Five ideas for emission reduction

NHS: Wielding influence    

NHS sustainability unit director David Pencheon can succinctly sum up the challenge facing the health service: “The NHS contributes a quarter of public sector carbon and 3% of all carbon produced in the UK – that’s equivalent to some small countries!” But the importance of the NHS in helping the UK reduce carbon emissions by 26% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 as demanded by the Climate Change Act of 2008 goes beyond just reducing its own footprint.    

It has a huge opportunity to infl uence the entire population who all come into contact with the NHS at some point in their lives.    

“It’s not just the size and scale of the organisation that’s crucial,” says Pencheon. “But it is our iconic nature and our direct contact with individuals that is important. If the NHS is not seen to be doing things then people will say climate change is not important.”    

So what is the NHS doing? It produced its “Saving Carbon, Improving Health NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy for England” in January. Of the 18Mt C02/year footprint in the report, energy accounted for 22%, travel 18% and procurement, particularly of pharmaceuticals, 60%, so that is where the focus lies.    

Initial ambition is to reduce the 2007 footprint by 10% by 2015. “And the strategy is more than just about energy efficiency – it’s transformational change,” Pencheon says.    

Here are some for instances: The NHS will be maximising its use of renewable energy – adding onsite renewables would save 0.53Mt of carbon a year. Maximising combined heat and power options another 0.35Mt/y.    

The NHS contributes a quarter of public sector carbon and 3% of all carbon produced in the UK

On travel, the NHS accounts for 5% of all road traffic so the strategy will be to promote care closer to home and introduce more tele medics among other things.    

“There will always be central hospitals but why should they be the default centre of care?” Pencheon says.   

Water saving, minimising waste by decontaminating items rather than throwing them away and creating a low energy, low carbon built estate are all also on the agenda.    

United Utilities: Supply deal    

The water industry is struggling to balance the high energy demand of ever more stringent environmental regulation with the need to lower its carbon emissions. The sector is currently responsible for around 2% of emissions.    

United Utilities head of environment and sustainability Chris Matthews has strong expectations from the supply chain in helping achieve reductions but he needs companies with ideas to demonstrate to him how they are going to make a diff erence. “I need to know for every £1 spent what the carbon return is,” he says. “I don’t just want to hear ‘we can save you 10%’. I want evidence.”   

I need to know for every £1 spent what the carbon return is

Chris Matthews, United Utilities  

The focus at the moment is on software that can optimise water distribution to reduce energy and on perception engineering – setting parameters to treat what actually is there to be treated rather than worst case expectation, again saving energy.    

United Utilities is also chairing a group of utility organisations who are working with the Achilles utility supply database to push into the supply chain an approach called the Carbon Efficient Measurement and Reduction Scheme (CEMARS).    

This is a tool that allows suppliers to measure their carbon footprint, sets a benchmark that clients recognise and which allows everyone to work together to reduce emission targets.    

There’s a cost to it, of between £2,000 and £8,000, but Matthews says the process takes a supplier a long way down the route of acquiring an externally audited carbon footprint to ISO 14064-1 standard, which will be increasingly valuable as more and more clients drill into their supply chain’s footprint.    

Network Rail: Renewables   

Network Rail’s head of environmental policy Di Booth is concentrating her carbon saving efforts on the operator’s buildings and has a target of reducing energy demand from traditional energy supplies at stations, offices, developments and depots by 20% by 2014.    

“We haven’t decided in favour of any particular renewable energy source,” she says. “At the Kings Cross development in London we are using thin film solar photovoltaics on the listed building which should provide 15% of the energy demand.   

We are being measured by the standards of today, not tomorrow

Di Booth, Network Rail    

“Our heritage guys wanted to show it was possible to use this on listed buildings. The panels will be on the glass roof but carefully placed and spaced to give a dappled effect and you won’t be able to see the plates. “We have a different opportunity at Blackfriars Station. It is one of the only stations that is completely south facing and particularly on the section out over the river Thames, it makes sense to use photovoltaics again.”     

It is not all about renewables. At the new signalling centre in Derby, improved insulation and maximising of natural light and ventilation has reduced energy consumption compared to a standard signalling centre by 50%, Booth says.     

Her 20% target will be relatively easy to achieve, she says. “After that it gets a bit tougher. At Kings Cross for instance, we’ll be looking at the facilities and hotels around us to see if they can host our photovoltaic plates. And the Argent development at the rear of the station will be using an anaerobic digester to convert compostable waste into energy. It may be that we could put our waste through there and buy the low carbon energy.”     

The next lot of solar technology coming along will be more efficient and produce a quicker payback, she says. “Photovoltaic plates take 35 years to give you pay back, but with solar thermal technology, that will heat a water mass, it is 5 to 7 years.”     

The major issue she says, is the high up front cost of all renewables which are hard to justify under the current regulatory regime. “The problem is we are being measured by the standards of today, not tomorrow. As the new building regulations get firmer and legislation kicks in it will be easier.”     

Agriculture: Biomass    

Chicken litter, pig manure and food processing waste are among the sources of fuel for a new 19MW power station for the Port of Antwerp in Belgium. Emissions, particularly from transport, are being kept to a minimum by the process of drying the waste with excess heat from two bio oil plants at Merksplas 60km away and Ieper 135km away. This dries the biowaste from 30% dry solids to more than 80% dry solids reducing the loads to be transported from the farming areas to the city where the power is needed.     

Product transport costs and emissions will be reduced by 60%. And 210,000t of waste a year will be converted into CO2 neutral electricity to power 40,000 households.     

The scheme is being developed by a consortium of Thenergo and Agro Investment Fund (AIF) with MWH as the engineering partner. AIF is the investment fund of the Boerenbond – the largest farmers association of Flanders – for investment in projects supporting the agricultural industry. Thenergo is a market leader in combined heat and power generation and trading.     

Drying the waste locally avoids the transport of 40,000t of water in wet manure annually and 40,000t of water in sludge. And drying the biowaste with recovered heat, not fossil fuel avoids 630,000t of CO2 equivalent emissions.   

Government: Carbon trading     

The Dutch government is working with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to fund the Bulgarian subsidiary of an Italian company in joint venture with local government to build hydro electricity schemes that will allow the purchase of carbon credits for the Dutch by the EBRD. That’s complicated, but that’s the future; that’s carbon trading in action. The Vez Svoghe project involves building small-scale hydro power plants along the river Iskar, 40km north of Sofia.     

The scheme is expected to provide a renewable energy source of 150,000MWh per year with no CO2 emissions, replacing electricity generated from fossil fuel and saving around 371,000t of CO2 in the years up to 2012. The first hydro plant has been commissioned and is now fully operational.     

Client is Vez Svoghe, a company 90% owned by a subsidiary of Italian energy provider Petrolvilla & Bortolotti and 10% by the municipality of Svoghe.     

The scheme had to gain approval from the Joint Implementation (JI) registration of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. MWH helped verify for the JI that the work would not have gone ahead without the external funding and will genuinely reduce carbon emissions.     

EBRD director for energy efficiency and climate change Terry McCallion says the project is a major achievement for Bulgaria, the EBRD and the Netherlands as it is the first JI registration for all parties involved. “The proceeds from the sale of the carbon credits enhance the performance of the project, assist Bulgaria in diversifying its energy sources and support the Netherlands in meeting its Kyoto targets,” he says.    

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