The new REVA NXR can be seen at the Frankfurt International Motor Show (15-27 Sep) and will be distributed in the UK by GoinGreen. 

 See www.revaglobal.com

EV manufacturer REVA in India has led the electric car revolution with the legendary G-Wiz, which now symbolises the electric car itself.

In the UK, the G-Wiz is the best-selling electric car. Although initially regarded as a bit niche and an eccentric choice of vehicle, Londoners have enjoyed the benefits of owning an electric car, in addition to the environmental benefits. With no congestion charge to pay and free parking in the City of Westminster and other London boroughs, the G-Wiz has gained a lot of visibility in Central London. It is now the classic EV.

We very much hope that the new REVA NXR will take the EV success to a new level, catering the needs of families and drivers who need a more spacious car, and still enjoy all the perks of tax-free driving.

Brunella

The debacle over the sit-in at the Vestas wind turbine factory in Newport highglights the tug of war that renewables companies are facing with local communities in the UK and Europe.  

The "not in my backyard" mentality is pricing these companies out of the market.

Vestas decided to shut the plant earlier this month and issued a statement saying "The local planning process for the construction of new onshore wind power plants in the United Kingdom remains an obstacle to the development of a more favourable market for onshore wind power". "Since offshore wind power is still on a project basis, a large and stable market for onshore wind power is vital to secure a stable production flow."

I think that says it all.

Whilst obviously we all sympathise with those who lose their jobs, we have to accept that renewable companies need incentives to grow from a market at its infancy and they need all forms of help not hindrance. Vestas's workers would have a better chance of securing their jobs if instead of occupying the factory in question they demonstrated against the local authority and did a sit in at the Council's offices, demanding that dimwits in charge of planning applications up and down the country stop holding the renewables industry to ransom.

In order to move forward the commitment to renewables, the UK government needs to find a formula to override local authorities and allow wind power companies like Vestas to expand their operation without any hurdles.

Carbon capture experiments are meeting the same type of opposition in Europe. In an excellent article that we've cited today ("Public wary of carbon capture"), Joshua Chaffin in the FT describes how people in the  Netherlands are opposing a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) experiment with the fear that the CO2 stored underground could be a serious health hazard (if not fatal) if it's suddenly released into the air. Oil companies have been injecting CO2 in the seabed for decades and no one has paid any attention but now it becomes an issue when people feel CCS coal stations may be too close for comfort.

As it is, CSS experiments are running late and over budget, and no one seriously expects that they can deliver emission cuts for less than £20 per tonne. This is a crazy figure. One can plant so many trees for that amount and effectively capture via Nature's way many more tonnes of CO2 for the same amount of money, at the same time restoring forests and lifting communities out of poverty. With the opposition of local communities, unless governments take a tougher stance, there will be no chance to deliver any commercially realistic form of CSS on time.

Brunella

All comments are welcome, will be immediately displayed and this forum is not moderated. Your feedback is appreciated.

Thank you to Zubeir Soeker for his mention of Carbonica on gottAquirk, a blog where readers discuss sites of note -- his comments and praise are noted and appreciated. He does mention the issues of navigation that we were already looking into redesigning, especially the vast swathes of terra morta on the left margin that we can populate with useful things. All wonderful projects will come in due course!

We have been cited a lot but sorry to all those we've failed to thank. I must get into the habit of thanking people (always say thanks when people say nice things about you!) individually on our blog. We love your feedback, so keep it coming!

Brunella

Electric cars help mitigate climate change if you recharge them with green electricity and keep the air in our cities clean and healthy.

Electric vehicles (EV) will play a key role in decarbonising our economy. It's by encouraging their use that we can turn our backs on fossil fuels and escalating CO2 emissions. The UK government is right in encouraging the switch to electric cars and offering EV grants, but this incentive should be introduced immediately and not in 2011. It is important that we prepare for drastic emission cuts, and this includes switching to EVs, gradually but in sufficient numbers and with momentum.

Critics of EVs say that they are only 30% efficient in using the power stored in the battery, and if this electricity is generated by a non-clean source such as coal-fired power stations, then the carbon footprint is comparable to a fossil fuel propelled vehicle. There is some truth in this argument, but if we don't switch to EVs, then our dependence on fossil fuels will continue and we will never deal with climate change. What we must do is demand utility companies to turn to renewables and clean electricity. The effort to generate electricty in a clean way and our switch to EV should go in parallel and we don't have to wait for one to happen to start doing the other. Governments are already investing massive sums of money in CSS (which is still an untested technology, but if all goes according to plan, CSS will be the "holy grail" of climate change mitigation). There is a long way to go but there are an increasing number of green electricity providers available, and you can choose to recharge your EV from one of these.

The additional argument is one of heath and our immediate environment. Many people living in our cities have forgotten how clean air can be, and they can only get a taste of this by going to the countryside. This is the extent of how accustomed we have become to live breathing toxic fumes on a daily basis, and our cities are immersed in soot, dust and traffic emissions. The impact of this translates in poorer health and reduced longevity. What is the price of this? No amount of EV grants is too expensive to make our cities healthier places to live in.

Brunella  

Carbonica's "The Future is Paperless" campaign has got to a good start and now enlists 24 participating small businesses, who are running partially or entirely paperless offices. This results in a saving of over 5,000 trees per year.

Carbonica promotes the use of paperless computer-trasmitted fax, electronic signatures and email transmission of documents as a replacement of B2B or B2C communications by post.

Consumers are increasingly technology savvy and have widespread access to the internet and email and most companies find that their market base is not restricted by telling their customers that the communications will be 100% electronic and paperless.

The participating companies are from a broad range of activities in the service sector: from recruitment consultancies to web design/IT to travel consultancies. One company reduced its carbon footprint by 40% by reducing transport emissions by allowing 2 staff work from home in switching all internal administration and paperwork to electronic format. A 2-week plan to scan existing hardcopy files resulted in a neater and more spacious office environment.

For more information on the "Future is Paperless" campaign and to find out how Carbonica can help your business become paperless and carbon neutral, you contact me on perpetua@carbonica.org

Perpetua Sachs

After a two-week holiday I have so much to talk about but the hot topic this week is the launch of the Carbonica-Cooltribe partnership.

Cooltribe is a new social network with a green focus. It's made of many "tribes". A tribe has a tread, or several. People upload news and movies (their own or embedded from YouTube). Topics range from the pros and cons of nuclear energy (dry but interesting), your thoughts on the decline of the honeybee (more fun), beautiful clips of divers in Marbella, etc. You can find me there - on occasions - reading or posting - I joined about a month ago.

The good people of Cooltribe are cleverly basking in the sun of Marbella (excellent location to base a global website - Carbonica take note!) and their webdesigners post lovely clips of marine life. So we are left in no doubt of everyone's love of nature.

Cooltribe and Carbonica are cooperating to fight together against illegal logging and deforestation, and Cooltribe now offer to plant a free tree in the rainforests of Brazil or Central America for every member who joins. It's free to join and I think that the only requirement is to complete the registration profile (which includes things like general interests, favourite books etc).

I welcome your feedback. Pls feel free to write to me with ideas/complaints/suggestions for discussion. I would love to hear from you.

Thanks!

Brunella

brunella@carbonica.org

From today, you can find Carbonica's blog listed on Technorati, the directory of the blogosphere.

You can mark us as a favourite with these handy buttons!

Add to Technorati Favorites

Thanks!

Perpetua Sachs

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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Carbonica has sponsored the Greenagers project at the Channing School for Girls in Highgate, North London. The project is part of the Young Enterprise scheme and the girls have produced a fabulous and very well made cotton bag that they've designed themselves, with the slogan "Have you cottoned on yet?"

For more information please contact greenagers@hotmail.co.uk

We wish the girls all the best with their entrepreneurial efforts and we'll keep you posted! 

The Carbonica Team

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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Carbonica's website has been showcased as one of the top inspiring designs on Smashing Magazine and Web Designer Magazine (issue 151) and many other websites around the world.

Smashing Magazine chooses Carbonica's site as an example of design and branding that combines well with the content of the site, the environmental message and the reforestation activity of Carbonica.

Web Designer Magazine cites Carbonica as a top 50 site in the use of CSS techniques.

We are thrilled about all the other sites from all over the world where we have been featured, in many other languages. Many thanks to all. We are very pleased that the looks of the site and its content have inspired your imagination. We believe web design is a great art and it is wonderful that our site has been noticed by many.

Carbonica's site is innovative and in constant change. It fulfils the double purpose of being a useful port of call to reduce your carbon footprint as well as an educational resource for climate change articles, a selection of news items and an informal discussion on topical subjects on our blog. Do sign up for our newsletter. It is free (and zero footprint!) and it is designed to keep you up-to-date with our selection of "green" news.

Mikel Susperregi

mikel@carbonica.org

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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Obama's presidency is expected to mark a U-turn in Climate Change policy in the US administration. The choice of Prof Steven Chu as US energy secretary is great news. Known to despise coal as his "worst nightmare", the new Obama team of scientists has the potential of being the environmentalist's dream team.

Coal is certainly deserving of being phased out as a source of energy as soon as possible. It is historically the one fossil fuel that has brought us where we are. It has been used for much longer and more extensively than oil, and even today it is the main contributor to the carbon footprint of emerging economies.

There is no such thing as "clean coal". The fiction that "carbon capture and storage" (CSS) technologies will be imminently available is a dream. These are supposed to capture and trap CO₂ produced in the combustion of coal, and store it safely underground. Each stage of the process comes with a big "if" and a big "untested". It promises to be a much more expensive alternative than anything else conceivable, including nuclear energy.

From Russia With Gas

The disruption of gas supplies from Russia has not been exactly surprising. Especially since the tap was turned off once before in 2004 and Mr Putin's Russia is rapidly decaying into a rogue state. As Mr Kasparov rightly puts it in his columns in The Wall Street Journal, it is impossible to maintain the status quo with people who have such contempt for the rule of law, so no one can expect that state-owned gas giant Gazprom will be a reliable supplier of gas for Europe.

We need more people like Mr Kasparov in Russia to speak up and save that great nation from this gangster culture.

I wonder if Obama will Google "how to deal with Al Capone" in preparation for a meeting with Russia's premier.

In a way, the shortage of gas in Europe can be seen as a piece of good news. If gas was cheap and abundantly available then it would be much trickier for Western Europe to think about switching to alternatives. It is handy to have the main supplier playing uncool customer so that European countries can begin to think of phasing out gas and look for alternatives.

We must create "power hubs" of wind turbine farms throughout the continent to power the central heating and hot water of domestic households. This will be expensive, but the switch from domestic gas use to electricity can not happen too soon. 

Heathrow airport

The decision to expand Heathrow airport in London has come as a great disappointment to many. Especially since it was known that the UK government was split over the issue, with the energy secretary Ed Miliband opposed to the project, so the least that was expected from a mature democracy was a Commons debate with a free vote. Alas, no such thing.

The project was given a "behind-closed-doors" OK, on the grounds of being the pro-business thing to do. Obviously the Prime Minister Gordon Brown is not there to take anti-business decisions. Nor has anyone asked him to.

The only business that this will favour is the airport operator BAA and its airport retail operations, and the construction companies that are already salivating at the thought of a mega-project of olympic proportions up for grabs.

Those are the winners and the losers will be the millions of Londoners who will have to withstand an escalation of noise and pollution nuisance, an increase in night flights. The expansion will bring nothing to London's economy and will not increase or decrease the importance of London as a financial centre. By the time the new runway comes into operation Heathrow will be congested again, and more runways will be needed to catch up with competitors.

At some point the growth will have to stop, unless we want to transform London into a vast airport with a bit of a city attached to it.

The future is in rail transport. The pro-business choice is in rapid city centre to city centre high-speed rail transport.

Brunella Bell

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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A storm has erupted over the carbon footprint of a cup of tea, literally. A Sunday Times story cited a Harvard scientist who claims that the carbon footprint of a Google search is comparable to that of making a cup of tea.

The story, full of wild guesses, prompted a quick response from Google.

Google claims that one search has a footprint of 0.2 grams of CO₂. Which is very little.

The funny side of the Sunday Times story was that it was little more than a plug for the company of the scientist in question, who owns a carbon offset provider dedicated to offsetting websites. So, hey presto, the article came complete with URLs and all, so that you can end up there feeling all guilty about your Google searches and get offsetting. What I find hilarious is that the company in question doesn't even once mention that it is about offsetting the carbon footprint of websites. It talks of making them "green". Oh goody. Such is the bad reputation of the offsetting industry that some providers go about their business concealing the dirty word like sex shop owners putting the goods in brown paper bags.

My guess is that Google's estimate of 0.2 grams of CO₂ is closer to the truth than the 35-times higher figure of 7 grams cited in the press. After all they are secretive about their data centers and the extent of the green energy initiatives that they have taken, so I'd rather believe the version that we're getting from the horse's mouth, because everyone else's is simply a wild guess.

Google should however come clean about its own footprint and put an end to all guesswork. No one knows exactly the number of searches that are carried out, so we can't compute Google's footprint. The 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist has a very complete compilation of trends and favourite searches from "billions of search queries", but the key is how many billions are we exactly talking about.

Some sources claim that in 2008 there were about 350-700 billion search queries, which means that if we take the figure of 0.2 grams per search to be accurate, Google's total footprint is in the region of 70,000 to 140,000 tons of CO₂.

This is not an awful lot: it is comparable to that of a small town with a population of about 10,000. It is a hell of a lot for one single company, but then I would guess that other global firms have a much larger footprint, especially if they produce physical goods.

My invitation to Google is: come clean with the figures, and get offsetting -- with Carbonica of course. Why not. At least we are not plugging this in a British rag.

Brunella Bell

brunella@carbonica.org

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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A whole new year begins and it is time for our New Year's resolutions. Slimming, exercising, recycling and reducing our carbon footprint.

Some of our customers email us asking whether it is realistic to expect people to offset their footprint in times of financial crisis. Our answer is yes. Now it's more important than ever. The carbon footprint of the average person in the UK or Europe is about 10 tons of carbon a year, and this costs £6 per month to offset. It is a very small price to make a person zero footprint (or carbon neutral).

It is well known that offsetting our petrol emissions would only add about two pence to the price of the litre of petrol. This is an insignificant amount compared to the huge fluctuations in the price of petrol in recent months. Some supermarkets even offer 5p discounts per litre of petrol - it is ridiculous that they don't take the more consistent approach with the environmental policies that they claim to endorse and instead offer a 3p discount and pay 2p to offset the emissions so that the customer knows they are buying "carbon neutral" petrol. This would be an innovation and it wouldn't impact an awful lot on price.

We also get emails from people telling us that what one should do is cut emissions. Obviously reducing emissions is fundamental. But not the only goal. The principle of "offset the rest" is important. We will always have a carbon footprint, however much we reduce emissions, and the best thing to do for the enviroment is to offset the rest.

So, here is my suggestion to you: have a peek at our CO2 calculator, and in the section "QUICK", enter 10 tons. If you offset ten tons this will make you zero footprint for the entire 2009 if your carbon footprint is around average.

Brunella Bell  

brunella@carbonica.org

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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You can send an eCard selecting a design from The Prince's Rainforest Project Christmas Card Competition for Schools.

The overall winner is:

Ben Keene, The Greville Primary School. Ben's design will not only be made into an eCard for supporters to send online, it will also be the official card of The Prince's Rainforests Project. Ben's school will receive 200 printed cards of his design. Congratulations Ben.

The definition of "carbon-free" is that it is produced without any emissions, what is called "fully decarbonised". On the other hand, something that is "carbon neutral" does have emissions, a carbon footprint, but it is offset by energy saving, reforestation or other programmes, so the net effect of this is zero.

If we ask ourselves the question, "do I prefer to be carbon-free or carbon neutral?" obviously the best choice for the environment is to be carbon-free. It is best not to produce a carbon footprint to start with, to be fully decarbonised. It is great in theory, trickier in practice. During the pre-industrial era societies were almost entirely decarbonised, so our existence as human beings is not impossible in a decarbonised environment. This is the general principle of pursuing CO₂ —and other greehouse gases— emission cuts. The goal is to get as close to full decarbonisation as we can.

During this week's UN Climate Change talks in Poland the crux of the matter is emission cuts. We can go a long way closer to decarbonisation than we are today, and the core of the argument is to get rich countries to dramatically cut their emissions and developing countries to follow suit without getting into a cycle of pollution and excessive emissions that rich countries engaged in for decades to get to the level of industrial development they enjoy today. Developing countries feel a lot is being asked from them, and rich countries are not even setting the right example.

So the first step is cut emissions, but while we have a footprint, the second step (or rather, simultaneous step) must be to offset it. At any given time we should aspire to be carbon neutral even if we are not carbon-free, which is obviously infinitely better for the environment.

At the moment we are running a campaign to raise awareness about the carbon footprint of the internet, and the emissions that we cause by producing and maintaining websites. We offer our customers a personalised service to make your websites carbon neutral and also we want to encourage everyone to produce websites as carbon-free as possible to start with.

Google, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard and other companies have been successful in adopting technologies to make their servers carbon-free. Google's "sea-faring solution" is an imaginative concept that uses tidal energy and waves to produce electricity to cool and power data centres. This kind of concept will be more widely used in the future, given that data centres contribute to nearly one fourth of the internet's carbon footprint - obviously it will be key to look at ways to change how we run them in order to cut emissions.

For smaller companies not quite in the league of the internet giants, the vast majority of us who rely on data centres powered by conventional energy sources, the way forward to achieve emission cuts is to demand from service providers to switch to greener and renewable sources of energy, and to offset the remainder of the carbon footprint in order to remain carbon neutral.