Carbon Copy

UK standards heading for zero carbon houses

The first zero carbon house built in the UK by a volume housebuilder was unveiled earlier this month. It has achieved a design rating of six stars (the highest level available) under the Code for Sustainable Homes, which stipulates that all UK homes built from 2016 must be zero-carbon. From this month, all new houses must have a rating against the code, which replaced the Ecohomes rating system for the assessment of new homes in England. Building standards will be made progressively tougher, leading up to the zero-carbon target date. The UK Green Building Council has defined when a house can be called zero carbon. The proposal is "that a zero-carbon house must produce almost all its energy on-site or very nearby in, say, a communal heat and power system". House builders have argued that this is too stringent and that off-site renewable power generation should be accepted.

measuring one city's carbon impact

In what is reported to be the first project of its kind, the UK City of Leicester will have its entire carbon emissions and carbon sinks calculated, and to have this compared with the social and economic wellbeing of its 270,000 residents. This will provide a basis for determining the success of strategies to reduce its footprint, and could become a model for other cities to adopt.

Academics will also look at how changing road networks, better public transport, maintaining green spaces and using low energy power and lighting can reduce the city's carbon footprint, as well as investigating how Individual Carbon Trading Schemes (ICTs) (where households are given an annual carbon allowance) would work.

hourly emissions mapping

There's a video of a new system of mapping CO2 emissions in the US that gives far more detail than previous models, with hourly updates based on air quality control data.

The new Vulcan model, however, can map CO2 emissions at local levels on an hourly basis. It can drill down to individual factories, power plants, roads, commercial districts and neighbourhoods, and identify the level of fuel type, economic sector and country/state.

An interesting point raised by one of the commenters on the linked article is that what we really need is a global map of each country's emissions, including the emissions associated with manufacture of imports. According to the article, a global version is on the cards. But I would guess that it would be far too difficult for a dynamic model to link emissions to imports and exports - that would be another exercise.

forces of change

It's a bit like choosing a food product that's organically grown, or buying lumber that's certified by the FSC, or attending a conference in a LEED-rated building: in America you can now choose a shipping provider that is certified by TerraPass. I am generally sceptical of carbon offsets for the simple reason that they allow us to continue with business as usual while eliminating guilt, and often achieve no practical progress towards cleaner living, but I have to concede one thing. The more widespread these certification systems become, the harder it will be for businesses to do nothing at all to reduce the environmental impact of their products and services.

When it becomes socially unacceptable to smoke, people will stop. When it is socially unacceptable to live a carbon-heavy lifestyle, people will stop. Change starts with these voluntary schemes that hook the early adopters and raise awareness, driven by people who recognise the benefit of market segmentation; then we start to see ever-stronger incentives and disincentives to accelerate transformation; gradually people realise there's no turning back and start to embrace change; and finally the last remaining holdouts are blasted to smithereens as government moves in to kick ass wherever the market has failed to internalise the true planetary costs of doing business.

That's not an ideal scenario. But neither a moral sense of what is right, nor a free market, nor a state-controlled economy has ever emerged as a force that - on its own - can sustainably manage the intricacies of modern life. As depressing as it sounds, we just have to muddle through. As Winston Churchill said, "if you're going through hell, keep going." There's light at the end.

house of hemp

You can smoke it, you can wear it, you can make oil and cosmetic products from it, and many people swear by its medicinal properties. South Africa's own House of Hemp sells it in just about any (legal) form you can imagine. (Their first retail outlet was opened in Johannesburg in 2001.) But dude, this stuff is way cool for another reason.

The House of Hemp and the CSIR have been working with the South African Department of Trade and Industry in setting up pilot projects for hemp production in the Eastern Cape. Cannabis has been a huge industry there for decades, but of course it's illegal, and I understand the Department of Health hasn't approved anything other than pilot farms under "drug testing licence", despite DTI involvement. If this is true, a big opportunity is being missed - and this is not just about legalising rural jobs: it's also about climate change.

on the high seas

A few days ago I wrote about the growing challenge faced by African producers in competing with other countries that supply low-carbon products. Now French vintners have thrown down the gauntlet, challenging South Africa's wine estates:

This month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 22,680kg of carbon.

Further voyages to Bristol and Manchester in England and even to Canada are planned soon afterwards.

The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin after a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days.

The wines will be delivered to Bordeaux by barge using the Canal du Midi and Canal du Garonne, which run across southern France from Sete in the east, via Beziers in Languedoc.

Can there be any better way to ship wine?

But wind power could also assist modern cargo ships. Trials are underway using giant kites that could save 10% - 15% of fuel costs on the 10,000-tonne Beluga Skysail, and if these are successful, larger kites may be used, potentially saving up to 35%. "The largest kites could be as big as 5,000 sq metres and theoretically be capable of assisting giant container ships."

locavores take note

In the global marketplace, one of the things that South Africa should be concerned about is the effect of carbon labelling on its food exports. Companies like Tesco in the UK are leading a strong drive to account for the carbon impact of the products it sells, and carbon labelling could soon be commonplace. America's Climate Security Act is also considering forcing carbon labelling on imports to the US. The implication is that food (and other products) shipped long distances will not be able to compete with locally grown produce, because of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from transportation.

A recent article in the New Yorker raises a word of caution worth taking seriously. Nobody can dispute the high carbon emissions of transportation, and there are certainly valid reasons for buying locally produced goods; but if we are going to be carbonsmart, there are a few other things to take into account — and some of them will help maintain the competitiveness of products that are shipped long distances, while still reducing carbon emissions. Consider this:

• Water use, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer, even the type of fuel used to make the package all affect carbon impact, and some countries can grow certain crops with a lower impact than other countries growing the same things. A country that relies more on renewable energy sources will further reduce the carbon impact of its products. (South Africa will lose out on that score, while New Zealand and other countries that have pledged to go carbon neutral will be the winners.)
• Buying food that is in season — even if it is grown far away — could have a lower carbon impact than food grown closer to home but bought out of season, because of the energy requirements of storing food.
• It is actually more “green” for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. (One or two South African wine estates are already going carbon neutral in their on-farm operations, so they should be able to compete handsomely in New York.)
• The impact of importing apples from South Africa to New York could be less than if the apples were grown 50 km away, because more sunshine hours increases the yield and the energy required to grow the crops is correspondingly lower.
• Pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain, so shipping New Zealand lamb to London can be better than having Londoners eat British lamb.
• Importing beans from Uganda or Kenya — where the farms are small, tractor use is limited, and the fertilizer is almost always manure — tends to be more efficient than growing beans in Europe, with its reliance on energy-dependent irrigation systems.
• And how do you cook your food once it's in the kitchen? Do you turn the heat up with the lid off the pot, or do you use a hot box — or even a solar cooker? That decision will have a far bigger impact than where your potatoes were grown.

The point of all this is that what seems the obvious ethical choice — or sound environmental choice — may not be what you or I think. The choices may seem difficult, but we are going to have to make them, and taking the simplistic approach to carbon accounting could be more damaging in the long run.

[via Maribo]

role of cement in carbon emissions

The cement industry is responsible for 5% of all carbon dioxide released globally as a result of human activities, according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. In each country, the volume of emissions depends on the sources of electricity, since a large portion of emissions is related to the power used in cement manufacture. In South Africa, where most electricity comes from coal-fired plants, each ton of cement produced releases 750kg of carbon dioxide. Last year, the country consumed 14.1 million tons of cement, 89% of which was produced locally.

In response to the South African government's support of emissions targets for developing countries, the local cement industry, represented by ACMP, has warned that carbon emissions caps would lead to higher volumes of imports. The assumption is that growth in cement use (forecast to be 24 million tons a year by 2014) is the only way to feed economic growth.

There are two flaws to this argument.

First, caps would not be imposed without the option to trade carbon credits, so if the industry does grow, cement will simply become more expensive as a result of internalising the cost of carbon emissions. And since the UN negotiations that are expected to lead to a renogotiated climate change treaty by next year will include limits and trading for many more countries than at present, cement prices will increase everywhere and imports won't necessarily be cheaper than the local product.

Second, there are perfectly viable alternatives to cement in the construction industry. Cement quantities in concrete can be reduced by substituting with flyash, for instance. (And flyash is a readily available by-product of coal-fired electricity production.) The building industry could also put much more effort into designing buildings to use less concrete.

There needs to be greater awareness of the options and of the carbon implications of design decisions, then we can begin to decouple economic growth from emissions growth.

Once the Green Building Council of South Africa starts using a local version of Green Star - the Australian system for rating the sustainability performance of buildings - choices will be much smarter in terms of energy efficiency overall. The next step will be to establish building codes that address carbon intensity explicitly, as is already happening in the UK.

For more information on the cap-and-trade concept, and variations on the theme, have a look at this recent WorldChanging article.

BC takes the lead with carbon tax

From July this year, the Canadian province of British Columbia will charge a tax on fossil fuels, gradually increasing the rate each year as an incentive for reducing carbon emissions. The government's strategy for reducing the impact on the economy is to reduce other taxes:

Corporate and personal income tax rates will drop to help make the tax revenue neutral, and lower-income British Columbians will receive an annual climate action credit of $100 per adult and $30 per child.

British Columbia will be the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a consumer-based carbon tax.

Trevor Manuel's carbon account

South Africa took its first step towards monetizing carbon emissions as Finance Minister Trevor Manuel used his budget speech to announce a precedent-setting levy on the sale of electricity generated from non-renewable resources. This move will begin the process of financially differentiating energy from different sources. The initial levy is small, at 2c per kWh (while a typical household pays around 40c per kWh), but opens the door to improving competitiveness of clean energy.

Chamsa Western Cape, the umbrella body of organised business, predictably claimed the levy would be bad for business and hit poor people hardest. In a country with unrealistically low electricity tariffs - even with the increase that has also been announced - the carbon levy is not the problem - the real concern is what I wrote about yesterday: individuals being discouraged from generating their own power from renewable sources.

[Sources: Cape Times and Cape Argus, 21 February 2008]

And the Minister even worked out the carbon impact of his budget efforts:

It estimated that since the beginning of 2008, to the tabling of the Budget, the National Treasury's work caused R38 000 kg of carbon dioxide emission through aeroplane flights and motor vehicle transport.

There were also 37 t of paper used - the equivalent of sacrificing 726 trees. The Budget documents were however printed on ‘triple green' paper, which is chlorine free, biodegradeable, and met the standards of sustainable forestation.