Clipper Windpower

Clipper Windpower appeared in a recent Daily telegraph Aim Market company profile. Clipper is developing a new offshore wind turbine with a 150m wingspan on a 115m high tower with a generating capacity based around a 7.5 megawatt machine. This is significantly higher than the existing generating capacity of 2.5 megawatts.

California based Clipper Windpower was floated on AIM in 2005 at 200p a share. The price peaked at 916p in June 2007 before two profits warnings drove the price down to below 500p a share in September 2007.

CEO Jim Dehlsen says that the company is working through its supply problems and is ironing out problems with its manufacturing process. The testing phase is expected to start in 2009 or 2010.

Cool Earth

Do you fancy owning your own piece of Amazonian Rain forest? The following site allows you to do just that.

http://www.coolearth.org/

Founded by Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead, and Johann Eliasch the founder of the sporting goods company Head who put his money where his mouth is and purchased 400,000 acres of Amazonian Rainforest from a logging company.

In a similar vein, the World Land Trust, whose Patron is David Attenborough, buys up land for various projects across the world.

Carbon offset standards

This week's Economist on-line has an article in its Green.view column looking at the baffling array of carbon offset options and registries that have sprouted up over the last year.

The main points are:

• Variable quality of schemes - a tonne of carbon offset can mean many things.
• Growing fears of sharp practice by "carbon cowboys" as prices range from 45c to $45 per tonne of carbon offset.
• Clarity will soon emerge with the highest quality standards surviving, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard and The Gold Standard developed by the World Wildlife Fund.
• Most of the rest will fall by the wayside.
  

Can Clean Tech save the World from Global Warming?

Let's hope the answer is yes. This week's Red Herring investigates:



Topics covered include:

• Ethanol
  
• Energy efficiency
• Advanced batteries
• AC v DC power distribution
  
• Solar thermal v Photo-voltaic
• US Energy bill in Congress
  

Two fishy tales

Two articles from this week's Economist magazine. The first article "Shellfish desires" is about a new type of dredge for trawler nets which does far less damage to the seabed than traditional dredges, which do terrible damage to seabed ecosystems.

Trawling, which is the most widespread form of fishing dredges the seabed by raking it to dislodge the intended catch into a cloud that is captured by the trailing net. Unfortunately, it also throws up coral, sponges, seaweeds as well as other fish, crustaceans and molluscs. This plant life forms the ecosystem of the seabed rather like the plants in a forest. Trawling is the equivalent of clear-cutting trees.

The article tells of a new invention by Cliff Goudey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which has a series of gentle jets which dislodge just the fish without damaging the seabed itself. Initial trials, catching scallops off the Isle of Man, against a traditional dredge showed less damage to the seabed and to the catch making it a more efficient method than the traditional one. So look out for "coral-safe scallops".

The second article is about the arguments for giving up eating fish altogether from the Economists Green correspondent in his Green.view on-line column. Alas, I have to agree with what he says but I don't think I could ever persuade the wife to do it!

The cost of the Floods

Evan Davis, the BBC's Economics editor, in his latest blog has estimated the economic costs of the current flooding in the UK and pondered what this would mean economically if this is a precursor to more regular bouts of flooding caused by global warming.

In summary:

• Evan estimates the cost at around £5 billion.
• £5 billion represents under 1/2% of GDP. So small in the big picture.
  
• News stories tend to over-embellish damage done and we tend to over-estimate its economic importance.
• This would be more important if it represented a regular economic cost, say every few years, rather than a one in sixty year event.
• Infrastructure may need to be made more weather-proof at significant expense.
  

Building on flood plains

The leaked UK housing green paper says that a ban on building on flood plains would be "unrealistic". Against the backdrop of widespread flooding in the UK, which so far has affected around half a million people in England, it seems reckless. In fact, Gordon Brown, in his press briefing today, said that climate change meant planning for more extreme weather events was needed. This planning doesn't appear to stretch to where we should safely build people's houses. The only conclusion I can draw is that Brown & co assume that the political gains from happy new home owners is greater than the risk of widespread flooding before an election.

I could of course be being wildly cynical and, in fact, the government are going to take into account the risk of flooding and build appropriate houses like these in the Netherlands.



The BBC has an article about them here.

Of course, the other issue here is insurance. Will Insurance companies insure new homes built in flood planes? It seems unlikely unless the premiums are very expensive and the flood defences very good. Which, of course, they aren't as the state has failed in its side of the bargain and neglect flood defences for years.

As global warming is likely to increase sea levels over the next few decades, the low lying Thames estuary will become susceptible to flooding. It is also being touted by engineers as probably the best flood defence for Central London, particularly against storm surges from the North Sea. The mooted plans to build hundreds of thousands of homes there seems not just reckless for those who would be living there but also for Londoners and their businesses.