Make July the 16th a Zero Carbon Britain day
New eight page summary document available now
A new 8 page summary of zerocarbonbritain2030 is available for download. The summary covers every area of the full report and gives a brief overview of the key points from each section. The document is ideal if you need a quick introduction to the full report, or if you need an overview of everything covered. You can download the summary document from the link below
Your 2050 Pathway
The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) released a new energy calculator for consultation last July. The tool, 2050 Pathways, demonstrated the alternative ways to meet the governments current emission target (of an 80% cut in emissions by 2050), and will be one source of evidence used to determine the UK’s new carbon budget for 2023 - 2027.
CAT responded to the consultation period with an adapted calculator that integrated the key areas in zerocarbonbritain2030 that were not considered in DECC’s tool. A brief summary of our consultation can be found here, or CAT’s full response can be downloaded from here.
In March DECC concluded the consultation with the 2050 Pathways Analysis, along with a new ‘2050 Web Tool’. The updated calculator is still less ambitions than zerocarbonbritain2030, but it has increased parameters such as more potential for offshore wind, and allows, as our zerocarbonbritain2030 team discovered, to get to ‘zero’ without the need for new nuclear.
See if you can get to zero emissions without using new nuclear, CCS or Clean Coal on DECC’s My 2050 game, and quote zerocarbonbritain2030 in your reasoning to DECC.
Creating a Sustainable, Resilient Wales
CAT attended the third Emergence event last week, a series of seminars hosted by Sustain Wales to stimulate climate change communication within the arts. The day long seminar entitled Resilience, held at Caernarfon Gallery on 21st March, explored the role that creativity and the arts could play in delivering a sustainable, resilient Wales.
‘Resilience is the capacity to absorb, react to and derive benefit from change. It is a quality found in natural ecosystems and human communities. Human resilience draws on our ability to anticipate and plan for the future.’ Sustain Wales
Guest speakers included; Jean Boulton - Visiting Fellow Complex Systems Cranfield School of Management; Menna Elfyn - Award-winning poet and playwright; Ben Todd - Arcola Theatre, London; Bedwyr Williams - winner of a major Creative Wales award 2011; and Eluned Haf – Director of Wales Arts International. Videos of the presentations can be viewed free from the Culture Colony site, once signed in as a ‘visitor’.
Participants of the seminar ranged from practicing artists and national arts organisations, to climate science and psychology experts, who debated how to influence behavioural change, challenge pre-existing narratives and stimulate visual experiences of potential solutions.
Emergence is developed and presented in partnership with Volcano with the support of The Arts Council of Wales, British Council and Galeri. The final seminar in the Emergence series will take place here at The Centre for Alternative Technology this autumn. Visit the Sustain Wales website for more details.
A Future without Nuclear Power is Possible and Safe says CAT
Following the tragic events in Japan the Centre for Alternative Technology is urging the British government to abandon plans for the construction of new nuclear power stations and to phase out current nuclear plants. CAT's report zerocarbonbritain2030 shows how UK's energy needs can be provided without the need for new nuclear power stations. CAT's research demonstrates how the UK could produce all the energy it needs using clean renewable technologies.
CAT spokesperson Paul Allen said: "The tragic events we are witnessing in Japan are a wake up call for the world. We know that we can produce all the energy we need from renewables. Why take the unnecessary risk of building more nuclear power stations?"
<p>WWF’s report takes a similar "power up / power down" approach. However the 50% powering down is not from 50% of current energy, rather it's a 50% reduction on a vastly increased amount of energy we'll be generating we 2050. So the 'power down’ actually results in us using roughly the same amount of energy we do at the moment. The scenario then outlines how we can get all of this energy from renewables.</p>
<p>WWF rely on roughly the same technologies as zerocarbonbritain2030. However there are some additional ones because of the global nature of WWF's energy mix - for example concentrating desert solar, big hydro and geothermal. It's difficult to make a direct comparison between the energy mix proposed by WWF and zerocarbonbritain2030 because WWF are looking at global energy. There are some notable similarities: they have excluded nuclear from the mix for roughly the same reasons we have (waste, fuel supply, risk). The WWF energy mix has a lot of concentrating solar in the Sahara. Their headline "If just 0.3% of the Sahara was a concentrated solar plant, it would power all of Europe". There is also a heavy reliance on wind - on and off shore. A key difference between scenarios is the amount of bio energy: the biggest part of the WWF energy mix is from bio energy from waste.</p>
<p>Just like in zerocarbonbritain2030, WWF anticipate a massive process of electrification in order to deliver the energy. This will mean upgrading the electricity grids of most developed countries and installing suitable grids in less developed countries. Like zerocarbonbritain2030 they also anticipate international electricity grids: while zerocarbonbritain2030 proposes a Europe-wide grid WWF propose a map for a global grid.</p>
<p>To read The Energy Report in full visit <a href="http://www.wwf.org.uk/wwf_articles.cfm?unewsid=4565">WWF</a>.</p>
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