As our planet continues to warm, the need for renewable energy is becoming increasingly urgent. Almost half of the UK’s electricity now comes from renewable sources. And solar accounts for one-fifth of the energy capacity installed since 2019.
Solar farms are now a striking feature of the British landscape. But despite their growth, we’re still largely in the dark about how solar farms impact biodiversity.
This was the focus of a recent study that I co-authored alongside colleagues from the University of Bristol. We found that bat activity is reduced at solar farms compared to neighbouring sites without solar panels.
This discovery is concerning. Bats are top predators of nighttime insects and are sensitive to changes in their habitats, so they are important indicators of ecosystem health. Bats also provide valuable services such as suppressing populations of insect pests.
Nonetheless, our results should not hinder the transition to renewable energy. Instead, they should help to craft strategies that not only encourage bat activity but also support the necessary expansion of clean energy sources.
We measured bat activity by recording their ultrasonic echolocation calls on bat detectors. Many bat species have distinctive echolocation calls, so we could identify call sequences for each species in many cases. Some species show similar calls, so we lumped them together in species groups.
We placed bat detectors in a solar farm field and a similar neighbouring field without solar panels (called the control site). The fields were matched in size, land use and boundary features (such as having similar hedges) as far as possible. The only major difference was whether they contained solar panels.
We monitored 19 pairs of these sites, each for a week, observing bat activity within the fields’ centre and along their boundaries. Field boundaries are used by bats for navigation and feeding.
Six of the eight bat species or groups studied were less active in the fields with solar panels compared to the fields without them. Common pipistrelles, which made up almost half of all bat activity, showed a decrease of 40% at the edges of solar panel fields and 86% in their centre. Other bat species or groups like soprano pipistrelles, noctules, serotines, myotis bats and long-eared bats also saw their activity drop.
Total bat activity was almost halved at the boundaries of solar panel fields compared to that of control sites. And at the centre of solar panel fields, bat activity dropped by two-thirds.
Why are bats avoiding solar farms?
Conflict between clean energy production and biodiversity isn’t just limited to solar farms; it’s an issue at wind farms too. Large numbers of bats are killed by colliding with the blades of wind turbines. In 2012, for example, one academic estimated that around 888,000 bats may have been killed at wind energy facilities in the United States.
The way solar farms affect bats is probably more indirect than this. Solar panels could, in theory, inadvertently reduce the abundance of insects by lowering the availability of the plants they feed on. We’re currently investigating whether there’s a difference in insect numbers at the solar farm sites compared to the control sites.
Solar panels may also reflect a bats’ echolocation calls, making insect detection more difficult. Reduced feeding success around the panels may result in fewer bats using the surrounding hedgerows for commuting, potentially explaining our findings.
However, bats are also known to collide with smooth vertical flat surfaces because they reflect echolocation calls away from bats and hence appear as empty space. Research has also found that bats sometimes attempt to drink from horizontal smooth surfaces because they interpret the perpendicular echoes as coming from still water. But, given the sloped orientation of solar panels, these potential direct effects may not be of primary concern.
Improving habitats
An important lesson from the development of wind energy is that win-win solutions exist. Ultrasonic acoustic deterrents can keep bats away from wind turbines, while slightly reducing the wind speed that turbines become operational at (known as “cut-in speeds”) has reduced bat fatality rates with minimal losses to energy production. Research suggests that increasing turbine cut-in speeds by 1.5 metres per second can reduce bat fatalities by at least 50%, with an annual loss to power output below 1%.
A slightly different approach could be applied to solar farms. Improving habitats by planting native trees along the boundaries of solar farm fields could potentially increase the availability of insects for bats to feed on.
Research that I have co-authored in recent years supports this theory. We found that the presence of landscape features such as tall hedgerows and even isolated trees on farmland has a positive effect on bat activity.
Carefully selecting solar sites is also important. Prior to construction, conducting environmental impact assessments could indicate the value of proposed sites to bat populations.
More radically, rethinking the siting of these sites so that most are placed on buildings or in areas that are rarely visited by bats, could limit their impact on bat populations.
Solar power is the fastest-growing source of renewable energy worldwide. Its capacity is projected to overtake natural gas by 2026 and coal by 2027. Ensuring that its ecological footprint remains minimal is now particularly important.
Warming of more than 1℃ risks unsafe and harmful outcomes for humanity. Ink Drop/Shutterstock
The Paris Climate agreement represented a historic step towards a safer future for humanity on Earth when it was adopted in 2015. The agreement strove to keep global heating below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels with the aim of limiting the increase to 1.5℃ if possible. It was signed by 196 parties around the world, representing the overwhelming majority of humanity.
While one extreme event cannot be solely attributed to global heating, scientific studies have shown that such events are much more likely in a warmer world. Since the Paris agreement, our understanding of the impacts of global heating have also improved.
Fishing boat dwarfed by icebergs that came off Greenland’s largest glacier, Jakobshavn Isbrae. Jonathan Bamber, Author provided
Rising sea levels are an inevitable consequence of global warming. This is due to the combination of increased land ice melting and warmer oceans, which cause the volume of ocean water to increase. Recent research shows that in order to eliminate the human-induced component of sea-level rise, we need to return to temperatures last seen in the pre-industrial era (usually taken to be around 1850).
Perhaps more worrying are tipping points in the climate system that are effectively irreversible on human timescales if passed. Two of these tipping points relate to the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Together, these sheets contain enough ice to raise the global sea level by more than ten metres.
The temperature threshold for these ice sheets is uncertain, but we know that it lies close to 1.5℃ of global heating above pre-industrial era levels. There’s even evidence that suggests the threshold may already have been passed in one part of west Antarctica.
Critical boundaries
A temperature change of 1.5℃ might sound quite small. But it’s worth noting that the rise of modern civilisation and the agricultural revolution some 12,000 years ago took place during a period of exceptionally stable temperatures.
Our food production, global infrastructure and ecosystem services (the goods and services provided by ecosystems to humans) are all intimately tied to that stable climate. For example, historical evidence shows that a period called the little ice age (1400-1850), when glaciers grew extensively in the northern hemisphere and frost fairs were held annually on the River Thames, was caused by a much smaller temperature change of only about 0.3℃.
Jasper National Park, Canada. Glaciers used to grow extensively in the Northern Hemisphere. Matty Symons/Shutterstock
A recent review of the current research in this area introduces a concept called “Earth system boundaries”, which defines various thresholds beyond which life on our planet would suffer substantial harm. To avoid passing multiple critical boundaries, the authors stress the need to limit temperature rise to 1℃ or less.
In our new research, we also argue that warming of more than 1℃ risks unsafe and harmful outcomes. This potentially includes sea level rise of multiple metres, more intense hurricanes and more frequent weather extremes.
More affordable renewable energy
Although we are already at 1.2℃ above pre-industrial temperatures, reducing global temperatures is not an impossible task. Our research presents a roadmap based on current technologies that can help us work towards achieving the 1℃ warming goal. We do not need to pull a technological “rabbit out of the hat”, but instead we need to invest and implement existing approaches, such as renewable energy, at scale.
Renewable energy sources have become increasingly affordable over time. Between 2010 and 2021, the cost of producing electricity from solar energy reduced by 88%, while wind power saw a reduction of 67% over the same period. The cost of power storage in batteries (for when the availability of wind and sunlight is low) has also decreased, by 70% between 2014 and 2020.
The cost disparity between renewable energy and alternative sources like nuclear and fossil fuels is now huge – there is a three to four-fold difference.
In addition to being affordable, renewable energy sources are abundantly available and could swiftly meet society’s energy demands. Massive capacity expansions are also currently underway across the globe, which will only further bolster the renewable energy sector. Global solar energy manufacturing capacity, for example, is expected to double in 2023 and 2024.
Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Low-cost renewable energy will enable our energy systems to transition away from fossil fuels. But it also provides the means of directly removing CO₂ from the atmosphere at a large scale.
CO₂ removal is crucial for keeping warming to 1℃ or less, even though it requires a significant amount of energy. According to research, achieving a safe climate would require dedicating between 5% and 10% of total power generation demand to effective CO₂ removal. This represents a realistic and attainable policy option.
Various measures are used to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. These include nature-based solutions like reforestation, as well as direct air carbon capture and storage. Trees absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and then lock it up for centuries.
Direct air capture technology was originally developed in the 1960s for air purification on submarines and spacecrafts. But it has since been further adapted for use on land. When combined with underground storage methods, such as the process of converting CO₂ into stone, this technology provides a safe and permanent method of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.
Our paper demonstrates that the tools and technology exist to achieve a safer, healthier and more prosperous future – and that it’s economically viable to do so. What appears to be lacking is the societal will and, as a consequence, the political conviction and commitment to achieve it.
The day before new UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget plan for economic growth, a pound would buy you about $1.13. After financial markets rejected the plan, the pound suddenly sunk to around $1.07. Though it has since rallied thanks to major intervention from the Bank of England, the currency remains volatile and far below its value earlier this year.
A lot has been written about how this will affect people’s incomes, the housing market or overall political and economic conditions. But we want to look at why the weak pound is bad news for the UK’s natural environment and its ability to hit climate targets.
1. The low-carbon economy just became a lot more expensive
The fall in sterling’s value partly signals a loss in confidence in the value of UK assets following the unfunded tax commitments contained in the mini-budget. The government’s aim to achieve net zero by 2050 requires substantial public and private investment in energy technologies such as solar and wind as well as carbon storage, insulation and electric cars.
But the loss in investor confidence threatens to derail these investments, because firms may be unwilling to commit the substantial budgets required in an uncertain economic environment. The cost of these investments may also rise as a result of the falling pound because many of the materials and inputs needed for these technologies, such as batteries, are imported and a falling pound increases their prices.
UK wind power relies on lots of imported parts. Richard Whitcombe / shutterstock
2. High interest rates may rule out large investment
To support the pound and to control inflation, interest rates are expected to rise further. The UK is already experiencing record levels of inflation, fuelled by pandemic-related spending and Russia’s war on Ukraine. Rising consumer prices developed into a full-blown cost of living crisis, with fuel and food poverty, financial hardship and the collapse of businesses looming large on this winter’s horizon.
While the anticipated increase in interest rates might ease the cost of living crisis, it also increases the cost of government borrowing at a time when we rapidly need to increase low-carbon investment for net zero by 2050. The government’s official climate change advisory committee estimates that an additional £4 billion to £6 billion of annual public spending will be needed by 2030.
Some of this money should be raised through carbon taxes. But in reality, at least for as long as the cost of living crisis is ongoing, if the government is serious about green investment it will have to borrow.
Rising interest rates will push up the cost of borrowing relentlessly and present a tough political choice that seemingly pits the environment against economic recovery. As any future incoming government will inherit these same rates, a falling pound threatens to make it much harder to take large-scale, rapid environmental action.
3. Imports will become pricier
In addition to increased supply prices for firms and rising borrowing costs, it will lead to a significant rise in import prices for consumers. Given the UK’s reliance on imports, this is likely to affect prices for food, clothing and manufactured goods.
At the consumer level, this will immediately impact marginal spending as necessary expenditures (housing, energy, basic food and so on) lower the budget available for products such as eco-friendly cleaning products, organic foods or ethically made clothes. Buying “greener” products typically cost a family of four around £2,000 a year.
Instead, people may have to rely on cheaper goods that also come with larger greenhouse gas footprints and wider impacts on the environment through pollution and increased waste. See this calculator for direct comparisons.
Of course, some spending changes will be positive for the environment, for example if people use their cars less or take fewer holidays abroad. However, high-income individuals who will benefit the most from the mini-budget tax cuts will be less affected by the falling pound and they tend to fly more, buy more things, and have multiple cars and bigger homes to heat.
This raises profound questions about inequality and injustice in UK society. Alongside increased fuel poverty and foodbank use, we will see an uptick in the purchasing power of the wealthiest.
What’s next
Interest rate rises increase the cost of servicing government debt as well as the cost of new borrowing. One estimate says that the combined cost to government of the new tax cuts and higher cost of borrowing is around £250 billion. This substantial loss in government income reduces the budget available for climate change mitigation and improvements to infrastructure.
The government’s growth plan also seems to be based on an increased use of fossil fuels through technologies such as fracking. Given the scant evidence for absolutely decoupling economic growth from resource use, the opposition’s “green growth” proposal is also unlikely to decarbonise at the rate required to get to net zero by 2050 and avert catastrophic climate change.
Therefore, rather than increasing the energy and materials going into the economy for the sake of GDP growth, we would argue the UK needs an economic reorientation that questions the need of growth for its own sake and orients it instead towards social equality and ecological sustainability.
From a social scientist’s point of view, the recent IPCC report and the reception it has received are a bit odd. The report certainly reflects a huge amount of work, its message is vital, and it’s great so many people are hearing it. But not much in the report updates how we think about climate change. We’ve known for a while that people are changing the climate, and that how much more the climate changes will depend on the decisions we make.
What decisions? The Summary for Policymakers— the scientists’ memo to the people who will make the really important choices—doesn’t say. The words “fossil fuel”, “oil”, and “coal” never even appear. Nor “regulation”, “ban”, “subsidy”, or “tax”. The last five pages of the 42-page Summary are entitled “Limiting Future Climate Change”; but while “policymakers” appear, “policies” do not.
This is not the fault of the authors; Working Group I’s remit does not include policy recommendations. Even Working Group III (focused on mitigation) is not allowed to advocate for specific choices. Yet every IPCC contributor knows the most important question is which emission pathway we take, and that will depend on what policies we choose.
Which is why it’s so odd that big policy issues and announcements get comparatively little airtime (and research funding). For example, in June, the European Union codified in law the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 55% by 2030 (relative to 1990), and last month the European Commission presented a set of ambitious proposals for hitting that target. As a continent, Europe is already leading the world in emission reductions (albeit starting from a high level, with large cumulative historical emissions), and showing the rest of the world how to organize high-income societies in low-carbon ways. But the Commission’s proposals—called “Fit for 55”—have gone largely under the radar, not only outside of the EU but even within it.
The proposals are worth examining. At least according to the Commission, they will make the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions consistent with its commitments under the Paris Agreement. (Independent assessments generally agree that while a 55% reduction by 2030 won’t hit the Paris Agreement’s 1.5˚ target, it would be a proportionate contribution to the goal of limiting global heating to no more than 2˚.) And they will build on the EU’s prior reduction of its territorial emissions by 24% between 1990 and 2019.
A change of -24% over that period, and -18% for consumption emissions, is in one sense disappointing, given that climate scientists were warning about the need for action even before 1990. But this achievement, inadequate though it may be, far exceeds those of other high per-capita emitters, like the U.S. (+14%), Canada (+21%), or Australia (+54%).
The most notable reductions have been in the areas of electricity generation and heavy industry—sectors covered by the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS). Emissions from buildings have not declined as much, and those from transportation (land, air, and marine) have risen. Several of the Fit for 55 proposals therefore focus on these sectors. Maritime transport is to be incorporated into the ETS; free permits for aviation are to be eliminated; and a new, separate ETS for fuels used in buildings and land transport is to be established. Sales of new cars and trucks with internal combustion engines will end as of 2035, and increased taxes will apply to fuels for transport, heat, and electricity.
The Commission also proposes to cut emissions under the ETS by 4.2% each year (rather than 2.2% currently); expand the share of electricity sourced from renewables; and set a stricter (lower) target for the total amount of energy the EU will use by 2030—for the sake of greater energy efficiency.
All of this is going to be hugely contentious, and it will take a year or two at least for the Commission, the member-states, and the European Parliament to negotiate a final version. Corporate lobbying will shape the outcome, as will public opinion (paywall).
Two of the most interesting proposals are meant to head off opposition from industry and voters. A carbon border adjustment mechanism will put a price on greenhouse gases emitted by the production abroad of selected imports into the EU (provisionally cement, fertiliser, iron, steel, electricity, and aluminium). This will protect European producers from competitors subject to weaker rules. A social climate fund, paid for out of the new ETS, will compensate low-income consumers and small businesses for the increased costs of fossil fuels—thereby preventing any rise in fuel poverty.
No country is doing enough to mitigate emissions. But Fit for 55 represents the broadest, most detailed emissions reductions plan in the world—and, in some form, it will be implemented. Decision-makers everywhere should be studying, and making, policies like this.
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This guest blog is by friend of Cabot Insitute for the Environment and PLOS Climate Academic Editor Malcolm Fairbrother. Malcolm is a Professor of Sociology at Umeå University (Sweden), the Institute for Futures Studies (Stockholm), and University of Graz (Austria). Twitter: @malcolmfair. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Malcolm Fairbrother. View the original blog.
Is hydrogen the lifeblood of a low-carbon future, or an overhyped distraction from real solutions? One thing is certain – the coal, oil and natural gas which currently power much of daily life must be phased out within coming decades. From the cars we drive to the energy that heats our homes, these fossil fuels are deeply embedded in society and the global economy. But is the best solution in all cases to swap them with hydrogen – a fuel which only produces water vapour, and not CO₂, when burned?
Answering that question are six experts in engineering, physics and chemistry.
Road and rail
Hu Li, Associate Professor of Energy Engineering, University of Leeds
Transport became the UK’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016, contributing about 28% of the country’s total.
Replacing the internal combustion engines of passenger cars and light-duty vehicles with batteries could accelerate the process of decarbonising road transport, but electrification isn’t such a good option for heavy-duty vehicles such as lorries and buses. Compared to gasoline and diesel fuels, the energy density (measured in megajoules per kilogram) of a battery is just 1%. For a 40-tonne truck, just over four tonnes of lithium-ion battery cells are needed for a range of 800 kilometres, compared to just 220 kilograms of diesel.
With the UK government set to ban fossil fuel vehicles from 2035, hydrogen fuel cells could do much of the heavy lifting in decarbonising freight and public transport, where 80% of hydrogen demand in transport is likely to come from.
A fuel cell generates electricity through a chemical reaction between the stored hydrogen and oxygen, producing water and hot air as a byproduct. Vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells have a similar driving range and can be refuelled about as quickly as internal combustion engine vehicles, another reason they’re useful for long-haul and heavy-duty transport.
Hydrogen fuel can be transported as liquid or compressed gas by existing natural gas pipelines, which will save millions on infrastructure and speed up its deployment. Even existing internal combustion engines can use hydrogen, but there are problems with fuel injection, reduced power output, onboard storage and emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), which can react in the lower atmosphere to form ozone – a greenhouse gas. The goal should be to eventually replace internal combustion engines with hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles that are too large for lithium-ion batteries. But in the meantime, blending with other fuels or using a diesel-hydrogen hybrid could help lower emissions.
It’s very important to consider where the hydrogen comes from though. Hydrogen can be produced by splitting water with electricity in a process called electrolysis. If the electricity was generated by renewable sources such as solar and wind, the resulting fuel is called green hydrogen. It can be used in the form of compressed gas or liquid and converted to methane, methanol, ammonia and other synthetic liquid fuels.
But nearly all of the 27 terawatt-hours (TWh) of hydrogen currently used in the UK is produced by reforming fossil fuels, which generates nine tonnes of CO₂ for every tonne of hydrogen. This is currently the cheapest option, though some experts predict that green hydrogen will be cost-competitive by 2030. In the meantime, governments will need to ramp up the production of vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells and storage tanks and build lots of refuelling points.
Hydrogen can play a key role in decarbonising rail travel too, alongside other low-carbon fuels, such as biofuels. In the UK, 6,049 kilometres of mainline routes run on electricity – that’s 38% of the total. Trains powered by hydrogen fuel cells offer a zero-emission alternative to diesel trains.
The Coradia iLint, which entered commercial service in Germany in 2018, is the world’s first hydrogen-powered train. The UK recently launched mainline testing of its own hydrogen-powered train, though the UK trial aims to retrofit existing diesel trains rather than design and build entirely new ones.
Aviation
Valeska Ting, Professor of Smart Nanomaterials, University of Bristol
Of all of the sectors that we need to decarbonise, air travel is perhaps the most challenging. While cars and boats can realistically switch to batteries or hybrid technologies, the sheer weight of even the lightest batteries makes long-haul electric air travel tricky.
Single-seat concept planes such as the Solar Impulse generate their energy from the sun, but they can’t generate enough based on the efficiency of current solar cells alone so must also use batteries. Other alternatives include synthetic fuels or biofuels, but these could just defer or reduce carbon emissions, rather than eliminate them altogether, as a carbon-free fuel like green hydrogen could.
Hydrogen is extremely light and contains three times more energy per kilogram than jet fuel, which is why it’s traditionally used to power rockets. Companies including Airbus are already developing commercial zero-emission aircraft that run on hydrogen. This involves a radical redesign of their fleet to accommodate liquid hydrogen fuel tanks.
An artist’s impression of what hydrogen-powered commercial flight might look like. Airbus
There are some technical challenges though. Hydrogen is a gas at room temperature, so very low temperatures and special equipment are needed to store it as a liquid. That means more weight, and subsequently, more fuel. However, research we’re doing at the Bristol Composites Institute is helping with the design of lightweight aircraft components made out of composite materials. We’re also looking at nanoporous materials that behave like molecular sponges, spontaneously absorbing and storing hydrogen at high densities for onboard hydrogen storage in future aircraft designs.
France and Germany are investing billions in hydrogen-powered passenger aircraft. But while the development of these new aircraft by industry continues apace, international airports will also need to rapidly invest in infrastructure to store and deliver liquid hydrogen to refuel them. There’s a risk that fleets of hydrogen aeroplanes could take off before there’s a sufficient fuel supply chain to sustain them.
Heating
Tom Baxter, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen & Ernst Worrell, Professor of Energy, Resources and Technological Change, Utrecht University
If the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hydrogen’s recommendations are taken up, the UK government is likely to support hydrogen as a replacement fuel for heating buildings in its next white paper. The other option for decarbonising Britain’s gas heating network is electricity. So which is likely to be a better choice – a hydrogen boiler in every home or an electric heat pump?
First there’s the price of fuel to consider. When hydrogen is generated through electrolysis, between 30-40% of the original electric energy is lost. One kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity in a heat pump may generate 3-5 kWh of heat, while the same kWh of electricity gets you only 0.6-0.7 kWh of heat with a hydrogen-fuelled boiler. This means that generating enough hydrogen fuel to heat a home will require electricity generated from four times as many turbines and solar panels than a heat pump. Because heat pumps need so much less energy overall to supply the same amount of heat, the need for large amounts of stored green energy on standby is much less. Even reducing these losses with more advanced technology, hydrogen will remain relatively expensive, both in terms of energy and money.
So using hydrogen to heat homes isn’t cheap for consumers. Granted, there is a higher upfront cost for installing an electric heat pump. That could be a serious drawback for cash-strapped households, though heat pumps heat a property using around a quarter of the energy of hydrogen. In time, lower fuel bills would more than cover the installation cost.
Replacing natural gas with hydrogen in the UK’s heating network isn’t likely to be simple either. Per volume, the energy density of hydrogen gas is about one-third that of natural gas, so converting to hydrogen will not only require new boilers, but also investment in grids to increase how much fuel they can deliver. The very small size of hydrogen molecules mean they’re much more prone to leaking than natural gas molecules. Ensuring that the existing gas distribution system is fit for hydrogen could prove quite costly.
In high-density housing in inner cities, district heating systems – which distribute waste heat from power plants and factories into homes – could be a better bet in a warming climate, as, like heat pumps, they can cool homes as well as heat them.
Above all, this stresses the importance of energy efficiency, what the International Energy Agency calls the first fuel in buildings. Retrofitting buildings with insulation to make them energy efficient and switching boilers for heat pumps is the most promising route for the vast majority of buildings. Hydrogen should be reserved for applications where there are few or no alternatives. Space heating of homes and buildings, except for limited applications like in particularly old homes, is not one of them.
Electricity and energy storage
Petra de Jongh, Professor of Catalysts and Energy Storage Materials, Utrecht University
Fossil fuels have some features that seem impossible to beat. They’re packed full of energy, they’re easy to burn and they’re compatible with most engines and generators. Producing electricity using gas, oil, or coal is cheap, and offers complete certainty about, and control over, the amount of electricity you get at any point in time.
Meanwhile, how much wind or solar electricity we can generate isn’t something that we enjoy a lot of control over. It’s difficult to even adequately predict when the sun will shine or the wind will blow, so renewable power output fluctuates. Electricity grids can only tolerate a limited amount of fluctuation, so being able to store excess electricity for later is key to switching from fossil fuels.
Hydrogen seems ideally suited to meet this challenge. Compared to batteries, the storage capacity of hydrogen is unlimited – the electrolyser which produces it from water never fills up. Hydrogen can be converted back into electricity using a fuel cell too, though quite a bit of energy is lost in the process.
Unfortunately, hydrogen is the lightest gas and so it’s difficult to store and transport it. It can be liquefied or stored at very high pressures. But then there’s the cost – green hydrogen is still two to three times more expensive than that produced from natural gas, and the costs are even higher if an electrolyser is only used intermittently. Ideally, we could let hydrogen react with CO₂, either captured from the air or taken from flue gases, to produce renewable liquid fuels that are carbon-neutral, an option that we’re investigating at the Debye Institute at Utrecht University.
Heavy industry
Stephen Carr, Lecturer in Energy Physics, University of South Wales
Industry is the second most polluting sector in the UK after transport, accounting for 21% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. A large proportion of these emissions come from processes involving heat, whether it’s firing a kiln to very high temperatures to produce cement or generating steam to use in an oven making food. Most of this heat is currently generated using natural gas, which will need to be swapped out with a zero-carbon fuel, or electricity.
Let’s look in depth at one industry: ceramics manufacturing. Here, high-temperature direct heating is required, where the flame or hot gases touch the material being heated. Natural gas-fired burners are currently used for this. Biomass can generate zero-carbon heat, but biomass supplies are limited and aren’t best suited to use in direct heating. Using an electric kiln would be efficient, but it would entail an overhaul of existing equipment. Generating electricity has a comparably high cost too.
Swapping natural gas with hydrogen in burners could be cheaper overall, and would require only slight changes to equipment. The Committee on Climate Change, which advises the UK government, reports that 90 TWh of industrial fossil fuel energy per year (equivalent to the total annual consumption of Wales) could be replaced with hydrogen by 2040. Hydrogen will be the cheapest option in most cases, while for 15 TWh of industrial fossil fuel energy, hydrogen is the only suitable alternative.
Hydrogen is already used in industrial processes such as oil refining, where it’s used to react with and remove unwanted sulphur compounds. Since most hydrogen currently used in the UK is derived from fossil fuels, it will be necessary to ramp up renewable energy capacity to deliver truly green hydrogen before it can replace the high-carbon fuels powering industrial processes.
The same rule applies to each of these sectors – hydrogen is only as green as the process that produced it. Green hydrogen will be part of the solution in combination with other technologies and measures, including lithium-ion batteries, and energy efficiency. But the low-carbon fuel will be most useful in decarbonising the niches that are currently difficult for electrification to reach, such as heavy-duty vehicles and industrial furnaces.
A new report backed by MPs and launched by Minister for Climate Change Lord Duncan on 15 October 2019, calls for an urgent Green Heat Roadmap by 2020 to scale low carbon heating technologies and help Britain’s homeowners access the advice they need to take smarter greener choices on heating their homes. The year-long study by UK think-tank Policy Connect warns that the UK will miss its 2050 net-zero climate target “unless radical changes in housing policy, energy policy and climate policy are prioritised”. Dr Colin Nolden was at the launch on behalf of the Cabot Institute for the Environment and blogs here on the most interesting highlights of the report and questions raised.
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Policy Connect had invited a range of industry, policy, academic and civil society representatives to the launch of their Uncomfortable Home Truths report. The keynote, no less than Lord Duncan of Springbank, Minister for Climate Change, and the high-level panel consisting of Maxine Frerk, Grid Edge Policy (Chair), Alan Brown MP, House of Commons (SNP), Dr Alan Whitehead MP, House of Commons (Labour), Dhara Vyas, Citizens Advice, Adam Turk, BAXI Heating (sponsor) and Mike Foster, EUA (Energy & Utilities Alliance), (sponsor), had been briefed to answer tough questions from the crowd given the UK’s poor track record in the area of heat and home decarbonisation.
The event started with an introduction by Jonathan Shaw, Chief Executive of Policy Connect, who introduced the panel and officially launched the report. Uncomfortable Home Truths is the third report of the Future Gas Series, the first two of which focused on low-carbon gas options. This last report of the series shifts the focus from particular technologies and vectors towards heating, households and consumers. Jonathan subsequently introduced the keynote speaker Lord Duncan of Springbank, Minister for Climate Change.
Lord Duncan supported the publication of this report as timely and relevant especially in relation to the heat policy roadmap that government intends to publish in 2020. He stressed the importance of a cultural shift which needs to take place to start addressing the issue of heat at household and consumer level. He was adamant that the government was aligning its policies and strategies with its zero-carbon target according to the Committee on Climate Change and guided by science and policy. In this context he bemoaned the drive by some country representatives to put into question the targets of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change which he had witnessed as the UK’s key representative at the run-up to COP25 in Chile. The 2020 roadmap will report on the decisions which will need to be taken in homes and in technology networks, ranging from heat pumps to hydrogen and low-carbon electricity to support their decarbonisation. It requires cross-party support while depending on more research and learning from successful examples in other European countries.
Although Lord Duncan suggested that ‘it’s easier to decarbonise a power plant than a terraced house’, he told the audience to take encouragement from the fuel shift from coal towards gas starting half a century ago. But in this context he once again stressed the cultural shift which needs to go hand-in-hand with government commitment and technological progression, using the example of TV-chefs shunning electric hobs as an indication of our cultural affinity for gas. As long as heating and cooking are framed around fossil fuels, there is little space in the cultural imagination to encourage a shift towards more sustainable energy sources.
“The example of TV-chefs shunning electric hobs is an indication of our cultural affinity for gas”. Image source.
Among the questions following the keynote, one quizzed Lord Duncan about the process and politics of outsourcing carbon emissions. Lord Duncan stressed his support of Border Carbon Adjustments compliant with EU and global carbon policy ‘in lock-step with our partners’ to ensure that carbon emissions are not simply exported, which appears to support the carbon club concept. Another question targeted the UK’s favourable regulatory environment that has been created around gas, which has resulted in the EU’s lowest gas prices, while electricity prices are highest in Europe, due, among other things, to Climate Change Levies, which do not apply to gas, increasing by 46% on 1 April 2019. Lord Duncan pointed towards the ongoing review of policies ahead of the publication of the 2020 heat roadmap which will hopefully take a more vector- and technology-neutral approach. A subsequent rebuttal by a Committee on Climate Change (CCC) representative stressed the CCCs recommendation to balance policy cost between gas and electricity as on average only 20,000 heat pumps are sold in the UK every year (compared to 7 times as many in Sweden) yet the Renewable Heat Incentive is about to be terminated without an adequate replacement to support the diffusion of low-carbon electric heating technologies.
Lord Duncan stressed the need to create a simple ‘road’ which does not fall with changes in policy and once again emphasized the need for a cross-party road to support the creation of a low-carbon heating pathway. A UKERC representative asked about the government approach to real-world data as opposed to modelling exercises and their support for collaborative research projects as both modelling and competitive approaches have failed, especially in relation to Carbon Capture and Storage. Lord Duncan responded that the UK is already collaborating with Denmark and Norway on CCS and that more money is being invested into scalable and replicable demonstrators.
Following an admission wrapped in metaphors that a change in government might be around the corner and that roadmaps need to outlast such changes, Lord Duncan departed to make way for Joanna Furtado, lead author of the Policy Connect report. She gave a very concise overview of the main findings and recommendations in the report:
The 80% 2050 carbon emission reduction target relative to 1990 already required over 20,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week between 2025 and 2050. The zero-carbon target requires even more rapid decarbonisation yet the most successful policy constellations to date have only succeeded in encouraging 2,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week.
This emphasizes the importance of households and citizens but many barriers to their engagement persist such as privacy issues, disruption associated with implementation, uncertainly, low priority, lack of awareness and confusion around best approaches, opportunities, regulations and support.
Despite the focus on households, large-scale rollout also requires the development of supply chains so at-scale demonstrations need to go hand-in-hand with protection and engagement of households by increasing the visibility of successful approaches. Community-led and local approaches have an important role to play but better monitoring is required to differentiate between more and less successful approaches.
Protection needs to be changed to facilitate the inclusion of innovative technologies which are rarely covered while installers need to be trained to build confidence in their installations.
Regional intermediaries, such as those in Scotland and Wales, need to be established to coordinate these efforts locally while at national level a central delivery body such as the one established for the 2020 Olympics in London needs to coordinate the actions of the regional intermediaries.
Ultimately, social aspects are critical to the delivery of low-carbon heat, ranging from the central delivery body through regional intermediaries down to households and citizens.
Chaired by Maxine Frerk of Grid Edge Policy, the panel discussion kicked off with Alan Brown who stressed the urgency of the heating decarbonisation issue as encapsulated by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion and the need to operationalize the climate emergency into actions. He called for innovation in the gas grid in line with cautions Health and Safety Regulation alterations. Costs also need to be socialised to ensure that the low-carbon transition does not increase fuel poverty. His final point stressed the need reorganize government to make climate change and decarbonisation a number 1 priority.
Dr Alan Whitehead, who has been involved with the APPCCG from the beginning, emphasized how discussions around heat decarbonisation have progressed significantly in recent years and especially since the publication of the first report of this series. He suggested that the newest report writes the government roadmap for them. In relation to the wider context of decarbonising heat, Alan Whitehead encouraged a mainstreaming of heating literacy similar to the growing awareness of plastic. He also stressed how far the UK is lagging behind compared to other countries and this will be reflected in upcoming policies and roadmaps. As his final point Alan Whitehead cautioned that the low-intrusion option of gas-boiler upgrades from biomethane to hydrogen ignores the fact that greater change is necessary for the achievement of the zero-carbon target although he conceded that customer acceptance of gas engineer intervention appears to be high.
Dhara Vyas presented Citizens Advice perspective by stressing the importance of the citizen-consumer focus. Their research has revealed a lack of understanding among landlords and tenants of the rules and regulations that govern heat. She suggested that engagement with the public from the outset is essential to protect consumers as people are not sufficiently engaged with heating and energy in general. Even for experts it is very difficult to navigate all aspects of energy due to the high transaction costs associated with engagement to enable a transition on the scale required by government targets.
Finally, representatives of the two sponsors BAXI and the Energy & Utility Alliance made a rallying call for the transition of the gas grid towards hydrogen. Adam Turk emphasized the need to legislate and innovate appropriately to ensure that the 84% of households that are connected to the gas grid can receive upgrades to their boilers to make them hydrogen ready. Similarly, Mike Foster suggested that such an upgrade now takes less than 1 hour and that the gas industry already engages around 2 million consumers a year. Both suggested that the gas industry is well placed to put consumers at the heart of action. They were supported by several members of the audience who pointed towards the 150,000 trained gas service engineers and the ongoing distribution infrastructure upgrades towards plastic piping which facilitate a transition towards hydrogen. Other members of the audience, on the other hand, placed more emphasis on energy efficiency and the question of trust.
Sponsorship of the Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers, EUC (Energy & Utility Alliance) and BAXI Heating was evident in the title Future Gas Series and support for hydrogen and ‘minimal homeowner disruption’ boiler conversion to support this vector shift among members of the audience was evident. Nevertheless, several panel members, members of the audience and, above all, Lord Duncan of Springbank, stressed the need to consider a wider range of options to achieve the zero-carbon target. Electrification and heat pumps in particular were the most prominent among these options. Energy efficiency and reductions in energy demand, as is usual at such events, barely received a mention. I guess it’s difficult to cut a ribbon when there’s less of something as opposed to something new and shiny?
Climate scientists have made it clear: we are in a global state of emergency. The International Panel on Climate Change report published late last year was a wake-up call to the world – if we don’t limit warming to 1.5 degrees, 10 million more people will be exposed to flood risk. If we don’t, it will be much, much harder to grow crops and have affordable food. If we don’t, we’ll have more extreme weather, which will undoubtedly impact the most vulnerable. If we don’t, the coral reefs will be almost 100% gone.
And yet… National governments are failing to act with the urgency demanded by our climate crisis. The commitments each country made to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement won’t get us there – not even close.
How can we make progress in the face of political paralysis?
The answer is local action. Specifically, it’s action at the city-scale that has excited and inspired a plethora of researchers at the Cabot Institute in recent years. Cities are complex places of contradiction – they are where our most significant environmental impacts will be borne out through consumption and emissions, whilst simultaneously being places of inspirational leadership, of rapid change, and of innovation.
City governments across the world are increasingly taking the lead and recognising that radically changing the way our cities are designed and powered is essential to reducing carbon emissions [ref 1; ref 2]. They are standing against national powers to make a change (see for example We Are Still In, a coalition of cities and other non-state actors responding to Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement). And they are forming innovative partnerships to galvanise action quickly – both in terms of lowering emissions and planning for adaptation to climate change (see for example C40 Cities or 100 Resilient Cities).
Bristol is among them. It was a combination of grass-roots leadership and City support that led to Bristol being the first and only UK city to be awarded the title of European Green Capital in 2015. In November 2018, Bristol City Council unanimously passed the Council Motion to declare a Climate Emergency in Bristol and pledge to make the city Carbon neutral by 2030. It was the first local government authority to do so in the UK.
Today, the University of Bristol is the first UK university to stand alongside its city and declare a Climate Emergency. Far from being a symbolic gesture, these declarations reflect strong local political will to tackle climate change, and they are backed up by action at all levels of the University – from committing to become a carbon neutral campus by 2030, to making education on sustainable futures available to every student.
What’s clear, and potentially even more exciting, is that Universities and cities have a unique opportunity collaborate to innovate for change in truly meaningful and cutting-edge ways.
Bristol City Council has been working closely with both academics and students at the University of Bristol to explore ways to deliver the highly ambitious target of carbon neutrality by 2030. Cabot Institute researchers have also been working alongside the City Office to embed the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the recently launched One City Plan, which reflects a unique effort to bring together partners from across the public, private and non-profit sectors to collectively define a vision for the city and chart a path towards achieving it. There are many organisations and citizens working to make Bristol more sustainable. The One City Plan is designed to amplify these efforts by improving coordination and encouraging new partnerships.
The good news is that Bristol has already begun reducing its carbon emissions, having cut per capita emissions by 1.76 tonnes since 2010. However, we need to accelerate decarbonisation to avert a crisis and make our contribution to tackling the climate emergency.
We can achieve this in Bristol if we work together in partnership, and we must. We simply cannot wait for our national governments to act. We look forward to standing with our city to meet this challenge together.
Dr Sean Fox, Senior Lecturer in Global Development in the School of Geographical Sciences and City Futures theme lead at Cabot Institute for the Environment.
Hayley Shaw, Manager of Cabot Institute for the Environment.
As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry. We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Technologies of the future: clean growth and innovation’.
1. Background
Today over 94% of the energy market in the UK is dominated by the Major Power Producers (MPP) who generate electricity and feed it to households and businesses over the grid [1].
Historically, to cut down on the fuel transportation costs, the major generation plants had to be located close to the fuel sources, i.e., where coal and oil were mined. The generated electricity would then be transmitted through power lines and distribution stations down to the households and businesses who would use the electricity up.
This structure of the industry was based on several constraints:
Electricity generation locations are constrained by the location of fossil sources (as it is cheaper and easier to transmit the generated electricity than to move fuel around);
Electricity generation requires large investments into large plants (due to economies of scale of the generation technology);
Electricity end users are only interested in consumption, and do not want to know much else about electricity itself.
Yet, technological advances as well as the societal understanding of the implications of the fossil fuel use have dramatically changed the framework within which the energy system operates:
Renewable generation technologies (such as solar panels, wind turbines, small hydro turbines) are now widely available for individual household and small community use.
As (most) renewable generation resources (e.g., solar or wind) are available where consumers are, it is technologically possible and economically affordable to generate and consume electricity locally, without centralised generation and transmission;
End users are increasingly interested in the environmental and social impact of the generated electricity, not only in consumption.
All the above, combined with the governmental subsidies for renewables installations (e.g., feed-in-tariffs) have led to a recent growth of micro-generation in the UK (i.e., individuals or organisations with small-scale energy generation, such as domestic wind or solar PV units). Such micro-generators consume their own generated energy and sell any excess back to the grid. Such generation offers the potential for a distributed model of energy generation and consumption that is not reliant on MPPs.
Challenge
Though presently, there is a successful renewables-based ecosystem in the UK, it has been largely driven by governmental subsidies. However, these subsides are now set to be withdrawn. As of March 2019 no new installations will be eligible to feed-in-tariffs. Will this result in fall of the renewables sector, as already experienced by solar PV sector in Spain [2] when their solar PV subsidies were removed? Or can UK micro-generators find another way of ensuring viability of renewable installations?
Opportunities
Research at the University of Bristol suggests that a subsidy-free localised renewables-based energy sector is not only possible but is also the best solution to the energy security and affordability dilemma. Our proposed model for the new, modernised UK energy sector is based around localised, but globally interconnected peer-to-peer energy markets underpinned by digital technology. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1: Peninsula peer-to-peer energy market (from [6])
2. Peer-to-Peer energy market underpinned by digital platform
In a peer-to-peer energy market any two individuals/households can directly buy from and sell to each other, without intermediating third parties. These households can be both prosumers (i.e., producing and consuming own renewables-based electricity, as well as selling the excess to others), on simply consumers (if they have not own generation). Yet, unlike most microgrids, this is not an islanded model – which would require complete internal balance of supply and demand – but rather a “peninsula”. Where the locality experiences shortage or excess generation, the demand/supply are imbalance is resolved through trade with the other localities or the grid at large. The key advantages here are in providing avenues for:
Additional income streams to households with microgeneration – where the feed in tariff is no longer pays for the extra generation, the peers who use the energy do. Moreover, the price of the locally generated/consumed energy is more competitive than that of the grid supply as it does not need to pay the same full transmission, distribution, and utilities services charges. (Though I must underline that, as each locality remains interconnected with the gird, the energy costs will still include grid connection and maintenance changes. This is because the intermittency of the renewables generation must be insured against, and grid provides such an insurance and balancing services.)
Increasing value proposition of microgeneration and energy storage – the microgenerators are not only getting return to their generation investment, but are also supporting local communities’ energy needs, contributing to the decarbonisation and energy security efforts.
Increased control over source of supply – consumers are now able to express their preferences on energy purchase: do they wish to buy solar or wind, from the closest geographically located producer or from the cheapest supplier; do producers wish to donate their excess generation to the local school or to their extended family members, or to sell it to the highest bidder? All these options become viable when peers directly buy and sell from each other.
Such an energy system, however, cannot exist without a reliable and trusted digital platform which will both remove the 3rd party intermediation, and advertise the sale and purchase orders between the trading parties, undertake the users’ preferences-based matching of these orders, ensure security of the transitions, transparency of the trades, and accountability of the transaction participants.
Tooperate in such market:
the consumers and prosumers would join the platform and publish their preferences (e.g., sell to the highest bidder, or buy solar energy only, etc.);
the participants will they use their smart meter data to periodically (e.g., for every 15 min or half an hour) publish their sale and purchase orders on a digital platform;
for each trading period (e.g., 15 min.) the platform will match best fitting sale and purchase orders, and settle transaction accounts.
Note, (as illustrated in Fig 2) while in the current intermediated market the utilities act as the contracting parties between the prosumers, consumers and the energy market (see Fig. 2.a), in this peer-to-peer market each prosumer/consumer is the immediate contracting party itself (see Fig. 2.b).
Figure 2: Energy Market Dis-intermediation (from [6])
To realise these demanding requirements, we advocate use of distributed ledger technology for the energy trading platform [3, 4, 7]. Distributed ledgers (which incorporate blockchain and block-free technologies) are decentralised, distributed databases in which all transactions are immutably recorded. In other words, these are databases which are not controlled by any single company or individual, but are run and maintained by their participating membership. Data in these ledgers is redundantly stored in many locations, and cryptographically secured. As a result, once recorded, the data in the ledger cannot be changed and falsified [1].
The details on how to engineer this platform in such a way that engenders trust and participation is a topic of the HoSEM research project [5] and will be detailed in another blog post. For now, let’s assume that this platform is in successful operation. What are the implication of it on the UK energy market?
3. Implications on energy market
Move to a peer-to-peer energy trading over a distributed ledger will lead to several major changes in the UK’s energy system, to name a few:
First and foremost, it changes the structure of the energy system itself – from centralised fossil-based generation to decentralised, distributed, local renewables–based generation and consumption set up;
The digital technology-based market disintermediation (see section 2) deprecates the role of a trusted 3rd party (utilities in this case), reducing both the cost of transactions (i.e., energy) to the end users and allowing for the best possible preferences match to each participant. Now the suppliers are switched every trading period (e.g., every 15 min.), without any effort or cost to the market participants.
This structure also radically changes the role of the energy user – from the passive consumer to an active prosumer. The end user now matters, as every unit of produced and consumed energy is different. It is different because it is produced in the users’ local area, or is originated from solar/wined/gas sources, or is bought from a friend… Then the price of each energy unit is also different and that difference is decided on basis of the participants preferences.
Clearly, many issues remain to be resolved before this shift to a digitally enabled peer to peer market becomes a reality. These include issues of regulation and licensing (presently households are not allowed to act as suppliers in the UK), grid safety (e.g., current frequency assurance), geographical and population density (e.g., rural areas have more renewable per-person than cities), fairness and pricing (more affluent individuals can afford more generation installations), to name a few. Yet, it is encouraging to see that technologically and economically this future can be here already today.
Footnote
[1] Theoretically it is possible, but practically it is improbable, as record falsification is designed to be prohibitively costly [3].
North Yorkshire County Council’s recent decision to approve Third Energy Ltd’s application to begin exploratory fracking in Kirby Misperton (by a majority vote of seven councillors to four) was seen by some as riding roughshod over the democratic process – 36 individual representations were made in support of the application, while 4420 were made against.
On the same day, closer to home, there was news that Bristol Energy Cooperative would soon become the largest generator of community energy in the UK with the development of a 4.2 MW solar farm in Lawrence Weston.
The two organisations could not be further apart. While Third Energy Ltd is a recently registered private equity company with all shares held in house and likely backed by a parent oil and gas company (Third Energy UK Gas Ltd), Bristol Energy Cooperative is a community owned cooperative that has financed solar developments through community share offers, funding from the local council and ethical banks. Although at this stage we don’t know how Third Energy would finance any fracking activities – there is no reason why it couldn’t make a community share offer – Bristol Energy Cooperative has demonstrated with its existing solar developments a way to generate new electricity generation that is participative and engaging rather than exclusionary and remote.
That is not to say that the cooperative model provides all the answers; questions over who has money and time to invest/participate remain. Given the explosion of energy cooperatives and community benefit societies over the last few years, such models are clearly striking a cord with communities around the UK. Nevertheless, as a result of recent cuts in subsidies, we are now entering a period of uncertainty. Many community energy groups are waiting for prices of technology to fall and/or major planning decisions to be made. However, it is unlikely that that is the last we see of community energy organisations, many are working hard to function in the new harsher environment; devising novel models to develop renewable energy in ways that give communities more say.
What these new models might look like is still very much up in the air. With the introduction of Bristol Energy Company and Robin Hood Energy in Nottingham, it might be that we see more collaboration between community energy groups and local councils (or their energy companies) drawing on both their relative strengths to leverage the necessary finance and public support, or we might see larger community energy organisations refocus their efforts by offering direct energy connections (private wire developments) to high energy consumers. There may also be a trend towards scaling-up and turning themselves into energy supply companies or cooperative services providers, and then there are partnerships taking place with traditional energy supply companies.
Whichever models come to thrive in the coming years, there is a growing acceptance that communities should have more, not less, say over how energy is generated at the local level. And with the introduction of Neighbourhood Plans (through the Localism Act 2011) there is a potential regulatory channel that local communities can employ to continue to pursue transparent and open decision-making. If such devolution continues, it seems likely that we will see more active, not less active, communities in all things energy in the years to come.
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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Jack Nicholls, a PhD student in Law and Sociology, Policy and International Studies (SPAIS), who researches renewable energy development at the local scale. He has no financial interests in either Bristol Energy Cooperative or Third Energy Ltd.
The Size of England is an amazing new charity working to raise £13 million to safeguard 13 million hectares of rainforest, which is the size of England, and coincidentally the area of rainforest that is cut down every year globally.
To us, safeguarding is not about owning land – it’s about encouraging those who need the land to use it sustainably and to empower local people and indigenous communities. It’s about establishing local rights to the land and providing alternatives for fuel and initiating tree planting programs to restore habitats.
We know that Size of England can be successful. Last year, the Size of Wales team reached their target of raising £2 million to safeguard 2 million hectares of rainforest. But as you know, we want to raise the game. However in order to do this we need help.
At the moment we are raising money for a start-up fund via a crowdfunding webpage. This is so we can register as a charity and start doing amazing things for the rainforest and the local community. We already have support from brilliant organisations such as Cool Earth, the Prince’s Rainforest Project, WWF and the Crees Foundation, but we can never have enough! We hope, through communication that we can raise the sum whilst also spreading the word of what we want to do, and getting people to ‘like’, ‘follow’ and ‘friend’ the project as it develops.
There are currently three of us, all volunteers with big ideas and ambitions. What we’re asking is can you help the Size of England campaign in other ways? Are you a great fundraiser? Could you improve our website? Have you got legal experience? We’d love to crowd-source skills as well as cash.
Check out our Facebook and Twitter pages. Also take a look at our crowdfunding site if you fancy and pass it on to anyone else who may find it interesting!
