in the country. Installation of the hydrogen refueling pumps will begin next year at existing gas stations currently operated by various oil companies.

Fuel cell vehicles are essentially a different kind of electric car. Fuel cells generate electricity in a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, which yields only pure water vapor. In a battery electric, the electricity is already stored in the battery. In both cases, the electricity powers the vehicle's engine.

Daimler is building 200 cars for Germany, Norway and the United States this year. Seventy of those will be Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL vehicles going to California. Daimler began manufacturing a small series of this model in late 2009, then quickly decided to make it the first fuel cell passenger car it would mass-produce.

So who said fuel cells are topics of fiction and james bond movies?!

Irene - a child of nature, or man?

With Irene blown over, the discussion she has left in her wake is if hurricanes are getting worse because of human-induced climate change?

Not very sure, say scientists but many of them do believe that hurricanes will get more intense as the planet warms, and they see large hurricanes like Irene as a harbinger.

However, while some see compelling evidence in the link, others say it has occurred in too short a time to link to climate change and not natural variability.

Storms are one of nature’s ways of moving heat around, and high temperatures at the ocean surface tend to feed hurricanes and make them stronger. That appears to be a prime factor in explaining the power of Hurricane Irene, since temperatures in the Atlantic are well above their long-term average for this time of year.

The ocean has been getting warmer for decades, and most climate scientists say it is because greenhouse gases are trapping extra heat. Rising sea-surface temperatures are factored into both sides of the analyses, but they disagree on the effect that warming in remote areas of the tropics will have on Atlantic hurricanes.

Air temperatures are also rising because of greenhouse gases, scientists say. That causes land ice to melt, one of several factors leading to a rise in sea level. That increase, in turn, is making coastlines more vulnerable to damage from the storm surges that can accompany powerful hurricanes.

Trapping waste energy

Adding solar cells to liquid-crystal displays could help recover a significant amount of energy that's ordinarily wasted in powering them. For example take LCD in a computer. Over 90 percent of the displays sold this year will use liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology. LCDs are, however, tremendously inefficient, converting only about 5 percent of the light produced by a backlight into a viewable image. The LCD in a notebook computer consumes one-third of its power.

Polarizers filter out light that is incompatible with the liquid-crystal shutters in an LCD pixel, accounting for 75 percent of the total light wasted by LCD screens, and conventional color filters toss out two-thirds of the light that hits them. The two research groups have created plastic photovoltaic versions of these two display components, which convert light into electricity.

We want to take an energy-wasting component that everybody uses and turn it into an energy-saving one," says Yang Yang, professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA. Yang's group created plastic solar cells that can act as polarizers. The researchers simply rub one layer in the solar-cell film with a cloth to align all the molecules in one direction. This alignment turns the cell into a polarizer that converts into electricity some of the light that doesn't pass through. the team reports that its polarizer can convert into electricity 3 or 4 percent of the light that's normally wasted by a filter. Yang expects to get this up to about 10 percent by tinkering with the materials used.

The other combined a common polymer solar-cell material with a kind of color filter that his group invented last year. The photovoltaic color filter converts into electricity about two percent of the light that would otherwise be wasted. They estimate that full displays incorporating this photovoltaic filter could generate tens of milliwatts of power, enough to make a difference to the life of a cell phone battery!

Vehicles cross 1 billion!

Hold your breath (yes, thanks to the smog!)according to the auto trade journal Ward's, there are now over one billion cars, light-, medium-, and heavy-duty trucks on roads around the world, up from 980 million at the end of 2009.

The U.S. is still has the biggest population of cars and trucks -- one for every 1.3 people in the country. But the American fleet is not growing much, only about 1 percent a year. The explosion in automobile deployments is coming from China, where registrations grew by 27.5 percent, bringing the country's vehicle population to 78 million.

That increase was more than half of the total global expansion, according to Ward'. India's vehicle population underwent the second-largest growth rate, up 8.9 percent to 20.8 million units, compared with 19.1 million in 2009.

According to the International Transport Forum the global vehicle fleet could reach 2.5 billion by 2050. No doubt those cars and trucks will be much more efficient than today's vehicles, especially with China and America setting tighter fuel standards. And many of them will be electric-drive vehicles. But another doubling of the global market -- even with an increase in efficiency -- means massive increases in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Good for auto industyr, not so for the planet!

CSP in India: mixed prospect

Is CSP a good option for India? Maps from NASA and Meteonorm show a range of approximately 1800-2200 kWh/m2/year for DNI across India, an annual DNI resource comparable to the best European sites such as Spain, though lower than the best sites in the USA and Australia. The northwest of India is widely recognised as having the best sites in the country. Jodhpur, on the edge of the Thar desert, is almost exactly comparable on an annual average basis to Granada, one of the best Spanish sites.

However, the Indian Renewable Energy Status Report notes that there is no established capability in India for CSP manufacture and there is a gap in Engineering, Procurement and Construction capability for setting up and running CSP plants. In examining the barriers to technology transfer for renewable energy technologies for India, the report identifies: product suitability to Indian conditions, difficulty in accessing market information for foreign companies, limitations in infrastructure availability, and difficulty of financing.

Published cost estimates for India vary by a factor of nearly 80 percent from lowest to highest. High current costs are an immediate barrier. Prior to the closing of the Solar Mission's phase 1 applications in December 2010, potential developers suggested that the Solar Mission CSP tariff was not sufficient. The fact that the Request for Selection was oversubscribed and that the shortlist of developers offered discounts on the tariff ranging from around Rs.3 to 5 off the Rs.15.3/kWh cap would suggest that some developers believe that cost is not an insurmountable barrier.

The World Bank's analysis of CSP costs versus the Solar Mission phase 1 tariff cap concluded that with either tower or trough technology and either wet or dry cooling, projects would not be viable even under the maximum allowed tariff. If this is the case, then cost remains a large barrier to CSP in India. On a positive note, a range of financial and regulatory incentives were analysed and it was concluded that all measures taken together were sufficient to make projects viable.

Migrating species

Once heard only rarely outside the north Kent marshes, the loud voice of the Cetti's warbler is now delighting a whole new set of listeners, from the isle of Anglesey to the banks of the Humber. The bird has moved 150 kilometres further north within the UK in the last 40 years, in response to the changing climate.

These changes, in response to global warming, have happened two to three times faster than was previously expected, according to a new study from the biology department of York University, published on Thursday evening in the peer review journal Science. Although such responses to global warming have been predicted, the study is the first to show that animal and plant species have moved furthest in the regions where the climate has warmed the most.

The team leader compares these changes as equivalent to animals and plants shifting away from the equator at around 20 centimetres per hour, for every hour of the day, for every day of the year. This has been going on for the last 40 years and is set to continue for at least the rest of this century.

One can be prompted to ask 'does it matter' unless you sit back to think what happens if birds and bees were to desert our areas. Think it out!

Does nature have the answers?

Sometimes wonders can happen if we only spent some time looking around and wondering. But it's another question who has the time 'to stand and stare'?

Check out what this 7th grade boy did as he stared at trees and wondered.

Aidan Dwyer puxzzled about the way trees branch out and the angles at which they did so. He found a pattern in the Fibanocci series 1,2,3,5, 8, 13,... and accordingly designed his tree with solar panels set at those angles. He then compared the energy output from his solar tree to a flat panel row and found the tree gave almsot 20-50 percent more!

He also saw the maximum output was in December with the sun at its lowest point in the sky. He got 50 percent more energy.

Sure is going to have some manufacturers build trees!

Meanwhile, more solar news. Berthed at Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong is a ship with a difference. The Tûranor PlanetSolar is a vessel that is circumnavigating the globe to prove that solar energy can power water transportation.

Designed in New Zealand, built in Germany and flying a Swiss flag, the 102-foot boat has completed about two-thirds of a voyage that began in Monaco last September. So far it has sailed nearly 24,000 miles.

With its upper deck covered with over 5,300 square feet of photovoltaic solar panels, the Tûranor PlanetSolar uses lithium batteries that store solar energy and allow the ship to continue sailing through the night, or when the sky is overcast, at a speed of up to about 15 miles per hour.

Sun God Ra is for surely smiling as the wise species finally have recognised his might.

Drought and violence

More than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa face starvation, the result of a particularly cruel mix of political turmoil and the worst drought in 60 years. The famine has caught much of the world off-guard. Hunger relief agencies are scrambling, and donors have been slow to respond.

The crisis was foreseen: Repeated drought in recent decades has been making the largely pastoral life in the drylands of East Africa unsustainable. Climate change is expected to further dry out the region. And the worst hit areas are in Somalia, a nation trapped for years in a pit of civil war, poverty, piracy and radical religion. The extremist al-Shabab movement has blocked famine aid to areas in the south and prevented residents from fleeing to find help elsewhere.

Earth Institute director and reputed economist Jeffrey Sachs has underscored the urgency of the need for emergency aid: A billion dollars or more is needed, "equal to $1 dollar from each person in the high-income world."

"The Horn of Africa is the world's most vulnerable region, beset by extreme poverty, hunger, and global climate change, notably a drying and warming of the climate during the past quarter century. These scourges are leading to the spread of violence and war, and war is contributing to global instability. Unless we confront the challenges of the Horn of Africa at their root causes — the poverty and vulnerability of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist populations — we will face a burgeoning violence in the Horn of Africa, Yemen, and beyond," he writes in The Guardian.

Some experts have cited the rise in food grains, especially corn, directly to the US diversion of the same for ethanol. Caught between food and energy the world looks poised for tough times.

Solar switch

A 500 MW solar plant in California is in the news for switching from solar thermal to PV. PV technology offers some advantages that solar thermal doesn’t have in terms of project size and land use choices, which in turn affect a project’s development cost. Solar panel prices also have fallen by more than half in the past two years, making them a more attractive choice for developers besides private financing that is readily available for PV projects.

The advantages of CSP as a grid-stabilizing renewable energy source with storage capabilities are obvious and highly valued by utilities elsewhere in the world. In the U.S., CSP has dominated utility-scale operations – both those in operation and under construction. More than 60 percent of the total utility-scale capacity is currently produced at CSP plants. About 70 percent of the developments under construction use CSP technology.

However, PV has drawn more interest for projects down the road, accounting for 65 percent of the 25 gigawatts currently in the development pipeline.

In the final run, both solar thermal and PV have their advantages and will have to be used according to need.

Tech wonders

Technology works both ways. Or to put it better, technology is neutral but how we use it taints it.

Take for instance the good. Giant tidal turbine goes on-stream in Scotland. It has capacity for generating 1 MW power to power 1000 homes; if successful, hundreds more will be insatlled.

And the bad. Mean machines are being deployed to fell trees as quickly as possible. If you have seen Avataar, you will recognise the Timberjack Walking Machine that makes child play of bringing down a tree. Tree Smasher, Disc Trenchers, etc are toys built for destruction.

Engineering student Maxwell von Stein applied the principles of a hybrid car to the bicycle to harness the kinetic energy typically lost when braking. With a variable transmission and a flywheel mounted to the bike’s frame, von Stein’s bike allows the rider to pick up speed faster after stopping than with a battery.

A similar prototype bus was designed earlier which stores up the energy generated during brakes application and supplements the diesel engine power with this!

Spilt oil

In yet another oil spill last week, the oil major Shell has admitted that more than 200 tonnes of oil has spilled into the North Sea, making it the worst single leak in the region for more than a decade. Gannet Alpha spill comes under the "gold standard" regulatory regime of the UK. Most of the rigs have exceeded their original design life (typically 20 to 25 years).

Shell's oil spill in the UK North Sea comes barely a week after the UN issued a strong condemnation of the company's environmental impact in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. In a string of allegations, the UN environment programme accused Shell of failing to meet its own environmental standards.

This is not specific to a company, but what one needs to bear in mind is the danger fraught by such spills to the ecosystem.

In the US, public support is building up against the proposed 1700 mile long Keystone XL pipeline to transport Alberta tar sands from Canada all the way down to Mexico! What a rupture could do to farmlands and wildscapes on way can be imagined, besides the pollution! Just this June, 42,000 gallons of conventional crude oil was dumped into the Yellowstone from a much smaller pipeline.

And yet, nations are going ahead with big plans in the eco-sensitive Arctic region. Who is to decide what's good or bad? Which country can take the onus of potential damage?

Opportunities galore

Cities are where all the action is! Whether it be jobs or amenities or 'development' cities take the big piece of the cake. Naturally, city-seekers are on the rise.

In a rapidly urbanizing there will be 8 bn people living in cities by mid-century. There are 171 cities in China that currently have more than 1 million inhabitants, and that number is expected to rise to 219 by 2025. Where will all the energy needed for this number come from??

How can cities be sutainable? Do terrace gardens and lush lawns make for 'green cities'? Not unless there is more than meets the eye.

At TED's annual meet, it was Alex Steffen who touched upon how cities can become sustainable, and not 'steal from the future, to sell in the present and call it GDP!"

Evey city, he said, is an opportunity to look at ways in which to reduce emissions and live sustainably. It could be in dense communitues that share spaces and ensure surplus capacities of gadgets and services. It could be as simple as Passivhaus effects achieved by using the wind to cool or the sun shine to heat a room!

Energy use can drop as much as 90 pc!

There already are examples of this new thinking set in action. Since 1998, Bogotá, Colombia has built more than 300 kilometers of protected bikeways. While in Belgium,a public-private consortium consisting of Belgian rail management company Infrabel and solar developer Enfinity has installed 16,000 solar panels on the roof of a 3.4 km (2.1 miles) long tunnel between Antwerp and the Dutch border, creating enough electricity to power 4,000 trains a year. Electricity becomes 30 percent cheaper for the user!

Often, as we have been saying, simple solutions abound. We just need to pop them out of our heads. It shouldn't need more global warming to pop them out!

CRC reports in

More than 90% of UK businesses taking part in the Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) energy efficiency scheme have submitted their first carbon reports to the Environment Agency.

The CRC scheme requires large energy users in the business and public sector to monitor, record and report on their carbon emissions.

According to the Agency, a total of 4295 reports out of an expected 4549 report were received by the deadline.

The Agency’s figures indicate that 95% of the expected number of footprint reports have been received and 94% of the annual reports.

The carbon emissions reported in the CRC total over 60 million tonnes – equivalent to more than 10% of the UK’s annual CO2 emissions.

The data will now be used by Environment Agency in the next stage of the scheme – determining a league table of participants ranked by their energy efficiency. The Agency says the ranking will be published this autumn.

The scheme has proved controversial since its inception and the current Government has promised to simplify the scheme.

Bad wipes out good

A holistic vision is simply a must in today's world. Else, you can end up fooling yourself and others.

A new report from Canada's environment ministry shows that emissions from expanding tar sands production and use will double by 2020 and will overwhelm emission cuts in energy production elsewhere.

This will entirely undermine Canada's efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020, as pledged under the Copenhagen Accord. Between 2005-2020, electricity generators will see their emissions fall by 31 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, largely as a result of coal-fired plants giving way to natural gas-fired power.

But that figure is far eclipsed by the oil sands, which will see carbon output rise by 62 megatonnes, tripling its 2005 levels. Of that, 25 megatonnes will come from new so-called "in situ" extraction methods that inject steam into underground wells to extract oil sands crude.

A further 11 megatonnes will come from expansion of oil sands mining. The rest is expected from additional upgrading, a process used to transform the thick, heavy oil sands bitumen into a lighter crude that can then be refined into end products like diesel and gasoline.

As the world goes on a frenzy shopping for new sources of energy, we can expect more such damage. But can we do away with it?

Thinking smart

Storing power is complicated and expensive, but there is no way around large batteries for grid-independent electricity consumers. It would make more sense to use the electricity when it is generated. This becomes possible with the help of a smart energy management system.

Concentrator photovoltaic system (CPV) modules require far less space than traditional PV modules and supply the energy, while Fresnel lenses concentrate the rays of the sun onto pinhead-sized multi-junction solar cells. With the aid of a tracking motor, the CPV cells, which are attached to a pillar, follow the sun precisely to achieve an optimized yield of solar light. They can thus supply the energy for submersible pumps and for a small desalination unit that satisfies farmers' potable water requirements. The CPV cells also supply the energy for PV-module trackers, the monitoring and control system and an air-conditioning unit that cools the utility room of the facility.

This was what the developers in a model project in Egypt did. According to the need of the hour the smart systems changed the usage, doing away with storage batteries except one small unit to store some energy for early morning alignment of mirrors.

Smart thinking!

Fissures in granite

Check out this post. Especially those of you who have granite visions!

The author looks at how a relatively unknown item like granite has become so fashionable and ubiquitous. Part of the globalisation of commodities.

Granite is found all over the world, and it is cheaper to dig it out in India and Brazil. The environmental standards are not quite as high either; in the Bangalore district, one study shows that 16% of the workers have dust and water related diseases like tuberculosis, and the air surrounding quarries is hazy with dust.

But the local real estate is flourishing, and labour cheap. So it finds its way to corners of the world!

Granite, he notes, is full of fissures and microscopic cracks that must be filled, and the counters must be maintained and sealed. Studies have shown that the crevices and fissures can become breeding areas for bacteria. A Brazilian/ portuguese study compared two plastic surfaces commonly used in cutting boards (polyethylene and polypropylene) to granite and found that "the two plastic materials were generally less prome to colonization [from salmonella] than was the granite."

Have your visions of a granite home crumbled? It makes sense to use locally available resources which are easy to mine and use, right?

Staking claims to the Arctic

Big big oil and gas stakes are increasingly being disputed in the Arctic Ocean area. The US has given the green signal to Shell on drilling in the Arctic. Already, Russia's Gazprom is involved with France's Total and Norway's Statoil in developing the Shtokman field, on Russia's northern coast.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic may hold about one fifth of the world's remaining oil and gas reserves.

Until recently, areas along that coast were considered barely accessible, but with the summer ice thinning radically, ships are now able to traverse the fabled Northeast Passage, linking the North Atlantic to the northern Pacific. As one recent report noted, “A Norwegian cargo ship has already traversed the Northeast Passage faster than expected and without encountering any major challenges."

Norway and Russia are maneuvering for position in the Barents Sea, where Statoil recently made its biggest find in decades, advancing their claims at the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Denmark is engaged in the same kind of struggle with Russia over seabed north of Greenland.

Canada is purchasing eight new armed ice-breaking patrol ships, has been conducting Arctic military exercises, and is constructing a base on Ellesmere Island.

Who does the Arctic belong to? Who does its resources belong to? More important, can we afford to drill in this eco-sensitive region with its ice cover fast shrinking?

Wind speed up

It has been another record year for newly installed wind capacity – to the tune of 39.4 GW. The year 2010 brought total installed capacity worldwide to around 200,000 MW, an impressive increase in cumulative worldwide installations of some 25 percent. However, in terms of the volume of annual installed capacity the increase was a far more modest three percent.

For the industry as a whole, the year-on-year growth rate in 2010 in fact decreased from 35 percent in 2009 to just 3%. Remarkably, it is the first year that the market has shown a slowdown in growth since 2004.

China made the greatest contribution to the global wind power installations in 2010 and it is important to note that 48 percent of the world's installations over the year took place in the country. Consolidation among turbine suppliers has been a particularly strong feature over the past three years.

It is worth noting that 2010 also saw more MW-rated Chinese manufactured turbines exported. During the year, five Chinese turbine suppliers installed 13 machines in five different foreign markets.

Asia experienced significant growth, including the OECD Pacific region which increased its cumulative capacity from 42,037 MW in 2009 to 63,645 MW in 2010, a growth of 51.4 percent. China was by far and away the leading country, with 18,928 MW of new capacity in 2010. India also saw an increase to see 2139 MW of new installations. The region as a whole accounted for 54.8 percent of the year's global total.

The offshore sector has expanded, with a total capacity of 1444 MW installed in 2010, which represents a 109 percent annual increase. Nine new offshore wind farms, with a combined power generating capacity of 1405 MW, were installed in Europe, especially the UK. The remainder of new offshore capacity was in China.

CSP promises

Sometimes problems have simple solutions that do not need new rocket science tech! It is simply about assemblage and simplification of known elements.

Researchers at MIT are designing a new method of building concentrating solar power plants with thermal storage that they say could lower the cost of energy by 50% compared with existing technologies. MIT Mechanical Engineering Professor Alexander Slocum – along with a group of other researchers – says he’s designed a new type of tank for molten salt storage that could reduce equipment needs, increase durability and ultimately reduce the cost of electricity being generated by a plant.

Rather than use a complicated plumbing infrastructure to heat and pump the molten salt for storage, Slocum’s design puts the salt storage and water heating in a single tank mounted on the ground, rather than on a tower far above the field of mirrors. Under the new design, the mirrors are actually mounted on a hillside above the storage tank and reflect sunlight down into a small opening in the top.

Not only does the design ensure minimum parts but is also more durable as it avoids extreme swings in temperature on the system (to avoid which systems are usually oversized).

The use of storage like molten salt will be key to the success of the industry, experts say. To make real progress with deploying these technologies, you need to have the dispatchable characteristics like firm power. CSP is different from PV and can provide power at twilight, so to say!

Wind in your sails!

The global power sector is the largest industrial water user, and it has to start addressing the issue of water consumption, especially in the light of rising electricity demand, and increasing droughts created by the world’s changing climate.

And, to mitigate climate change, the power sector not only needs to become CO2 free, but also reduce its water consumption.

Thermal power systems are based upon what is known as the Rankin cycle. Often, steam is used to power turbines, but then it must be cooled to become liquid. Coal, Nuclear, or even solar power could be used to heat the steam, but tremendous amounts of water are usually required for cooling. In many places, that water is in very short supply or essential for our domestic water needs and agriculture. A shortage of water would require such power stations operate at less than full capacity.

Conventional fossil fuel and nuclear power plants make up 78% of global electricity production. Should they be unable to provide the necessary power due to increased water shortages, economic collapse may not be far behind.

Well, turns out that wind energy is almost water-free! US Department of Energy estimates that 20% of wind power in the US power system by 2030 would save as much as 4 trillion gallons (15 trillion litres) of water. More reason to pursue wind?

Cut the waste

Here is some revealing info: 1 ream of paper = 6% of a tree! = 5.4 kg of Co2 in the atmosphere! And 3 sheets of A4 paper = 1 lit.of water!

So should you think twice before you take the print out which will never be read anyway?! Yes. Why do offices insist on a hard copy, even if it never will be read? Why do we encourage the plastic cup culture at our functions?

There are so many ways we can cut the waste. For instance, think of all the painting competitions held in the nation. One organisation alone is said to have used more than 1 Crore equivalent A1 size papers during painting competitions conducted by it last year!

Not to say we ban such competitions, but maybe we need to think if they are serving the purpose. Do children who paint on global issues go away any more enlightened, or is it merely yet another tool to propogate competition?

Can we think innovatively? Instead of painting on environment themes, why not make children build things from waste? To celebrate Earth day, why not get them to take up a campaign instead of spending paper, paint?

Agree?

Access more important

When energy is being discussed, it is either security or mix that is discussed, not the energy access, or energy poverty. Is it because the poor have no voice?

Indoor smoke inhalation kills more people ever year (around 1.4 million people) than malaria does. Also, while the mortality incidence from AIDS and malaria are projected to decrease in coming years, deaths from indoor smoke inhalation are expected to rise.

If the aim is to improve access, decentralised power must play a large role, one in which communities have a stake. Yet, when it comes to research, it is most always the advanced combustion systems, or commercial fuels, and large centralized power facilities that are discussed. This, even though more than 3 billion people rely on wood, charcoal, and other biomass fuels for the bulk of their energy needs.

Do we need as much "cutting edge" research as socially relevant solutions? Or what experts refer to as mundane science.

Driving down the cost of clean energy, so that industrial nations can replace their incumbent carbon infrastructure with renewables, is inextricably linked to closing the global energy gap and expanding energy access to the world's poor, as many see it. Delivering the energy poor the means to control their own destiny through expanded access to clean and affordable electricity must be an explicit element in efforts towards decarbonization. Do you agree?

Access must be an integral part of security.

UK energy consumption shows no dip

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change’s digest of energy statistics published recently reveals little progress on curbing energy consumption or increasing renewables.

According to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2011 (or DUKES as it is known), although UK energy production fell by 5.3% in 2010, primary consumption rose by 3.2%. However, adjusting for the particularly cold winter puts consumption on an even keel, just 0.4% down on 2009. Consequently, the UK continues to be a net importer of energy, with a dependency level of 28%.

Last year also saw a large increase in imports of liquefied natural gas, up to a third of total gas imports. Gas now accounts for 47% of electricity supplied in the UK, while coal makes up 28% and nuclear power 16%. Coal consumption also rose by 5.2%, driven mainly by a 4.4% increase in consumption by major power producers.

Renewables, meanwhile, make up a mere 6.8% of total UK electricity generation up just 0.1% on 2009 despite a 42% increase in offshore wind capacity, a 16% increase in onshore wind capacity and a 9% increase in biomass and waste-to-energy.

As measured by the EU Renewables Directive, renewables account for just 3.3% of energy consumption, up 0.3% on 2009 and still well off the target for the UK of 15% by 2020.

Meanwhile, the UK Government appears to be taking a cautious approach to shale gas. Although the practice of hydraulic fracturing or fracking used to extract shale gas has been widely criticised by environmentalists in the US and led to a moratorium in France, the climate change committee had said that the chances of aquifer contamination in the UK were small. But the government has downplayed the shale prospects. Government indicated it did notbelieve that security of supply considerations will be the main driver of policy in relation to the exploitation of shale gas in the UK.