Hill+Knowlton Strategies

It seemed appropriate that a blog post today should focus on Valentine’s Day and love.  But how to link this to energy?  After a quick trawl of the web it seems that it’s not actually as hard as you might think…

Here are my top five picks:

1. Energy Saving love ideas:

The Energy Saving Trust has listed a number of green ideas for showing “not only your loved one, but also the planet” how much you care!  These range from volunteering to insulate the loft, to making recycled gifts, to a simple early night under the covers (purely so you can turn down the thermostat and save on the heating of course!).

2. A romantic trip on the EDF Energy London Eye:

Possibilities are endless with the EDF Energy London Eye (cl).  On sale today are a ride in a Valentine’s Cupid Capsule, a Valentine’s Champagne Experience, or a Red Rose Experience.  Take your pick.

3. Too much smog = no chance of a snog:

Greenpeace East Asia is highlighting air pollution in China today with a Valentine’s Day campaign that shows a poor Chinese couple who can’t kiss because they need to wear air filter masks.

4. Yorkshire loving:

Energy advice firm Yorkshire Energy Services has identified a number of money and energy saving tips on its Energy Help blog – candlelit dining to save on the electicity; a low-cost, low-carbon walk in the moonlight; potted plants vs cut roses.  (I particularly like the last one!)

5. Anti-Valentine poem to energy companies:

Perhaps my favourite of the lot - and for those of you who find ‘the day of love’ a bit too sickly sweet – take a look at environmental site edie.net.  It’s running a story today about a break up poem by Matt Harvey that’s been sent by the ombudsman to energy companies.  The light hearted message is aimed at “encouraging energy companies to work towards healthier relationships with their customers” – suggesting that energy companies should be doing a bit more to woo their customers.

Any other crackers you can think of?

A while back I had a bit of a rant on this blog about the launch of the London Cycle Scheme.  After a whole heap of pressure from colleagues on my team – who told me I wasn’t qualified to criticise the scheme unless I’d actually tried the bikes out - I was roped into giving the bikes a go.

For your entertainment here’s the result…

I don’t usually travel by tube, but did earlier this week and found myself drawn to the E.ON Talking Energy ad whilst waiting for the westbound train to Shepherd’s Bush:

Talking Energy’s a great little interactive campaign, and nice to see that E.ON is helping to raise public awareness of what it calls the Energy Trilemma – i.e. how to balance security of supply, reduction of carbon emissions, and affordability.

The campaign’s all about encouraging consumers to use less energy, and E.ON hopes that by doing this it will help reduce household bills, engender loyalty and customer support, and ultimately drive long-term profit.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing take a look at the 2010 Energy Brief published by our client Doosan Power Systems earlier in the year (notably before the general election).  The brief reviewed the UK’s energy challenges, and looked forward to big issues and opportunities for future energy policy in the months and years ahead.

I like Boris. I really do.  In fact all my family are fans.  One of my three year old’s favourite books is Calm down Boris – about a messy-haired, friendly monster that goes round causing mischief.  Following the London mayoral elections in 2008 a bookseller set up a stand outside City Hall and shifted hundreds of copies. 

However, has he gone a step too far with the London Cycle Scheme that’s set to start later this week?  The theory behind it is good.  Providing an alternative, greener way to travel across the city is an excellent concept.  I can even see a rank of docking stations from my office window in Soho Square so there’s an even greater reason to banish those little one to two mile black cab bookings for a client meeting that each add greenhouse gases to our already polluted skies.

It’s not for me though.  I for one though won’t be using the scheme.  A straw poll around the Energy & Industrials team at work suggests I’m not alone.  Here are just some of the reasons why: 

• Free to use for the first half hour.  Great.  It’s not free though is it?  And it’s complicated.  First of all I should really become a member, then I need to pay an access fee, then I need to pay a hire fee.  It looks like it’ll be cheaper, quicker and simpler to get on the tube.  Particularly when the costs escalate rapidly after the “freebie” half hour.
• Whilst you can hire a bike, it seems that there’s no way of hiring a helmet to go with it.  The Melbourne bike hire scheme was a flop because it’s illegal to ride a bike without a helmet and – like London – they weren’t provided.  I used to cycle between Clapham and the office every day so can confidently say that London cycling takes a certain sense of determination and bravery.  James Cracknell is currently fighting for his life following his bike accident last week, and arguably would have been killed on the spot if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet.
• If the bike gets stolen or damaged there’s a £300 fine that I’m hit with.  No thanks.
• A number of the bikes have been produced in, and shipped from, Canada.  So not supporting British industry, and failing on environmental standards too.
• Oh, and it’s also a bit of a monster of a machine apparently.  23 kilograms to be precise.  That’s double the weight of a normal bike and doesn’t sound too easy to handle.

Boris has got a lot riding on this scheme.  Yesterday marked two years to go until the start of the 2012 Olympics, and the roller coaster that is Boris’ popularity had him soaring this week.  Some are saying that it’s a rise before a fall, and that failure of the Cycle Scheme could ultimately cost him his job.  I hope it doesn’t come to that, but equally I hope that the teething problems above – and there must be many more – get sorted out quickly.  Maybe then I’ll give it a try?

Interesting story by Robin Pagnamenta in the Times yesterday.  The CEO of Sita UK - one of the country’s biggest waste processing companies – has said that up to 17% of the UK’s electricity needs could be generated by burning waste and methane from landfill sites.

The UK currently incinerates 10% of municipal waste – compared with 78% in Switzerland and 72% in Germany.

Despite dramatically increased recycling in the UK we still dump 50 million tonnes of waste a year.  On the plus side incinerating waste reduces landfill, and Sita generated over 1 million MW hours of electricity last year; which is enough to power 215,000 homes.

There’s always a flip side of the coin though, and town planners will often reject proposals due to concerns over air pollution.  Sita has recently had a planning application denied (by 20 votes to 1) for a proposed waste incineration plant in Cornwall.  Friends of the Earth says that burning waste worsens climate change; undermines recycling efforts; and causes pollution from air emissions and toxic ash.

I can’t see us ever getting to the same levels as some of our European cousins when it comes to burning our waste for power.  It’s worth remembering though that the average person ends up adding 509kg of waste to landfill sites, so think again next time you reach to open the bin, and  where possible!

I’ve just finished reading Super Freakonomics by the straight talking – and excellent – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

The chapter that particularly grabbed my attention focused on Seattle-based invention company: Intellectual Ventures.  These aren’t just your typical garden-shed inventors either.  Founded by Microsoft’s former chief technical officer and chief software architect they are – amongst other ideas – pioneering radical ways of creating nuclear energy, and have developed an innovative approach to wipe out malaria.  Big thinkers with big ideas.  Bill Gates describes Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Venture’s CEO as “the smartest person he knows”.

Myhrvold and his team think that existing global warming solutions are too little, too late and too optimistic.  Added to this perhaps one of the greatest challenges is getting humans around the world to change their behaviour and reduce their carbon footprint.  On an individual basis the cons of becoming carbon neutral outweigh the pros.

So.  What’s the answer?

Forgive the science lesson here, but it’s important.  Myhrvold was interested in volcanic eruptions and their effect on climate.  In layman’s terms most volcanoes send sulphur dioxide into the troposphere (the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface), which then falls back to earth.  However, big volcanoes – such as the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines – shoot this gas far higher.  Seven miles higher, into the stratosphere.  This then forms a cloud that instead of falling back to earth blankets the globe, diffuses sunlight and provides a sustained drop in global temperature.  Simple.

Not quite that simple as it would clearly be preferable to reduce global warming without the volcanoes.

Intellectual Ventures estimates that it would take 100,000 tons per year of sulphur dioxide to be put into the stratosphere to reverse global warming in the high Arctic and reduce it across much of the northern hemisphere.  This sounds a lot, but 200 million tons per year is already put into the atmosphere, so we’re only talking 0.05% of existing global sulphur dioxide emissions, or 130 litres per minute.

The simple solution is to suspend an 18 mile long hose from earth to the stratosphere by a series of helium balloons and attach lightweight pumps along the length of the hose to pump the sulphur dioxide skywards.

There are plenty of arguments why this won’t work, but Myhrvold’s team has sensible answers to all of these.

Setting up a single station would cost $20m, and have an annual operating cost of $10m.  Myhrvold estimates that scaling this to five global stations would have start-up costs of $150m, and annual operating costs of $100m – to effectively reverse global warming.  Considering the Stern Review estimates $1.2 trillion per year to attack the problem it’s surely worth a go?

As an aside, if you want to discuss this further, The Times is hosting a web chat for Stephen Dubner at 3.30pm BST tomorrow.  If you’re registered on The Times’ new website here’s the link to the live event