Why the world is burning more coal

The inconvenient truth is that coal remains a cheap and dirty fuel — and the idea of 'clean' coal remains a distant dream, this is from the Guardian Environment Website

Written by Fred Pearce for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network this paragraph is the key in my reading of it...

Clean coal is a distant vision, which could someday be possible through a technology known as carbon capture and storage — in which CO2 is stripped from stack emissions, liquefied and buried underground. But large-scale deployment of what would be a massive new industry is at least a couple of decades — and tens of billions of R&D dollars — away. And industry will only do it if forced.

Its a very interesting article .....Well worth reading in full

Surviving the Future: Outcome of the Transport Discussion Group

The 3 most important transport concerns in Marlborough were:

1. Poor (but expensive) bus services - there are no direct bus routes to Devizes.
2. We do not have a train station - the buses from Marlborough sometimes miss the train at Bedwyn;  there are no buses linking Marlborough to Bedwyn in time for the early morning trains.  There is no regular bus service to Pewsey station.  The Great Bedwyn residents are trying to restrict parking around their station.
3. Poor public transport is reducing job opportunities for young people and those without a car.

Other issues raised included the cost of parking in Marlborough and the need to restrict HGVs in order to reduce pollution and wear and tear on the roads.


Targets:


within 5 years: improve the bus service to Bedwyn and make it more integrated with the trains.  Reduce the numbers of HGVs.


within 10 years: persuade the authorities to build a train station in Marlborough. Bring more skilled, green jobs into the town so there is no need to commute. 


Group members: Sam Page, Pepita Hurd, John Yates, Peter Turvey, Pat Turvey, Karen Bulsara, Ann Yates, Peter Noble.

New Energy Group Proposed

At last night's TT launch meeting, the Energy Table discussion resulted in the proposal for an Energy Group.

There was a wide ranging discussion as energy costs cut across almost any activity. The way forward will be community energy projects which will come in many shapes and sizes from larger capital intensive investments to quite small voluntary schemes.

Initially, there is a pressing need for unbiased, well informed advice on ways of saving energy, economically viable renewable energy schemes and what National and Local Government financial assistance is available.

Can you help make this Group work? You don't have to be a technical supremo, just an intelligent persuasive person keen to know more and a desire to help others.

Did see you there on the 12th of September 2011

On the Morning of the 12th I wrote....
Really looking forward to the meeting tonight.....
Here is hoping for a good turn out 7:30 at the Town hall

BIG THANK YOU to the 55 People who attended, and made a really POSITIVE contribution to the discussions... It gave us some real projects to run with...

They are starting to appear here http://www.transitionmarlborough.org




You will found us here, on the night





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Our twitter account TTMarlb is being followed by @localworks

It was very flattering to see we are catching some attention of the sustainable community action groups... Our twitter account http://twitter.com/TTMarlb was "followed" by http://twitter.com/Local_Works

See http://www.localworks.org/ which is Promoting and campaigning on the Sustainable Communities Act, possibly the most radical new law that our country has seen in over a century. A 1100 Town and Parish Councils have signed up to this set of principals, as a local town councillor I will be taking this to our next planning meeting for discussion, tell me what YOU think! The proposal is a modest and reasonable suggestion for the government to amend planning guidance in a way that would help locally elected decision makers.

In summary, the proposal is to require applicants of major developments to:

- attend a meeting of the local Town or Parish Council, or of a duly called Town Meeting, to answer questions on the application for development; and

- fund the council or duly called town meeting to commission an independent report on the application and critique of any reports that the applicant has submitted in support of the application for development.

The rationale is that local elected representatives and local people should be making their decision on whether an application should go ahead based on the best evidence, and this would help ensure that evidence was available.

Read the full proposal and rationale here.

As a community we can use this act to ensure any new development is sustainable and fitting for the town. As I said have read and tell me what you think!

Peak Oil ? Transition Town what is that?

What does Peak Oil mean?

There is growing evidence that global production of crude oil has peaked and is now declining. In the long run, fuel prices will go up and up .

What's a transition town then?

All over Britain and around the world, Transition Towns are forming in local communities to help plan ahead for the end of cheap oil and to combat climate change. These communities have begun to make the transition away from reliance on fossil fuels - hence the name “Transition Town”. For more information please see https://www.transitionnetwork.org/

Marlborough's Waitrose Supermarket is one of the greenist in the chain...

Waitrose Supermarket underwent a massive re-fit in April this year.  Cyla has spoken to the manager about how they did it, this is what she was told: 


Marlborough's store has become a flagship in green stores for the Waitrose Partnership (apparently it had nothing to do with competeing with the new Tesco!) 

• The refrigeration units are state of the art. All the heat generated in keeping the fridges cold is recycled to keep the shop warm. 
• All the holes in the old walls were sealed to make them airtight. (They had men dangling from pulleys as they worked their way around!)
• The toilets were streamlined. Having accepted that they had become the town’s toilets they updated and increased the number. The men’s toilets are air-flushed to save water.  
• At least 95% of the old fittings were recycled. They actually hoped to make it 99% in the end.

These are just some of things that she was told. And what’s more they didn’t shout about it. In fact they are willing to share their experiences with any other business that is due for a re-fit.