In a conventionial coal- or gas-powered electricity plant a staggering 60% of the energy is wasted as heat. In a decentralised model you can use that heat to warm people's homes using a technology called Combined Heat and Power.
Produced by Phil England for Climate Radio http://coinet.org.uk/climateradio Many thanks to Memory Box Films and Jim Footner of Greenpeace UK. Please drop me an email if you rebroadcast this programme: phil [at] switch-online.co.uk
CHP is a proven, market-ready technology (unlike hydrogen or "clean coal") that is already widely used in Europe. Denmark, for example, generate 50% of their electricity in this way. George Monbiot unconvincingly dismisses CHP in his book â??Heatâ??, whereas The Tyndall Centre have made an important feature of it in their future energy scenarios and it forms a central part of London's trailblazing plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2025 which were unveiled today (see: http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=11011 and http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/index.jsp).
For this programme I interviewed Jim Footner of Greenpeace. Unfortunately there was a technical problem with the recording which rendered it unbroadcastable. So instead what youâ??ll hear is a useful introduction to decentralised energy in the form of the soundtrack to the Greenpeace film â??What are we waiting for?â?? which was produced by Memory Box films and narrated by Clive Anderson.
Afterwards, I attempt an assessment and run past some of the main points that came out of the discussion with Jim.
At the very least, there should be a law (simillar to the one they have in Denmark) that forbids any new build fossil fuelled electricity plants without heat capture (whether at home or abroad with our financial support).
Links: What are we waiting for? - youtube film link www.youtube.com/v/klooRS-Jjyo Energy Revolution - A Sustainable World Energy Outlook (Greenpeace/EREC, January 2007) <http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/energyrevolutionreport.pdf> Decentralising Power - An Energy Revolution for the 21st Century (Greenpeace, 2005) http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7154.pdf Powering London Into the 21st Century (Greenpeace/GLA, 2006) <http://www.greenpeace-digital.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7474.pdf> Scotland (Greenpeace/WWF Scotland, 2006) http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/8056.pdf
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