I’m off on holiday for a week, which means this blog will be quiet for a week (other bloggers get software which allows them to line up blogs to publish in the future – I don’t).

It is a holiday on which I will be delivered by short haul aeroplane to a place where hydrocarbon-fueled machines will take me up mountains repeatedly, to no discernable purpose other than my own pleasure.

It always surprises me how un-green skiing as an activity is. Given that skiiers/snowboarders love skiing/snowboarding, you might have thought that they would care a bit more about the environment – after all, the whole pasttime would be impossible in most places with only a few degrees of climate change. But the patio heaters still blaze away at the apres ski venues so that people can sit outside in a cold place for an extra hour.

I guess it’s just another example of wilful blindness to the possible consequences/putting ones own interests first. I can’t claim to be any different on that, to my shame.

Well, it isn’t exactly algae like I asked for, but here’s something to be going on with: The electric cactus: Tomorrow’s clean energy source?

Researchers at France’s Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS) recently developed a biofuel cell that can generate power using the two main products of photosynthesis: sugar and oxygen. They then inserted the cell into a living cactus … and measured an energy output of 9 watts per square centimetre.

Am I reading that right? Have they really plugged an extra battery into a cactus? So they’ve turbo-charged it? Pimp my cactus?

Well done them. I would never have thought of bothering to do that.

This isn’t actually a pint of a Guiness, it’s a “Juice point” – I noticed one of these while in London on a stag do the other weekend. Good to see these sprouting up, and in general it’s got to be a good thing.

One carp, of course, is that electric cars aren’t green because in the UK they run on electricity which, according to fuelmix.co.uk, is 70% fossil-fuel generated at the moment. That should, we hope, improve as time goes on, and obviously compares favourably to a normal car which is 100% fossil-fuel driven. What would be interesting to know, though, is whether burning fossil fuel and converting it into energy, transmitting it to the cars is more or less efficient than just burning it in the car direct. Anyone know the stats?

Bad chat this, but: gawd, isn’t the news boring at the moment? All “hoaxed data” this, and “can we trust scientists” that, and even the odd “Ooh look I found some data was a bit wrong” story.

None of which do anything to undermine the thrust that global warming/climate change is happening and needs to be acted on. The debate over the stats at the moment just goes to arguments as to how quickly it’s happening, not whether it is happening.

And frustratingly we seem to be back where we were 5 years or so ago with a significant proportion of people even doubting climate change altogether.

Isn’t it time for some good news, like “Scientists discover wicked algae which absorbs loads of carbon and then tastes better than beef when you eat it?” If we’re going to fake stuff, please can we fake that?

Interesting post on Energysavinggadgets about a device that you screw over existing light switches so that the lights switch off automatically after there’s been no movement for some time.

Will they save you any money though?

I can’t find them in the UK but they are on ebay.com in the US for $25 – say £15. Assuming we’re talking about a nice bright 20W bulb, and your electricity costs 15p per unit. 5 hours of wasted light costs 15p, so for £15 you could get 500 hours of light (about 21 days). How long does it take you to waste 21 days worth of light? I think it takes me a pretty long time! And that figure, of course, doesn’t take into account the cost of the 3AA batteries it costs to run it, and the carbon costs it takes to create it.

They haven’t come out in the UK now, but I’m not exactly champing at the bit to get one…

Excitingly, my mate Tim has decided that our rugby club should make money by putting up a wind turbine to make extra funds. I’m keen to follow this closely, because it’ll be interesting to see the hurdles that you’ve got to jump to do it.

Looking at the numbers involved it seems that you can get a surprisingly impressive return on your investment of around 20- 25% which means it pays off the capital cost in 4 to 5 years then after that it’s all jam money, which would be great for the long term health of the club (and, more remotely, the community). Obviously whether it’ll get the same subsidies long term is less clear, but still.

On the face of it, we’ve got a decent site. A big ground in the middle of nowhere, nice open space on quite high ground (average wind speed 6m/s which by all accounts is pretty decent). But will the downsides win? Will a tree preservation order get in the way? Will it be too expensive to bury the nearby power lines? There are few houses nearby, but what will the single householder say about a windmill 92 metres away (apparently over 200m away the noise is negligible but…)? How will the nearby residents association (currently well organised and fighting off a housing development application) react?

Wow, it feels like a geography project case study. So I’ll try and blog about it occasionally. And in the meantime I’ll swallow my misgivings about wind power!

This is a good video – more videos should compare economic growth to a massive hamster, in my view. Can’t help thinking it might be an oversimplification of the arguments, but still, the principle that we can go on producing ever more, for ever, just doesn’t seem right.

What’s the alternative to growth, though? I’ve wondered for ages why 0.1% growth is so much “better” and feels so much nicer than 0.1% recession – but given that that’s exactly the sort of thing we’re experiencing at the moment – job losses, misery, falling asset prices and the like – it’s difficult to see how we can get weaned off the addiction to economic growth.

Even by oversimplified videos of massive hamsters.

(Hat Tip: Green Thing)