Treasury Outlines Infrastructure Investment

HM Treasury's Plan for infrastructure investment including Energy infrastructure, Transport infrastructure and Digital communications is set-out by the Treasury and includes details on the Green Investment Bank to be launched in Spring 2011.
It plans that UK infrastructure investment will be some £200 billion over the next five years.
HM Treasury

The Latest CDP Results Reveal the Rise of Scope 3 Reporting

Two years ago, only about a quarter of the world's top 500 companies reported on "Scope 3" greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, last year this rose to 42 percent, and this year it grew to nearly half.

GreenBiz

Ecotricity launches EcoBonds in £10mn funding effort

Green energy supplier Ecotricity launched its new EcoBonds scheme for savers in a bid to raise £10mn to finance its renewable energy projects. It said the fixed rate EcoBonds, will pay a 7% interest (or 7.5% for Ecotricity customers), with proceeds funding 12 wind farms, solar projects and research and development into tidal energy.
Ecotricity

Chris Huhne provides low-carbon spending

Chris Huhne promises fully functioning green investment bank (GIB), £1b for the first CCS demonstration project and revival in onshore wind.

E.ON pulled out of the bidding for the first demo CCS project leaving Scottish Power's Longannet's plant as the sole runner. E.ON pulled out on the grounds that current market conditions were not conducive and that it could not meet the timescales imposed to respond to the competition. National Grid is now proposing to use it's Transmission System (NTS) assets for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Scotland.

Friends of the Earth suggest that the GIB will need a lot more than £1b to be effective.
BusinessGreen
Guardian
Ofgem
FOE

Huhne warns CRC stealth tax is just the beginning.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne defended the decision to axe the revenue recycling component of the carbon pricing scheme, which is expected to raise £1bn a year for the Treasury.

Huhne said that the changes to the CRC will be followed by wider increases in green taxes. "We are obviously going to look at the whole agenda of green taxes because it was in the coalition agreement that we would be raising green taxes as a share of overall taxation..... This is not the end of the story, this is the start of the story."
BusinessGreen

Shell opposes 30% emissions reduction target

In June, Britain, France, and Sweden's environment ministers said they supported EU plans to move to a deeper, 30 percent emissions cut by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. But Italy, east European countries, and some business lobbies were opposed, saying it would impose higher costs on industry.

Shell has opposed these tougher EU carbon emissions targets. Shell's head of carbon dioxide Graeme Sweeney said a rise in targets to 30% would have “very real business risks” but that he said Shell would support a floor price for carbon across the continent as part of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Reuters

Global wind could meet 22% of power demand by 2030

Wind could meet 12% of global power demand by 2020, and up to 22% by 2030, according to a study published today by the Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace International.
GWEC

Shell wants more gas, less wind

On Tuesday 12 October Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Peter Voser called on the energy industry to invest in gas-fired power plants. At the Oil & Money conference in London Voser said because gas is cheaper and faster to install than other technologies the UK should divert some investment from offshore wind projects into new gas facilities to improve short-term energy security.
Royal Dutch Shell

ETI outlines road-map for marine energy

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) in collaboration with the UK Energy Research Centre published a road-map for marine energy on Tuesday 5 October. It said a significant reduction in costs is needed in the next five years to ensure marine technologies remain a viable option and noted for the long-term, costs needed to reduce to 8p/KWh-10p/KWh by 2030 to make the sector competitive.
ETI

Shipping emissions could be 6 x greater than previously estimated

A report published by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has argued that emissions from shipping could match those of aviation if all UK-related voyages are considered. UK shipping emissions to-date has been miscalculated, as only the fuel purchased at UK ports had been taken into consideration, accordingly, emissions could be up to six times higher than previously expected.
Tyndall Centre

Shell and CO2DeepStore to Redevelop North Sea Gas Fields for CCS

CO2DeepStore are to work with Shell UK to find a storage solution for Scottish Power’s CCS project at Longannet. They are to focus on the Goldeneye gas field in the North Sea.
BBC

Scottish wind developer e-Gen given £50m boost

Rockfield Energy Investments recently confirmed the finalisation of a £50mn investment package in Scottish wind developer e-Gen Partners to fund the development, construction and operation of wind farms in the UK. e-Gen was established in 2009 with the aim of concentrating on boosting the number of small-scale wind projects that benefit from feed-in tariffs. It mainly focuses on Scottish projects between 500kW and 1.5MW.
Rockfield Energy Investments http://www.e-gen.org.uk/

North Sea wind farm set to produce first power

RWE Innogy and joint venture partner Scottish and Southern Energy are set to produce the first electricity from their Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm. The foundations have been installed at the 504MW project, and first power will be exported to the electricity grid in October.
Bloomberg

First Minister outlines renewables potential

Speaking at the Scottish Low-carbon Investment conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday 28 September Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said advances in clean, green energy presented a "pivotal turning point in human history", and that with private investment, the market for renewables could grow to £4.3tn by 2015. He also expected Scotland to be able to produce enough renewable energy to supply "at least 100%” of its electricity needs by 2025.

Mr Salmond also unveiled an industry-led Offshore Wind Route Map, setting out the key actions required in the coming years to fully realise the huge potential around the coast of Scotland - estimated to have a quarter of Europe's potential offshore wind and tidal capacity and a tenth of its wave resource.
Scottish Government

UK developers to build 300MW hydrogen plant

B9 Coal and AFC Energy has signed a binding letter of intent to build a power plant at Powerfuel’s Hatfield colliery near Doncaster, South Yorkshire. The 300MW power plant would run on hydrogen produced by cleaning syngas at the nearby 800MW Hatfield CCGT, before passing it through fuel cells to generate power.
B9 Coal

Sewage project sends first ever renewable gas to grid

British households are today cooking and heating their homes with renewable gas - produced from human waste - for the first time. Biomethane gas from Didcot sewage works in Oxfordshire will produce enough renewable gas to supply up to 200 homes. The company said the joint venture between Thames Water, British Gas and Scotia Gas Networks has been successful and will make an important contribution to decarbonising the gas grid.
Centrica

£32 billion is vital to build 21st century grid

RenewableUK raised concerns about the ability of the national grid to sustain UK plans for growth in renewables generation. It said there is a “once in a generation opportunity” to build a fit-for-purpose and efficient transmission network to support emerging low-carbon energy generation. But to do this, £32bn of investment was needed.
RenewableUK

Shell CCS offshore bid signed

An agreement has been signed in a bid to redevelop a North Sea gas field as a potential CO2 storage facility for a major government project.
BBC