Cutting Your Carbon

They have been set a goal of generating at least 35 megawatts of renewable electricity by 2010 and at the last count in 2006 they’d only mustered 11.5MW.

Matthew Spencer, the Chief Executive of Regen South West, which advises local government on using renewable fuel, said:  "The former Avon area has thirteen renewable electricity projects but there is still a long way to go and this region won't meet its targets for renewable energy unless we see a lot more schemes coming forward.

"Most local authorities still have not accepted that climate change completely changes the game.

"It requires us to restructure our economy for what is probably the greatest emergency we will face this century."

Blaise Nursery uses its own wood burner

More responsibility

Our councils are soon to become much more accountable on this score and the Climate Change Bill currently wending its way through Parliament could lead to legally-binding carbon budgets for local authorities to help the Government towards its goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

Green steps are being taken.  North Somerset council only permit new planning developments now if they are supplied by at least 15 per cent renewable energy.

South Gloucestershire Council has independently introduced its own carbon targets and is installing wood pellet boilers in some schools.

Bristol City Council – on track to miss its carbon target for 2007/8, albeit by three per cent - is really running with the wood idea, blessed as it is with plenty of street trees and large parks like Ashton Court.

Back to wood-burning basics

An award-winning biomass boiler has been built at Blaise Nursery and is used to heat greenhouses for bedding plants which go out to gardens nationwide. 

Into the furnace goes chipped-up wood from the amputations made by tree surgeons across the city and out comes a small amount of ash – a useful fertiliser – and enough heat for a hundred homes. 

The boiler notion is beginning to take off.  The pupils at Florence Brown School are kept warm by one, saving 220 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, and the planned Museum of Bristol is set to sport one too.

Bristol City Council's Energy Manager, Paul Isbell, said: "We've used this installation here as a test-bed.  A number of councils have come to look at this technology and will now replicate what we're doing here in other parts of the UK. Nothing is wasted and the ash is wonderful for roses!"

It’s a step forward, as are the two additional wind turbines planned for Avonmouth, but we may already be on borrowed time.