May 12, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Energy
Something very strange/funny/quite awful has come to light in the last few weeks.
It starts with this:
For the last five years Good Energy (a small UK based green electricity supplier) has been claiming to retire 5% more ROCs than they are legally obliged to do. Supposedly to encourage other people to build new green generators.
It’s been their one big claim to green fame. And it’s the single thing that’s brought them recommendations from FOE (Friends Of the Earth), NCC (National Consumer Council) and Ethical Consumer magazine – and it’s brought them customers of course.
Good Energy have repeated this 5% claim in all their marketing material and pushed the recommendation of FOE and NCC consistently now for five years. It’s been a very simple bold claim – ‘we retire 5% more ROCs than our legal obligation’ is a typical format. No wriggle room there. You either do or you don’t.
Nobody ever thought to check if they actually have been doing this though, until two months ago when we first asked OFGEM. I’m not sure why, except we know them pretty well and it seemed more than possible to us that they were saying one thing and doing another. More on this later if anyone’s interested.
OFGEM had some trouble with their systems and their data and it took about two months to get the final, final version of the numbers, although they were pretty close to the first version to be fair.
The most amazing thing is Good Energy, according to OFGEM (the industry regulator and keeper of ROCs no less) have never, ever, in all this time – met a single promise to retire 5% ROCs. Not once in five years.
There was more – For the last two years Good Energy have retired no ROCs at all…!
You have to go back three years to find a year that they actually retired any ROCs in – And then they managed just 40% of their 5% promise.
We were pretty stunned.
We dug deeper. Continue reading “Good (Energy) Lies”
April 29, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Energy
£85 Million to be precise. Went to bed the night before feeling pretty normal and woke up in the Sunday Times Rich List. What’s that all about?
I’m not flagging this here to promote it, or brag about it – it’s just that it’s out there and I think I should say something about it. This kind of thing is easily misunderstood.
The ST have me down as worth £85 Million – this years sixth highest new entrant BTW – bit like top of the pops I thought… 
We spotted it sat in a coffee shop, my partner Kate, Rui (our bubba) and I.
“You’re worth more than Robbie Williams” was Kate’s (almost) first comment – followed rather (too) swiftly by “let’s go shopping” …
There’s two things I wanted to say. Continue reading “Woke up Sunday morning… with a price on my head!”
April 17, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Transport, Wind Car
Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited
Here’s our latest video. The big focus of this episode is design and, as you’ll see, it’s definitely taking shape.
I’m off to Norfolk next week to meet the Sun, they love the idea BTW, and nail down a few questions on detail (with the A team).
Couple more weeks after that I hope we might be having our first test drive, perhaps in episode 9 of 6 – but let’s see….
Some really cool names keep coming in. Though I’m back to thinking maybe zero. But as somebody said here, I reckon I’ll need to see the finished thing and drive it – then I’ll know its name.
There’s been a lot of electric car stuff in the news lately, particularly today with the Government’s announcement of a £5k bung to EV buyers and other initiatives.
The thing that excites me most of all though is the fact that the government has come out and said we all need to be driving electric cars, they even use terms like ‘green revolution’ these days – that’s just amazing, so far from where we’ve been.
It makes me think the changes we need to make are all the more likely. We know the technology exists or will exist and we know we need to live sustainably – now we seem to have political will behind us.
Just need to re invent capitalism to be orientated to social and environmental outcomes rather than monetary ones – and we’re there…..
Cheers.
April 1, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Transport, Wind Car
Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited
Here’s the latest episode of our Wind Car series, clearly we’re running behind the original plan, with episode 7 of 6…
But hey ho, I don’t suppose the wheel was invented in a day – to mix metaphors a little. Continue reading “The Wind Car — Episode 7 of 6″
March 31, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Transport
Photo credit – Peter Lyons
Back in the UK now. I’ve been on holiday for a week, which is a rare event (ask my partner… ) and sod’s law determined that an even rarer event would coincide with that – the perfect conditions for a land speed record attempt.
My disappointment at not being there though was marginal compared to the huge excitement of the result – the smashing of the record.
All the credit for this goes to Richard Jenkins of course (with just a little to the gods of wind… ).
Richard’s the guy who’s been pursuing this dream for a decade. To say he’s dogged would be an enormous understatement. Continue reading “Wind powered cheer”
March 27, 2009 By paul
Filed under: Transport
Hiya – Paul here standing in for Dale.
Just thought you might like to know this bit of breaking news from over on the Greenbird site 
Richard and the Ecotricity Greenbird have only gone and smashed the World Land Speed Record for Wind Powered Vehicles!!!
Yay!! Big congrats from all of us Richard!
More details to come soon….
March 16, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Transport, Wind Car
Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited
I was in Norfolk earlier this week for a milestone in the development of our wind powered car, the first turning of its wheels…!
While I was there I met with John Vidal the Environment Editor of the Guardian. He’s a great guy John, enjoyed discussing things with him and he really gets the wind powered car thing.
We made this little video with John while we were all there, should be on the Guardian website as you read this.
Meanwhile we still need a name for the car. Continue reading “The car with no name”
March 2, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Energy
Every year we publish what we think is a compelling statistic – the amount of money each electricity company in the UK spends building new sources of green electricity. We express this number as £ per customer because we think that has most relevance for people. In effect it tells you how much from your electricity bill is spent by your power company building new green power sources.
In my opinion it’s a statistic that gets to the heart of the issues, cuts through the greenwash and spin of the Big Six and the small independents – it’s The Measure to me, of whether your deeds match your words.
This weekend we published the fifth annual League Table of UK electricity companies, ranked by this spending measure, and with it a five year average.
The five year average adds a new perspective. We can all have good and bad years and so one year in isolation needs to be viewed with a little caution or wider knowledge.
But five years is five years. Continue reading “Top of the League again”
February 17, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Transport, Wind Car
Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited
The first thing I should say here is that this isn’t the last episode of our little video series – it can’t be – we just haven’t finished yet. So expect Episodes 7 and probably 8 of 6 before long…
Second thing to say is I’ve got a new idea for a name. I’m quite taken with it.
Continue reading “The Wind Car – Episode 6 of 6″
February 10, 2009 By Dale Vince
Filed under: Food
Here’s a final update from Sea Shepherd out on the open sea as Operation Musashi draws to a close.
Sea Shepherd Returns From the Whale Wars
February 9th, 2009
10:00 Hours. (Sydney Time)
15:00 Hours (PST)
The Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin and her crew have withdrawn from the Japanese whaling fleet to begin preparations to return with a faster and longer range ship.
“I have said always said that we would do everything we can short of hurting people to end illegal whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “We have done everything we could with the resources available to us this year. We have shut down their illegal operations for over a month in total. We have cost them money and we have saved the lives of a good many whales. And although we are willing to take the risks required, even to our own lives, I am not prepared to do to the Japanese whalers what they do to the whales and the escalating violence by the whalers will result in some serious injuries and possibly fatalities if this confrontation continues to escalate.”
Continue reading “Sea Shepherd Returns From the Whale Wars”
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