Dale on Guardian ‘You ask, they answer’
EnergyHiya all,
Just a quick heads-up – Dale is just about to take part in this week’s Guardian Environment ‘You ask, they answer’ Q&A session – could be interesting… If any of you fancy chipping in your 2 penneth, dive on in – the water’s lovely! 🙂
EDITED TO ADD: The Q&A session is now closed now but it’s still worth reading.
‘Green Gas’ is here
Energy
The ‘how green is it to supply gas’ debate kicked off here last week, in response to some questions we asked of our customers. Actually we had over 1400 responses and overwhelming support in principle. And a lively debate followed, it even had our friends at Treehugger joining in…
I couldn’t say much last week except we had something I thought was pretty exciting to unveil in a few days time. Well here it is now.
Today we’re launching Green Gas. (more…)
Nemesis Update
Transport, Wind Car
A quick update on the car front.
I had my first breakdown the other week. I went to drive away in the morning and everything was just dead. Turned out the 12v battery we use to power the control side had gone flat, and oddly enough a couple of fuses were blown. As you can see from the picture, I got the youngest member of the team on the job, with my own personal favourite ‘spanner’…. 🙂
And when we’d finished fooling around we called Bob and he came down and fixed it. No big drama but some useful ‘operational experience’.
Actually things have kind of ground to a halt on the Nemesis. It’s been with me since August, for what was meant to be a months worth of road testing while the Battery Management System (BMS) was finished. Three months later I’ve still got the car and we’ve not got a BMS yet. Which is disappointing to say the least. Everything else about the project has gone incredibly well, but for this – and it’s held us up for over six months now. It’s a frustration for all of us, not just me.
The car goes – it goes like hell, it’s just not ‘plug and play’ – by which I mean I can’t just plug it in to charge it. It takes a laptop and some close attention and we’re not able to charge to the full potential of the cells (for safety). So it’s “close but no cigar”. (more…)
Nobody in their right minds would think EDF is Green or British – according to the ASA
Energy
You may have heard in the news (In the Guardian, Business Green, Campaign, Brand Republic) that the ASA have recently decided not to uphold the 149 complaints against EDF and their Green Britain campaign.
The ASA said:
” ..we considered that consumers were unlikely to infer from the ads that EDF was a ‘green’ company, we concluded that the ads were unlikely to mislead.”
“..we considered that consumers were unlikely to infer that EDF Energy was a British company. We therefore concluded that the ads were unlikely to mislead.”
EDF had this to say:
“EDF Energy welcomes the decision by the Advertising Standards Authority regarding our Green Britain Day and Team Green Britain advertising, in which neither challenge has been upheld by the authority… We are committed to leading the energy change to bring about a low carbon future and we have led the way among energy companies in making long-term commitments to the environment and to sustainability… EDF Energy is the UK’s largest generator of low carbon electricity.”
Dale had this to say in response: (more…)
Copenhagen here we come (well not me)
Energy
I’ve spent some time in the last few weeks thinking about Copenhagen, should I go? What could I do there? Drive the Nemesis there maybe….
There’s lots of campaigns focussed on it right now, lots of people trying to show politicians that this is what we all want. And I hope they succeed, I think they probably already have actually. Copenhagen is all over the news and it’s clear that there’s real public pressure for a deal. That’s about the best a campaign can hope for. Now it’s up to the delegates. At least this time the US isn’t being led by an oil man/half wit.
I went to the UN conference in Kyoto, the one that put climate change on the map. A friend of mine got hold of some passes and we just turned up with no idea what to expect. Our plan was to talk anyone that would listen about the role that wind energy has to play in fighting climate change. The message went down well. (more…)
Car pool with Robert Llewellyn
Transport, Wind CarA little while ago, Dale had the pleasure of being picked up and driven around by Robert Llewellyn for his very entertaining and simple yet clever online CarPool show. Here’s the video as published today – hope you enjoy.
Festival of Innovation and 500Kites
Energy, Transport, Wind CarHiya Folks,
Paul here (back off my hols).
A couple of event announcements for our UK based readers. Firstly – I thought you might like to know about a public appearance of the Nemesis Wind Powered Car happening on the 12th/13th September at the Science Museum in Wroughton, Near Swindon in Wiltshire. It will be part of the family oriented Festival of Innovation. I am hoping to be there with my family on the 12th – so might see you there? It is a free event (although high carbon producing transport will be charged £5 to park).
Here’s the event page for the Festival of Innovation on Facebook.
Also – Ecotricity are hosting a kite festival to celebrate the power of the wind on the 13th September 2009.
Help us to fill the sky with kites and celebrate the power of the wind at Thistledown Environment Centre, near Nailsworth (Stroud).
- Free Admission
- 500 kites to give away (or fly your own)
- Explore 70 acres of natural environment and wildlife
- Free soft drinks courtesy of bottlegreen
- Professional kite demonstration
I also created a Facebook event page for the 500Kites event too.
Take it easy, and we hope to see you at one or both 🙂
Paul
Wind Car Update – 11 of 6
Transport, Wind Car
Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited
Here’s our latest, probably penultimate, video update of the wind car project.
I’ve had the Nemesis (yes it finally has a name) on the road for the last few weeks and it’s been a lot of fun (unless you’re a hedge in my vicinity….:). (more…)
Wind Car – News Flash
Transport, Wind Car
The Nemesis arrived in Stroud this morning, finally… After all the months we’ve spent on it, this is def a bit of a watershed. I’ll have it here for a few weeks of road trials and a general shakedown. Probably for most of August.
The car has come a long way in the last few weeks since the first test drive. The last few days have been especially hectic (for the team, not me). It got its MOT last Friday, had a Tracker fitted yesterday and we taxed it today – you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find insurance… Anyway it’s road legal now. And sat outside my house.
It’s not totally user friendly though. The charging system is the last big thing needing to be finished, the guys are working on that while I road test the car. So recharging is a bit of a manual process, to say the least – balancing the individual cell charges and the like. (more…)
Greenwash Day
EnergyI’d like to declare today to be National Greenwash Day…
…to celebrate that relatively modern phenomenon of companies trying to sell themselves as being rather greener and more ethical than they really are. Today would be an apt day, it is after all – Green Britain Day. Where’s the Greenwash in that? Oh where to start.
Green Britain day comes to us courtesy of EDF. That’s Electricite de France to give them their full name. EDF is a French, state owned nuclear power company. They are also the world’s biggest corporate producer of nuclear waste, and one of it’s biggest traders and burners of coal – with a tiny tiny fleet of windmills (0.7% of their generation). And to promote this campaign they’ve ‘borrowed’ (as Fred Pearce gently puts it in this week’s Guardian) someone else’s logo – the green union jack. This flag symbolises two things, Green and British. EDF are of course neither.
This really does take Greenwash to a whole new level. It could almost be the plot of a slapstick comedy or a farce. If it wasn’t for the fact that they are seriously intent on convincing us Brits that they (EDF) and nuclear energy are green and good for Britain.
Stealing someone else’s clothes is not a new tactic in the world of big dirty business. And nor is Greenwash. (more…)
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