Listen again to Turner

You can listen to Lord Turner answering questions from the select committee here: http://greenworld.jellycast.com/podcast/feed/49 . Alternatively search for greenworld in the Jellycast site and listen to the session from there.

Energy – the scale of the problem in the UK

Saturday evening and I listened to Lord Turner of Eechinswell, the Chair of the Committee on Climate Change. This committee has just been created by the Climate Change Bill to define a carbon budget and advise on policies that could deliver said budgets. Turner was answering questions from a select committee. In his comments (on how the UK will reduce CO2 by 80% by 2050) he assumed land transport would become de-carbonised and that electricity would be generated sustainably by the middle of the century and that this could be done at a cost easily borne by the UK (he quoted from the Stern Review). But he also stated that if carbon capture does not become a reality within 15 years, then coal-burning will take CO2 towards and beyond 550ppm, and temperatures of +4degrees C and beyond. Temperature increases of this scale are likely to engender a range of positive feedbacks such as the release of methane from melting tundra and do for human civilization.

Turners comments were authoritative (and after all, if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about it is unlikely he would have been given his job!). I can see the UK meeting targets for de-carbonising our electricity supply. The electricride project is one small contribution towards the electrification of transport. But carbon-capture at a commercial scale within  a decade is really going to push our technological, economic and political systems.

Events……

I thought I’d take a moment to update my progress. Last week Redcurrent films and I received a commission for a film – but not about the electric ride. And dozens of ideas were flying around a commissioning brainstorm lunch last week – perhaps the electric ride will become one that makes it through to the next stage.

I’ve read the posts on EV blogs and elsewhere about the electric cars at the recent Geneva motor show with interest- I’ll condense something of that in my next post. And lastly, I’ve been turned down by one potential supplier of an EV – six more to go!

Which car? (4) it could be Think

Green Wombat covered the Norwegian based Think city car today. As this car is actually being manufactured and has a range of around 180 km it could be just what I’ve been looking for. It only has two seats so we may need two. Alternatively I suppose some of the film team could travel by electric powered train.

Electric carmaker Think hits the accelerator

It was a year ago that venture capitalist and solar energy entrepreneur Jan-Olaf Willums appeared at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco shortly after taking over Think Global, a Norwegian electric car maker once owned by Ford (F). Willums and his partners had just secured their first round of funding and unveiled plans to revive Think and a zippy urban runabout called the Think City. This week Willums made a return appearance at the 2008 Cleantech Forum and showed just how fast an automotive startup can move amid the lumbering dinosaurs of Detroit.