Follow the Green Energy Sector on Twitter

Green Energy on Twitter

‘Micro blogging’ website Twitter has exploded in popularity over the past year. The energy sector is well represented, principally with green thinkers all sharing ideas and opinions. It seems however, that many major energy companies are still trying to grasp how to deal with this phenomenon – only a few are represented.

We thought that it would be useful to highlight some of the main green energy Twitter pages.

Firstly (of course) – you can follow our ramblings here:  http://twitter.com/BleedingGreenUK – we look forward to hearing from you.

Companies and organisations

• Freinds of the Earth – http://twitter.com/wwwfoecouk
• Atlantic cheap gas and electricity forum – http://twitter.com/AtlanticForum
• http://twitter.com/OurWorld20
• Greenpeace – http://twitter.com/Greenpeace
• http://twitter.com/FordDriveGreen
• http://twitter.com/ecotouch
• http://twitter.com/Greenpreneur

Green voices

• http://twitter.com/greenmeme
• http://twitter.com/GoGreenEnergy
• http://twitter.com/greenlivingblog
• http://twitter.com/ecoshare
• http://twitter.com/ecoseek
• http://twitter.com/TheSimpleGreen
• http://twitter.com/TheGreenNag
• http://twitter.com/GreenPosting
• http://twitter.com/guardianeco – The Guardian Eco Section Twitter
• http://twitter.com/current_green
• http://twitter.com/ecosection
• http://twitter.com/GreenEnergyBrf
• http://twitter.com/thegreeneconomy
• http://twitter.com/ecobeautiful

Useful

• http://twitter.com/metoffice – Met Office Twitter
• http://twitter.com/bestgreensites
• http://twitter.com/BarackObama

This is only a select few of the ‘green’ related Twitter users out there that we follow oursleves, there are literally thousands more. For anyone out there that hasn’y signed up yet, we highly reccommend it as it is a great source of news and opinion. If there are any Twitter pages related to the energy sector that you feel that we should be following then let us know.

Hydro Power – How does it work?

There are some great sources of learning on the internet for those of us who wish to fully understand how green energy technologies actually work. We thought that it would be useful to focus on different technology in the coming weeks.

Today – hydro power and how this method generates electricity.

• The HowStuffWorks page is also a great resource on Hydro power.
• Although it obviously has a US slant Scientific American published a great article in March 2009 entitled ‘Time to Think Hydropower‘ – well worth a read.

If there anre any other great hydro recources out there, then please let us know.

Energy Assembly Dismantle

EUGENE’s general assembly has recently voted for the dismantling of its recognition after 5 brilliant years together.  The Board and members have decided to still promote green electricity and energy in Europe but have come to the decision that they will cease to exist as EUGENE’s.
The website (www.clean-e.org) will still be showing CLEAN-E results from running projects. In different country’s EUGENE has forwarded many different debates in regards to ecological power. We have got the ball rolling in many different labels that has allowed many green power ideas to be opened up to many different playing fields.

UN Report Highlights Rising Green Energy Investment

 

Green Energy bucks economic downturn

Despite the continuing economic downturn, global investment in green energy has increased significantly over the past year and overtaken fossil fuel investment. This rather surpirsing fact comes from the ‘Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009′ report which was prepared for the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative by global information provider New Energy Finance.

According to these statistics, 2008 clean energy investment topped the record levels of investment in 2007 by 5%.  This has been largely attributed to the significant green investments from the emerging economies of China and Brazil – investments in the US and Europe fell and were more conservative respectively.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said in the accompanying press release:

“Without doubt the economic crisis has taken its toll on investments in clean energy when set against the record-breaking growth of recent years. Investment in the United States fell by two per cent and in Europe growth was very much muted. However, there were also some bright points in 2008 especially in developing economies—China became the world’s second largest wind market in terms of new capacity and the world’s biggest photovoltaic manufacturer and a rise in geothermal energy may be getting underway in countries from Australia to Japan and Kenya”.

$155 billion in total was invested in 2008 in clean energy firms and projects worldwide (excluding large hydro projects). $105 billion dollars of this was spent directly developing power generating capacity from wind, solar, small-hydro, biomass and geothermal sources.

These are encouraging statistics, however we would sound a note of caution. The effects of the economic dowturn didn’t really begin to hit home until the fourth quarter of 2008, so here at Green Electricty we would (sadly) be extremely surprised if this level of investment continued in 2009.

Download the full ‘Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009′ report here.

Smart Metering in all UK homes by 2020

The UK government announced yesterday that they have passed the necessary legislation for the use of ’smart meters’ in every UK home by 2020. What is so revolutionary about this move is that it will allow consumers to take control of their own energy usage, and put an end to estimated bills.

This has been a development that we have been waiting for a number years to happen. Withintegrated we services such as the Google PowerMeter running concurrently to your smart meter, the future looks bright for those of us interested in finding out exactly how much power we are using. PowerMeter will essentially take the data from your meter and feed it directly into your iGoogle account giving you access to your home energy usage wherever and whenever you want. Although 2020 seems like a long time to wait for this technology to be available in every home, it should definitely be worth the wait.

How domestic energy usage will change in light of this technology is going to be interesting. What do you think will happen? – Let us know your thoughts………

Smart Meters like this will soon be ubiqutous

Green Policies Central to Upcoming UK Budget

Green Policies in UK Budget

In an echo of President Obama’s initiatives of a few months ago, the upcoming April 22nd UK budget, to be delivered by Chancellor Alistair Darling, is set to incorporate green initiatives as a central axis of a program to boost the UK economy.

According to an interview in The Independent, the government aims to target over 400,000 jobs in “green industries” in the next five years. The article outlines Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s thinking.

The jobs of the future would come from a “green revolution” and an expansion in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, health care, education, the creative industries, information technology, bioscience and advanced manufacturing. Despite fears of a much smaller financial sector, he insisted that London would still be “one of the most attractive places to do business from”.

Greening Car Transport

The most headline grabbing policies are likely to come from plans to ‘green’ vehicular transport within the UK. The government sees opportunity for the UK to become a world leader in the field of hybrid and electric cars, and will outline incentives with which which to promote this. Another policy is thought to be a car-scrap-scheme (modelled on the successful German initiative), where car owners will recieve £2000 to scrap their old vehicles and invest in newer, greener alternatives.

Is investing in the green-economy likely to have a positive long term effext as the government believe? Let us know your opinion…………

Did plans to provide poor with cheap electricity work?

Did you benifit from cheap electricity?

In 1997 it was stated that an independent company was going to provide the poor with cheap electricity by cutting their bills by 10% and wipe out any existing debts, the nonprofit making company would plan to provide over 1 million homes – that would allow them to undercut the major energy companies.
The main targets would obviously be people who have difficulty in paying their energy bills, The first ones to qualify would be the 64,000 people on social security benefits who have their bills direct by the benefits agency, well-off households would not qualify for the reduction
Our main aim in writing about this subject is that we don’t know if this project actually lifted of the ground, have you benefited from this scheme or do you know anyone that has?, Either way could please let us by clicking the appropriate answer below.

Renewable Energy Targets

Renewable Energy

By 2050 – the government (UK & Europe) has set targets to reduce Co2 emissions by 60%, – is it realistic? Well it won’t be by the lack of trying, when the targets were first introduced in 2000 it looked like we would struggle as we set targets of 10% of renewable energy to be used in 2010 – then in 2006 agreed to double that figure to 20% by 2020, The government held a consultation last summer looking for ways to drive the industry towards the targets and looking for new ideas in how to convert all the new renewable energy into mass production of green energy, from a personal point of view I think these targets are tough but realistic and achievable if the country leads us all in the right direction, I have noticed that most business’s are buying it – small or large, and are using it to sell on their products, you will have noticed that every company are selling greener products or greener services than their competitors are, if this is true to word then great, also I have noticed that councils are starting large recycling campaigns and are giving everyone a recycle bins, which again is great so I think we are heading in the right direction, It will be interesting to see in 2010 if we meet our first targets or even close to them?

Cheap Green Electricity

Cheap Green Electricity

Or is it?

With the world now offering us green cheap electricity we are moving onto a new error in our society, but how is it you see all the signs, adverts and TV commercials offering us cheap green electricity that we can never find cheap energy- anywhere, these big corporations keep pushing up there prices every winter saying they need the money for extra research into green energy solutions, but when you look at the share prices and hear how much profit the made makes you rather bemused that they are making billions while the poor folks of the country are freezing.

I think the more green energy sources we find and the better the technology gets to convert it into energy, the cheaper it will become but until then we will just need to keep digging deep into our pockets as well as the ground.

UK Wind Turbines

Wind Turbine

The gails and winds that sweep across the United Kingdom every day can be harnessed by wind turbines to provide huge amounts of electricity. Wind turbines situated in suitable area’s already provide a small, but growing percentage of the UK’s energy, and are used successfully all over the glob. In fact wind power is one of the world’s biggest growing energy sources! Wind turbine technology has massively improved over the last decade or so, making the turbines quieter and more efficient so that the electricity generated from the wind is more competitive with traditional nuclear and coal-fired power stations. Wind turbines are also beginning to be built at sea — in the near future most of our energy could come from offshore wind farms supplying the UK with more Green Electricity.