Eight green reasons of hope for 2018

With all the negative stories about climate change recently many may believe the world is losing the battle to cut our carbon footprint. But the opposite is true says energy expert Ron Fox, of Noreus Ltd at Keele, Staffordshire, who adds there is much to encourage Midlands householders this year.

He lists the following eight reasons of hope for 2018.

1. The proportion of Britain’s total power generation capacity produced by wind has nearly doubled in five years, to 11 per cent in 2016. The cost of building offshore turbines has fallen by nearly two thirds over the same time, and the Government’s targets for expanding wind power output, originally with a 2020 deadline, have been met four years early.
2. British company Econic Technologies has invented a process to turn CO2 into green plastic. This could herald a new era of plastics to make products including building insulation, running shoes, car seats and mattresses. Not only is the CO2 cheaper than the present oil-based raw materials used in production it also reduces dangerous emissions.
3. More new hybrid and electric vehicles will be sold than diesel cars in 18 months’ times, predicts the think tank, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The research says that by May 2019 sales of new diesel vehicles will have declined to 42,181 while plug-in car sales will have increased to 43,471.
4. Supermarket chain, East of England Co-op, is selling food after its “best before” date for 10p in 125 of its East Anglia stores in a bid to cut down on £5000 million of waste a year in the UK. More than 200,000 tonnes of food is thrown away in this country every year. The energy that goes into producing, harvesting, transporting and packaging wasted food produces more than 3.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the U.S. and China.
5. Britain could become a centre for electric planes after three engineering companies teamed up to start flying hybrid planes by 2020. Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Siemens say that 50-100 seater planes running on electricity could be making short-haul city hops by 2030 cutting significantly both noise and pollution.
6. Britain had its greenest summer yet with almost 52 per cent of electricity generated by either renewable forms of power or nuclear between June 21 and September 22, 2017, the first time the figures has exceeded 50 per cent.
7. Transport company, Tesla, has unveiled its first ever electric lorry which will cost 20 per cent less per mile to run than its diesel equivalent and travel 500 miles on a single charge and will carry loads of up to 36,000kgs.
8. Saudi Arabia is planning to build a $500 billion mega city, called Neom, spanning 26,500 square kilometres along the Red Sea which will power itself with wind and solar energy.

For energy advice contact Ron on 01782 756995 or book a free home survey www.noreus.co.uk