PAUL KEETCH, MP for Hereford, in the rural heartland of England, suggests
that a diesel fuel substitute produced from renewable sources such as vegetable
oils and animal fats could help Britain to achieve its aim of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2012.
Keith Hill, the junior transport minister, responded positively, agreeing
that many alternative road fuels offer significant environmental benefits. The
government is keen to encourage their wider use wherever it is cost-effective to
do so. He agreed that bio-diesel can reduce carbon dioxide emissions compared
with ordinary diesel. 鈥淲e shall keep its potential under review,鈥� he
promised.
Clearly, bio-diesel could be a useful source of income for hard-pressed
farmers. Many MPs with rural constituencies favour Keetch鈥檚 proposal. They are
certain to keep a close watch on what the government decides to do about it.
Advertisement
BEFORE he retired as the director-general of Britain鈥檚 research councils,
John Cadogen used to sing the praises of photovoltaic solar cells as a way of
converting sunshine to electricity without polluting the atmosphere. Now Andrew
Robathan, MP for Blaby, Leicestershire, has taken up the cause. He recently
asked what the Department of Trade and Industry was doing to develop the
technology.
Helen Liddell, the minister for energy and competitiveness in Europe, was not
encouraging. She said that using photovoltaics as an integral part of building
facades in Britain would meet less than 5 per cent of Britain鈥檚 demand for
electricity. The savings in CO2 emissions if all this resource could be
utilised鈥攚hich for practical, economic and environmental reasons is
unlikely鈥攚ould amount to 7 million tonnes per year. She added that the
average cost of electricity from photovoltaics integrated into buildings is
about six times that of electricity generated from conventional fuels. This is
unlikely to decrease sufficiently over the next decade to make more than a small
contribution to the reduction in carbon emissions that Britain must make by
2012. The annual generating capacity of installed photovoltaics in Britain is
0.5 gigawatt-hours.
I hope that all MPs do not share such pessimism and that perhaps more
research could be done into photovoltaics.
THE GOVERNMENT plans to reduce the level of nitrate draining from
agricultural land into surface and groundwater by extending its system of
Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs). These zones define catchment areas where
nitrate levels in water exceed, or are likely to exceed, the legal limit set in
the European Union鈥檚 Nitrates Directive. Farmers whose fields are within an NVZ
have to take measures to cut down nitrate pollution in surface waters and
groundwater, including drinking water sources.
So far, 66 NVZs have been designated in England and 2 in Wales, covering a
total of 600 000 hectares. They are subject to a review every four years, the
first of which took place in 1997. As a result of extended testing, it is likely
that new NVZs will be designated. In my opinion, this is a significant advance.
Nitrate levels in non-drinking surface waters are, I understand, already being
monitored by the Environment Agency, and parallel work is being undertaken with
groundwater which is not used as a source of drinking water.
This is likely to be of special importance to central and eastern England,
where water is in high demand. Chris Mullin, the junior environment minister,
says a consultation paper setting out the number and location of new NVZs will
be published later this year.
