Far from the Madding Crowd of carbon emissions

With all the bad news recently, Midlands green energy expert Ron thought now was a good time to look back at four strange but true environmental stories. 

1 The owner of a Tudor manor house that inspired writer Thomas Hardy has reduced his £50,000-a-year energy bills to almost nothing by going carbon neutral.

Economist Giles Keating, who bought Athelhampton House in Dorset in 2019, removed all the oil burners, gas ovens and boilers and replaced them with renewable energy sources. He was also given permission to put 400 solar panels nestled behind trees on the 500-year-old estate along and to install ground source heat pumps.

He has reduced the manor house’s carbon emissions from 100 tonnes a year to zero, that’s the equivalent to cutting 2,400 return journeys by car every year from London to Bournemouth.

The historic home, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book, inspired the setting of Hardy’s classic novel, Far From the Madding Crowd.  Noel Coward was a guest at the 50-room Dorset house and the 1972 mystery thriller, Sleuth, starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier, was filmed there.

Keating said if he hadn’t cut the energy bills, he would either have had to increase the admission prices to the public or to close its doors. 

2 Even the Eiffel Tower in Paris has had to cut its energy bills after the surge in gas and electricity prices. The French tourist landmark is aiming to slash 10 per cent or 10 million Euros (£8.9m) from its electricity budget by switching its lights off earlier. 

The 20,000 bulbs which spread the length of the 1,083ft tower, were all extinguished at 11.45pm, instead of the usual time of 1am. The new measures for the nightly illuminations, which will continue until further notice, represent only 4 per cent of the monument’s annual energy expenses.

3 Climate change is even being blamed for making birds less colourful. Two blue tit populations at Montpelier in the south of France and on Corsica were studied for 15 years by scientists. They found that the brightness of their plumage and the intensity of their colouration were being reduced by a rise in the earth’s temperature and a fall in rainfall.

The results of the study in The American Naturalist journal said the birds rely on their plumage to attract their mates, so this change could potentially reduce the number of chicks born and put the future of the species at risk.

4 A new battery-powered helmet is literally a beath of fresh air for Indian bikers. The riders have to drive on some of the most dangerous roads with rambling livestock and now an added problem is breathing in toxic air.

But an engineer and graduate from the elite Indian Institutes of Technology, 44-year-old Amit Pathak, has invented, the £48 fibreglass Puron helmet. This includes a purification filter unit and a battery powered fan that pumps clean air to riders.

There are more than 210 million motorcycles and scooters registered on Indian roads and about 30 million helmets are needed each year. 

For more information on green energy and how to cut your carbon footprint, call Ron, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park, on 01782 756995. 

Caption: Going carbon neutral – Economist Giles Keating, who bought Athelhampton House in Dorset in 2019.