An interesting story on Wales Online today that raises more questions for me than it answers for me…

Wales has it’s first ‘carbon free’ house. The house is built along PassivHaus lines on a small estate in Ebbw Vale from mainly Welsh materials. It has PV panels so generates its own power and has managed to achieve level 6 in the Code for Sustainable Homes.

However, it still has energy bills of £50 a quarter. Not sure what that’s for, perhaps electricity connection or standing charges (although the article does specify ‘energy bills of just £50 a year’). As such, I’m not sure what ‘carbon free’ means - perhaps I’m being cynical and perhaps some more research is required…

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Interested to see that the sea off Wales will be home to one of the largest offshore windfarms in the world. Consisting of 160 wind turbines it should come online in 2014.
I view that with a certain amount of ambivalence, on the positive side -

• Power from renewables has to be good.!
• It’s a large capital project which is positive for the economy of both the UK and Wales.
• New technology is exciting!

But there are also negatives for me -

• Foreign companies (Dutch and German) seem to be the main players and whilst this is a private investment project it seems a shame that such an undertaking cannot be more ‘British’. (I’m sure there’ll be government financial ’sweeteners’ in there somewhere finding their way even further offshore than the wind farm…)
• I’m not yet convinced by the cost effectiveness of these projects. Given the massive upfront investment then ongoing sizeable maintenance costs is this form of power really cost effective when compared to alternatives? (including, heaven forbid nuclear power which we are rarely able to have a grown up debate about in this country).

One to watch with interest…

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The building of four new towns in England (housing being one of those aspects of policy devolved to the Welsh assembly government who are probably concocting some more crazy schemes like sprinklers in residential properties instead of schemes like this) at or near Whitehill-Bordon in Hampshire, St Austell in Cornwall, Rackheath in Norfolk and North West Bicester in Oxfordshire is a strange concept when you think about it. New towns have long been the butt of much humour - you only need to think of Milton Keynes and a whole plethora of jokes follow (What is the difference between a yoghurt and Milton Keynes? Yoghurt has culture. - admittedly not very good jokes)… populate them with the concerned eco-warrior types who will be attracted to these places and add a sprinkle of politics and I think we have the recipe for a whole new range of (not very good) jokes.

Putting aside my cynicism (believe me it’s hard) these seem like worthy and worthwhile developments - so long as true eco credentials can be established and renewability and sustainability not merely paid lip service to then these new towns may well form beacons of good eco-housing practice and catalysts for change in the wider community.

I must admit my first thought was ‘glad they’re not on my doorstep’ , but then I’ve had a bloody big gas pipeline on mine since 2007 so feel that I’ve done my bit in regard to what’s on and not on my doorstep!

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The feed-in tariffs scheme certainly looks to be of great interest. For the unitiated, feed-in tariffs are the governments new scheme to encourage the takeup of renewable technologies through financial benefits. These financial benefits are two-fold, firstly in the form of savings made to on-going energy costs and secondly through a payment made through the [...]

I occasionally ‘page’ through the ecologist website and came this article that piqued my interest:
We need a citizens’ housing revolution
Whilst a little short on content the sentiment - that the development of new housing can be partially entrusted to self-builders who should be ‘helped to create vital, sustainable communities’ - is one that I totally [...]