The 2009 budget contained the world's first "carbon budget", that we've all eagerly awaited to see if it was "green enough".

The Chancellor unveiled a £5bn package for renewables and a 34% target of emission cuts by 2020 (with respect of 1990 levels). 

Given a public borrowing of nearly £180bn, including tens of billions destined to bank bail-outs, £5bn destined to renewables seems like a frugal sum and proof that the UK is not sufficiently committed to decarbonise the generation of electricity.

It is clear that the country is in dire financial difficulty, with public expenditure spiralling out of control and borrowing at a level that can bring into question the UK's financial standing in the near future, but if we are all agreed that preventing catastrophic climate change is a priority then we mustn't lose focus and we must continue to invest even during the difficult times.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) technologies get £90m for preparatory studies and a commitment that no new coal-fired power stations will be built in the UK without inbuilt CSS (and the old ones to be retrofitted as soon as the technology is available). "As soon as the technology is available" is the important proviso there, and no-one expects this will be before 2020 - more on this below.

Several environmentalists, including spokespeople for Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, went on the media to spin the line that the carbon budget was not green enough and was a missed opportunity. In my opinion its only fault is that it doesn't go nuclear enough.

At this stage we should be making nuclear energy a priority (and follow the French example, where their extensive use of nuclear energy means that the footprint per capita is 9 tonnes of C02 p.a. compared with 11 tonnes p.a. in the UK). The recent announcement of 11 new potential sites for nuclear stations in the UK is insufficient, given that it will take years of study, planning and bureaucracy before we even get to the building stage. It is highly likely that there will be no increase of nuclear energy capacity before 2020 and that is precious wasted time (in fact a drop in 7% of capacity if no new stations are built). The construction of new nuclear stations should proceed with the urgency of a military operation.

Without low-carbon nuclear energy we will continue burning coal and natural gas and the target of an emissions reduction of 34% is likely to be breached. Renewables remain a strong option, but more money needs to go into it to make it a reality and contribute a significant fraction to Britain's electricity generation. The government's own target is 20% by 2020 but with adequate investment wind and tidal energy can easily generate over 40% of the UK's electricity demand by 2020, and the rest through nuclear energy.

The budget allocates £525m to offshore wind energy and £405m to tidal, which is probably enough to get the interest of power companies, but not enough to aim for large-scale consistent and reliable power generation.  A consortium comprising energy companies who pulled out of the 400 wind turbine London Array project is likely to perk up at the sight of the newly minted cash. It is sad that we are subsidising very expensive means of electricity production and the government's allowing energy companies to twist its arm in this way. It is highly likely that the consortium intended to carry out the Thames offshore wind project but found it strategically better to play hard to get and see if the cash cow had any cash left. Obviously the bluff worked.

My biggest worry is the blessed CSS. Clearly if this worked it would be the holy grail. The world has coal and oil to burn for centuries so if we could successfully continue burning it without releasing CO2 into the atmosphere that'd be the ultimate bargain. But, can we? CSS technologies have been tried on very small scales, extracting relatively minute amounts of CO2. Technologies to translate this into a full-fledged coal fired station where tens of tons of CO2 are to be processed every hour and filtered and compressed to be stored away is a very different proposition. The techniques are untried and untested, and there remains the big question mark as to -when and if the feasibility tests are completed- the process is economical and efficient. Most scientists currently believe that the process is hugely inefficient (40% of the energy would be wasted by comparison with non-CSS coal stations) and expensive to implement, with big question marks hanging over the storage procedures and whether the CO2 stored underground could/would/will be accidentally released into the atmosphere..

It's as if Mr Darling proposed in the budget that the UK's borrowing of hundreds of billions of pounds is going to be funded through the implementation of the magic wand that turns everything into gold -- and in the meantime we'll allocate £90m in preparatory studies to research into this magic wand.

It is certain that CSS will happen one day. The question is whether this will be soon enough to be practical or economical. We cannot plan our energy policy on hypothetical possibilities and at the moment not enough is known about the viability of CSS to say that a number of coal-fired stations will be built and fitted with CSS.

We talk about CSS as if it were a reality, but it isn't.

Now about our own homes: the budget allocates £425m to support improved energy efficiency in homes and office buildings. This is sensible, but probably not a lot of money. You can slash your carbon footprint by between 40% and one third with some simple household measures, such as improved insulation, re-fitting sockets to turn-off power from standby, using energy saving boilers etc.

A wise political move would be to introduce tax breaks for households who carry out an energy MOT and implement all energy-saving measures to reduce their footprint.

Brunella

The green expo at Olympia (Fri-Sat) was a success. Starting from humble beginnings, and being the only green expo in the UK, it promises rapid growth. A small group of 4 people have organised this event putting together over 100 companies.

There was an impressive range of new electric cars just coming to the market and also electric scooters, renewable energy companies offering you to sign up for green electricity, wildlife and conservation groups, and this year's event had a very interactive and educational side, offering people to recycle their mobile phones and showing them how to recycle clothing.

It was very interesting. I popped round on Saturday afternoon and it was in full swing. I am very interested in sourcing organic and non-toxic materials, so it was delightful to pick up leaflets and URL details of sites that sell eco-paints, organic fabrics etc. I ended up with a stash of leaflets of very interesting stuff, but I feel somewhat guilty about the contradiction of going to a green event only to come out with a big pile of leaflets and magazines, which is exactly the opposite of what we want to advocate.

I spotted one product that I think has the hallmarks of a mini-revolution. Their URL is www.nomorepost.com, "The online postal system". I think this is a brilliant concept. They offer a service to send your letter for only 1p, with secure instant delivery. The future is one without any physical post -- all post in future must be electronic. This company certainly has a vision. I don't know whether this particular company will become big, but the idea is increasingly taking root and we are moving in that direction.

I saw a lot of "greenwash" stuff as well, it's tiresome. "Green office materials" or "green printing" seems to me almost a contradiction in terms, but hey, there's a market for everything. Some businesses are circling the green honeypot but there isn't much point to some of the concepts. The ideal green office is paperless, zero footprint and perfectly sustainable - not a conventional office claiming to be printing in a green way. The Ecologist magazine was also present, selling their magazine "for only £2!" (I thought: "hey, shouldn't you be giving away promotional copies at an expo?!). And as soon as I approached their stand they gave me a copy of a booklet "produced with Ecocitry" where they review the good and the bad of the green movement, the truly green products and the greenwashy ones. They should descend from the pulpit a bit and in an exercise of reflection accept that handing booklets just to tell me that Lynx is an environmental rogue full of toxic elements (something that is obvious because the thing smells like a pesticide) is a waste of paper, and a bit of a disappoitnment since they became my minor heroes by announcing to go paperless from June onwards.

Now on to the electric cars, the stuff of dreams and my personal obsession. The brilliant and full of promise Xero company (www.xerotechco.com) were present with a very nice range of electric scooters. This is obviously going to catch on. They look stylish and very practical. They also had a new car that seemed to have just made it to the market. I probed further but the staff there didn't know much other than "you can buy it from the website". Well I hope they improve their sales pitch, to match the sleek and stylish looks of the goods.

It was very nice to see that NICE has come back from the dead (www.nicecarcompany.co.uk) and after going bust has been rescued and spruced up by MEGA, and they're back selling cars. They look nice and practical, modestly stylish (they're not the super-groovy Teslas after all), but they are very much a crust above the appallingly ugly G-Wiz (REVA). The poor old G-Wiz sat like a tired old relative in a corner and no-one was paying any attention (but that's because it's very deja-vu, but credit where it's due, it's still the best-selling electric car in the UK but hopefully not for long if taste prevails).

I am glad some style and choice is seeping through in the UK electric car market. We are definitely moving forward.

Now, anecdotaly: I picked up a leaflet with some explosive news - I think this is going to have so much mileage jokes-wise etc for hardcore greens and all 4x4 haters out there. The ultimate contradiction. Range Rover launched the "Liberty Electric Range Rover". With "orders being taken for 2009 delivery" at the loose-change tag of north of £95,000. This is a lot of fun: "the world's first zero-emission luxury 4x4 -- be a natural born leader, drive change with Liberty". This beats the low-fat low-calorie chocolate triple-fudge cake, don't you think?

Brunella  

The e-reader revolution is taking hold.  Last week my colleague Perpetua pleasantly surprised everyone at the office treating us to a Sony e-reader.

It's a lovely Easter gift, and unexpected. Even more unexpected since I had already bought one (as gift to self), which I then sold to another colleague to give to his partner as a birthday gift. One has to be practical..

I thought the gift was a thoughtful "lets-put-our-ideas-into-practice" approach, especially as we are campaigning for a paperless future.

I think they are still a bit on the expensive side (£224 at Waterstone's and £190 through Carbonica) and they must become much cheaper for the mass market.

The Sony e-reader is quite simple to use. To get started, you need to install the eBook Library software (from the disc accompanying the device), which manages the eBook Library between the computer and the e-reader. Then you can install Adobe Digital Editions (from the Adobe site) and you're ready to fish for ebooks. I cannot think of any downside to the device itself, but it is disappointing that there is a general lack of availability of e-books out there, so sourcing the content is the challenge.

Sony recommends the Waterstone's website to download e-books but you will see it's very disappointing and difficult to navigate. Don't even bother. Having the Adobe Digital Editions allows you to download from other sites and read the e-books in a format compatible with the Sony e-reader.

I highly recommend www.ebooks.com and www.booksonboard.com. The choice there is very good, plus it will only get better, with increasing demand (I am sure this will become very big soon). Ebooks.com has also its own viewer called "eb20", a web-based e-book reader application (which you don't need to install) that enables you to flick through a preview of the book through a pop-up window on your computer screen and also read it entirely after purchase, so this gives you versatility to read the e-book on both your computer and the e-reader.

You should also visit www.mobileread.net and download Calibre, which enables the reader to get RSS feeds from sites like BBC News, The Guardian, The New York Times, etc.

Well, that's my limited experience so far. I'm quite enjoying it!

Brunella

Best wishes to all, for a happy and restful Easter break. We very much look forward to recharging our batteries during the long weekend.

I can anticipate that next week we shall launch our "The future is paperless" campaign, a very important and timely issue, that I discussed briefly in an earlier entry. We want to raise awareness about the wasteful mountains of paper generated by the printed press, post, bills and utilities, and many other day-to-day items that add to unnecessary use of paper. All of these contribute to global warming and the depletion of our valuable forests. Our vision of the future is entirely paper-free, with no post and no paper clutter, where we get and store all our information electronically.

The Ecologist, the leading green monthly magazine in the UK, is leading by example and has announced that it will discontinue its hardcopy publication from June this year.

C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am in awe and admiration for this decision, and it should be an example to follow by all newspapers and magazines.

We will be redesigning our eco bookstore imminently and will not be selling hardcopy books in future -- which we hope will be archaeological material in the very near future! -- and we'll only sell e-books and e-readers. We very much look forward to the release of Kindle 2 e-reader in the UK. More on this to follow.

I want to share with you my excitement about having discovered the new online green social community, cooltribe.com, where I am greatly enjoying taking part in forum discussions and meeting new friends. Do pop by and have a good chinwag on all matters green!

A bientot

Brunella