The Rail, Engineering, Energy, Renewables, Power Blog

This coming Friday, April 22^nd, is Good Friday and a lot of people in the UK will be enjoying the start of two consecutive long weekends away from work. But April 22^nd isn’t just a religious holiday; it’s also Earth Day 2011. (more…)

The world has been making use of energy from the wind for thousands of years. As early as 5000 B.C. it is believed that boatmen on the Nile realised the value of wind to power their sailing vessels.

Windmills were first used in Persia and then in China around 200 B.C. Europe was slower to adopt the technology and the first windmill didn’t go into action in the UK until 1185, with European windmills being used to grind grain and pump water. However, they started to fade into obscurity during the industrial revolution when it was discovered that there were more efficient ways to produce power. (more…)

If the UK is going to successfully reduce its carbon emission targets, something has to be done to overcome the current skills shortages.

In the dim and distant past, the UK made prolific use of child labour to do the jobs no-one else wanted to do. Luckily, that system has long since been outlawed. We also had apprenticeship schemes, which were an excellent way of providing young men with the skills necessary to carry out a trade. (more…)

In a novel way to highlight the threat of global warming, the Maldives president, vice president, cabinet secretary and 11 ministers staged a 30 minute underwater meeting on Saturday calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

President Mohammed Nasheed and 13 other government officials donned scuba gear and took their seats at a table on the sea floor — 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training. (more…)

At Carbon Reduction ‘09 we will be presenting a Master Class detailing the tools and methodology past, present and future which has been and will be critical in resourcing highly skilled, but short supply candidates for the ever expanding renewables and alternative energy industry sector. (more…)