My four strange but true green stories for May bank holiday

With the May bank holiday a few days away now is a good time to look back at four of this year’s amazing but true green stories.
Ron Fox, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park, (www.noreus.co.uk), picks his favourite recent environmental tales.

1. British homes could be powered by wind turbines and hydroelectric dams – from Canada. That is the plan of Laurent Segalen and two other clean energy investors who have begun fundraising to build the world’s biggest under sea power cable to connect the grids of Europe and Canada. With the ability to supply a tenth of Britain’s peak electricity demand, the 2,200-mile-long cable would have four times the capacity of the world’s longest cable to date – the Viking Link that connects Britain and Denmark. Transmitting six gigawatts (GW0 of electricity it would it would be almost twice as big as Xlinks, a cable planned to bring solar energy to Britain from Morocco. “It just shows how distance is no problem for technology today,” said Ron. “The move would also give us green energy round the clock, so we wouldn’t have to rely on the unpredictable international gas market.”
2. Hull could become the new Bordeaux by 2100. That’s the prediction of the first annual Fine Wines and Restaurants Market Monitor report by the consultancy firm Bain & Company. They say that the traditional region for growing cabernet sauvignon around Bordeaux in south west France will be too hot and dry for the grapes in 75 years’ time. Production will have to move at the end of this century to northern France, Germany, England southern Scandinavia with the most northerly point in the UK to support the grape predicted to be Yorkshire with the cut-off point just north of Hull. The ideal temperature range for the grape is between 20 °C and 30 °C, with the only place in the UK the grape can grow today is in the south east of England. The Met Office predicts that the UK’s average annual temperature could increase by between 2.3°C and 5°C by 2100 so making Yorkshire an ideal wine producing area.
3. An historic German wooden toboggan firm is ceasing production, blaming global warming, a lack of snowy winters and a declining birth rate. Based in the village of Schwebheim in northern Bavaria, the Ress family used to sell more than 60,000 sledges a year. Now the annual total is under 6,000. Owner 70-year-old Michael Ress said he was the eighth generation of the family firm, which had started out making coaches and wagons for the Frankfurt to Vienna route at the end of the 17th century. Then, 200 years ag,o they began making sledges using beechwood from the nearby forests. Ress is retiring and his son Johannes is taking over and producing saddles and upholstery. In 1990 there were 30 German companies making toboggans, now there will be just three.
4. Met Office chiefs have won a battle to block a 334ft wind turbine on the coast of South Wales – because it would interfere with weather forecasting by a radar station two and a half miles away. This gives advance warning of severe weather and provides information for military and civilian aviation. The proposed development near Trelech in Pembrokeshire would have increased the output of green energy by more than 209 per cent and would have supported an estimated 318 average households’ energy usage. After the Met Office concerns and Community Council Clydau’s objections the plan to replace an existing 147ft turbine with a giant 334ft wind turbine at a farm was withdrawn.

He added: “If you want any green energy advice, contact me by calling Ron on 0845 474 6641 or visit our contact form here – but do have a happy holiday.”

Caption: Will Hull become the new Bordeaux for wine production because of global warming?