Our electric road will be Great Britain green car revolution kickstart | Dale Vince

The point of loading car of ecotricity in Michaelwood M5 services. Photo: Professional images

Today launched the first national freight network for electric cars. This may sound a bit grand, something quite beautifully simple - a series of load jobs installed by Ecotricity in services of Highway across the country. Charging stations for electric cars, are easy to access and free use. That allows drivers of electric cars from Britain to the length and breadth of the country, with all the advantages of pull simply in a motorway service station to the top unit.

Why are we building? After all there are only about 2,000 electric cars on the road today. In fact, is a large part of the reason: the lack of demand.

It is often said that one of the reasons most people don't buy electric cars is the lack of facilities: load, while the reason not built cargo facilities more says that it is because there are not enough people are buying electric cars: Classic things egg and the hen. We are hoping to break this impasse.

Another barrier to the assimilation is "range anxiety": the fear of running out of juice when traveling to any kind of serious distance.

So here is where our network – we hope Britain electric car revolution will help kickstart.

We chose the motorway network for good reason. Emphasis to date, with burden of posts, big cities and centres: I think that it is really where it is needed as a minimum. Car use statistics point to this.

The average in Britain car travels approximately 20 miles a day, a distance that they can sustain more modern electric cars for almost a week without charge. And the majority of car owners have access to private parking (70% apparently) – and are therefore capable of charging at home, at night. Most cars do not need to load, almost every day. It is the longest travel load is needed more.

We have chosen the power of this network is carefully too. Our points will be wind - and in this we are making a serious point. Britain needs to switch to electric cars as fast as possible, but that alone is not enough. Where does the electricity is of vital importance. Electric cars must run on renewable sources of energy, the energy of the wind and the Sun - only then be done full zero potential emissions from driving.

And we can do as a nation? Can you manage all wind-powered electric cars? The Statistics say so.

There are about 28 m cars on the roads of Great Britain, 150bn driving miles a year, burning about 20 million tons of oil and producing 70 million tonnes of CO2 (12 per cent of the total of our emissions). Incredible numbers, but we could power all that with only about 10,000 of today's wind turbines and 5,000 tomorrow (which double in size every few years).

Can the grid take? It should an increase in electricity online through the grid of 12%, much less that many people think that. And context, before the credit crunch, delivery of grid electricity grew around 3% per year (for what they are talking about normal growth in four years only for cars all of United Kingdom). And the majority of load will take place at night, at times of low demand. The grid can easily cope, in fact if Great Britain changed to electric vehicles that the network operates more efficiently.

And this. One of the truly revolutionary aspects of electric cars is that we can be our own oil companies: we can make our own electricity - and our own car of food. A typical 5 kW rooftop solar system, for example, could provide some 5,000 miles of driving for a year, free of pollution (and fuel duty).

Before this, perhaps in due course, "anxiety" about electric cars will increase from motorists to oil companies.

? Dale Vince is the founder of the Ecotricity green energy company

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Plantwatch: a great year for wild flowers

This has been a fantastic year for wild flowers and for anyone driving holiday is well worth stopping to look at on the banks of the road, where the plants are impressive. Now is the time for the towering peaks of Digital purple and pink rosebay Sauce-hierba. The vines are also filled with flowers, and the heavenly scent of honeysuckle fills the air overnight in hedgerows.

Snowdrops, another plant plant in flower, it is the curse of gardeners, straining to everything that stems can turn around and sinking rhizomes so deep that almost impossible to excavate fully. But trumpet-shaped flowers make a dramatic splash wherever the disruption; If these flowers close during the day, usually a sign that the rain is on its way. The Scarlet Pimpernel also makes the same weather information, which he earned the nickname of "the poor man time glass".

The ragworts are yellow flowers as daisy, but have a darker side. Its flowers are highly poisonous to cattle, horses, pigs and chickens, and even dead grass plants are still poisonous, although won find them immensely attractive to eat. All the grass species are toxic, including the grass of Oxford. This famous was brought from Mount Etna and planted in the gardens of the University of Oxford; seeds trips to Oxford railway station and then widely spread along railway lines, a good substitute for rocks natives of ballast.

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Centrica, and the great British Gas price hike | Terry Macalister

Centrica has reported profits of ￡ 1. 3bn in the first half of this year. Photography: Anthony Devlin/PA

The main group of British Gas, Centrica, has reported profits of ￡ 1. 3bn in the first half of this year. That is 19% lower than at the same time last year, but certainly enough to avoid having to walk home tickets at British Gas?

Last week, the largest supplier of gas and electricity in the country announced plans to raise the prices of electricity and gas to domestic customers in 18% and 16% respectively.

Centrica said that British Gas price increases are needed because that part of the company: technically called British residential Gas Source: suffered a 54% drop in first half profits, 270 million pounds. Without an increase in the cost to the owners supply British gas would be governed for close to a loss in the second half of the year.

The company also maintains that he made margins of between 6% and 7% of British residential Gas supply in the first half of the year and this will only continue to now has in place price increases.

Last year, margins were 8% and in 2009 were 9%.

It depends on which calls. It is not as high as BT and Vodafone, argues British Gas, but then supermarkets seem to earn much less. Many say exact same for equal comparisons is difficult. No doubt the cuts in benefits comes partly as a result of having increased costs wholesale. But, once again, British Gas seems slow to lower domestic tickets when falling prices wholesale.

More than half of the gas wholesale from being acquired by British Gas in fact come from Central, but the rest has to be bought on the open market. Centrica is winning "upstream", but argues that it would be against the rules of competition to subsidize a portion of the business with another, though it is not as clear as it seems. Centrica also says the. 3bn ￡ 1 coincides exactly with the amount being invested this year in the construction of its long-term supply chain: has recently also signed a ￡ 2,000 natural gas liquefied with Qatar.

It is good business to invest in the future, and certainly the North Sea oil and gas depletion leaves United Kingdom who need to find supplies in the long term from elsewhere. But Central was able to obtain money from investment banks or other sources, is why residential customers should fund the "ascending" part of the company?

Yes, but the new competition is struggling to get into a market dominated by British Gas and the other big six energy suppliers that appear to be using its customer base of former monopoly as cannon fodder. Most customers do not bother to a rival suppliers and stay at very expensive prices. It is not unusual for companies to offer the most expensive fare and offer a cheaper (online) at the same time. The accounts are too complicated and the regulator should introduce a one-size-fits-all comparator - as credit card companies have to do with a reference APR: to ensure greater transparency.

This is a real problem that will only worsen, and should be resolved through the improvement of energy efficiency in homes. This should not be to British Gas and others, given his main interest is the sale of more power.

British Gas and its rivals must be regulated more closely, but not be blamed entirely for the global depletion in reserves of fossil fuels and the need for a low carbon emissions economy. Energy bills are going to be with us for a long time, unless the Government begins to spend more on windfarms as warplanes.

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Making great progress in the improvement of our environmental footprints

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An investment programme, combined with better management procedures, were responsible for a continued improvement in the Guardian's environmental performance in the last financial year.

GNM's reporting of environmental performance aims to cover all aspects and impacts within the boundaries we can control. However, we acknowledge that it may be impossible to cover all areas. We are continuing to try to expand our knowledge and data but our priority impacts are:

Carbon footprint – emission sources of carbon from across the business and supply chain

Resource footprint – water use, paper sourcing, operational consumables and materials

Waste footprint – sources of waste generation across the business

Not only did we lower our carbon emissions and water consumption last year, but we also improved recycling rates and made advances in sustainable sourcing.

As a result, GNM more than met its 10:10 commitment to reduce emissions by a tenth in 2010. In fact, we reduced our measured carbon emissions by 27% in the year ending March 2011.

Given that we co-founded the 10:10 campaign, which urges individuals, businesses and organisations to reduce their carbon emissions, it was only right that we were able to show leadership by lowering our own impacts.

Our environmental performance has been acknowledged by GNM becoming one of the first 500 organisations in the UK to be awarded the?Carbon Trust Standard?(CTS), in recognition of its work to reduce its climate change impacts.

The standard is awarded to organisations which have shown carbon reductions and put effective systems in place for carbon management, ranging from policies and investment to people and training.

Achieving it involved an audit of three years of data at the Guardian's offices?and?print sites?and an assessment of how carbon thinking is embedded into business culture and practice. The certification process confirmed that the GNM reduced CO2 by 4,422 tonnes or 28% over the past three financial years ending March 2010. For more information click here.

We have expanded GNM's carbon footprint to include a wider boundary of our impacts, which now embraces paper manufacture at the mills, print wholesale distribution1 and the printing of our magazines2 by contractors.

The continuing expansion of this boundary through our supply chain means that our baseline footprint has changed in the last year and will continue to do so over time. For example, our offices in 2009/10 represented 41% of our footprint and now reflect just 13%.

Based on this wider boundary, the emissions captured in our footprint rose to 31,869tCO2 in the financial year ending March 2011. But on a comparative basis, carbon emissions fell by an impressive 27% compared with the previous year. The biggest savings were achieved through purchasing paper from mills with lower carbon emissions.

Looking through a slightly different lens, we reduced carbon intensity by 19% to 14.6 tonnes of CO2 per ￡100,000 of turnover, based on our wider boundary.

In terms of our directly owned operations, including offices, print sites and business travel, we saved 9% against last year. This was achieved through a combination of investment, improved efficiency, environmental management and reduced operations.

Our two Guardian Print Centres in Manchester and London (Stratford) achieved efficiency gain of 1.7% in emissions per copy, even though the number of printed copies fell. London achieved 16.3gCo2 and Manchester 21.1g per copy in 2010. London GPC's emissions per copy is lower than Manchester due to efficiencies available through economies of scales. London prints 50% more copies than Manchester.

However, business travel emissions rose by 15% due predominately to increased journalist flights to and across the Middle East during the Arab spring and trips across the Atlantic to set up our expanded New York office.

GNM is producing a carbon inventory to identify where GNM's business activities are linked with the generation of greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts. The process sets out all the activities that are directly and indirectly related to GNM businesses covering print media, digital media and our other commercial ventures. These activities may generate greenhouse gases as a result of the material inputs they draw into the system, the processing or activity itself, the intended outputs and waste generated.

These activities have been grouped into five distinct areas or stages that occur within the media process and form GNM's Media Life Cycle (see fig.1):

Production of traditional print media, digital media and other commercial outputs.

Delivery of printed newspapers, of digital content through the Internet and of exhibitions, events and other publishing Use or consumption of GNM content, services, products by the customer.

Enabling the customer to take an action or inform opinion change.

Whist we will ensure a comprehensive picture of GNM's potential total carbon footprint, it is not realistic to maintain a carbon inventory that includes all emission sources. In line with best practice, GNM has set an initial inventory boundary that seeks to cover its primary emission sources, with the aim of progressively expanding the boundary over consecutive years.

Resource Footprint

Water is a precious resource and we are conscious that we must improve our understanding and monitoring of usage. In areas of the business where we do monitor water, we are managing to reduce it.

The two print plants achieved actual water reductions of 14% or 1.6 million litres between 2009/10 and 2010/11. This was achieved by a reduction in leaks, more efficient cleaning processes and the introduction of PIR sensors in the toilets.

We recognise that the effects of our consumption of natural resources has effects beyond what we see in our waste bins. Sustainable sourcing as well as more considered or reduced consumption are essential to our sustainability ambitions.

Both print sites have significantly reduced their use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in our printing process by eliminating the use of solvents in the press cleaning process and font solutions. VOCs are dangerous to both humans and the environments.

Paper consumption is not only our number one carbon source but also our largest direct impact on the environment. In the last financial year, 96% of the newsprint and 82% of magazine grade paper used for the Guardian and Observer was either recycled or used certified virgin fibre. We also invited both WWF and Greenpeace to come to the Guardian and critique our performance.

Our catering suppliers, Baxter Storey, have minimum targets on how much food is sustainably sourced, including local, organic and fair trade produce. Through Global Generation, one of our community partners, local young people studying for a BTEC in horticulture take our canteen waste, grow food and sell it back to us for use in the staff canteen.?

Anglo, our office suppliers, have an agreed aim to identify opportunities to reduce environmental impacts of the products they purchase on our behalf. Currently, 48% of products purchased for GNM by Anglo are from recycled or certified sources. This includes office paper, stationery and catering supplies.

While office waste has a relatively low environmental impact, compared with our other activities, it has a high visibility for staff. In fact, the issue came up repeatedly in workshops held with departments across GNM to look at sustainability objectives.

GNM has had a chequered history in this area and it was discovered in 2010 that while we were collecting waste in four separate bins, when it was being picked up at the back door, it had all been dumped into just two separate containers. Another issue is that some staff contaminated the recycling bins with food waste and the metal recycling bins had sharp edges which often meant waste spilled out and could therefore not be recycled.

Despite this, a concerted effort meant that we just exceeded our target of increasing office waste recycling to 65% in the financial year ending March 2011.? No waste now goes to landfill and waste to incineration fell by 47 tonnes. This success was tempered by the fact that total waste volumes are increasing. For example total paper waste increased by 114 tonnes. Investigation is on going to understand why more paper waste has entered the system.

In an attempt to improve the efficiency of our waste and recycling, we recently launched a new scheme at the Guardian's headquarters building in Kings Place called Love Your Waste. The campaign is an attempt to show staff that what they throw away is not rubbish but represents a valuable resource. We have also streamlined the waste collection, improved siganage and replaced the bins.

Initial results show that the improved signage are helping to reduce contamination.

Our Manchester print site operates a closed loop recycling scheme with one of our paper mills, Palm. Waste paper is collected from the print site and taken to a local mill where it is processed back into newsprint. In addition, the Manchester site is investigating how best to segregate waste streams to maximise their financial value.

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Ten Podcasting tips that lead to a great sound

What defines a good podcast? Make no mistake--there is a difference between a good podcast and a podcast not so good. A high-caliber podcast is much more than just worthy content. The sound quality and the way a podcast is recorded, will impact the value of the podcast as well. Podcast structure and pre-planning are also important; don't skimp on production, as it also can make or break a podcast.
Podcast production requires effort, but anything worth doing is worth doing right. Use these tips to help produce a quality podcast that will distinguish themselves above other related podcasts ...
1. invest in a good microphone a gritty sounding podcast is a radio station that cannot be adjusted completely. Podcasts of poor quality will not tolerate, and listeners simply will unsubscribe instead of being subjected to a recording of poor quality. There are a variety of microphones and different types are designed for different situations. Find a microphone that suits your recording environment. Sound quality really matters.
2. issues of distancemaintain a consistent distance from microphone during recording-this ensures the recording volume is consistent throughout. If you find this challenge, you might consider a microphone that is a headset, as that will help ensure a consistent distance during recording.
3. Inflectionsuse voice inflections to show emotion and to emphasize points and opinions. The inflections may add characters and humor to emissions. Listeners will pick up any enthusiasm, but is often out of tune monotones.
Polish, 4. add an image and background music to your podcast to highlight it. These small additions will help distinguish your podcast of competitors podcast podcast directory listings.
5. use editing Software audio using any recording software to remove defects or errors in editing. Remove any long pauses or sound artifacts that can occur during recording.
6. Minimize background noise find an isolated place to write your program; This will help minimize background noises. Use the same place to record every show, which will result in continuity in the recordings.
Test 7. prior to recording, perform an audio test to make sure that the sound quality is acceptable and background noise is minimal.
8. Break It Up logging more time in summary shows segments; This will facilitate the process of final editing.
9. Add transitions use the software to add transient sound effects between show segments. In addition, add background music, theme song or overlaps between the segments of the Show to promote the podcast.
10. Format each show in a series of podcast must follow a prescribed format. All shows in a series should be similar in length. Try not to stray too far from preplanned format, as listeners will come to expect it.
Podcasting is becoming increasingly popular. To differentiate your podcast and make it stand out from others in the same sector, use these tips from top 10.
About the author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software to create, edit, publish RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for recording and editing software, RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio.

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