bemoreeco

Since the beginning of 2008, a loaf of bread will probably cost you over a pound. It was only 50 – 60p at the turn of the century, so that is quite a big increase. Likewise, other items are noticeably more expensive. Rice and Pasta cost up to 60% more than they did last year.

But lets focus on bread for a minute. There are 4 major factors making bread so expensive at the moment.

1)  Rising fuel costs. Everything costs energy to make and deliver, and the rising cost of oil had made it more expensive to bake bread. So supermarkets like Waitrose, Tesco and Asda are charging more for it.

2)  Wheat costs more. Farmers have been financially encouraged to use land which would traditionally have grown wheat and other crops, to grow corn-based ethanol and other plants which can produce biofuel. This means less land for wheat and higher prices. The irony is that this second problem was meant to resolve the first.

3)  Rising demand. Emerging countries like China, India and Brazil have a rapidly growing middle class. This middle class is discovering they like different things in their diet, namely bread. This creates a bigger demand, and higher prices.

4)  Bad Weather. Bad weather isn’t so new to us in the UK, but the last two years haven’t been kind to farmers. Around the world harvests have not been good and this has helped caused food crisis.

Are the prices going to stay this high? No, at least not in the short term. We’re likely to see a small dip in the future as the oil speculators drop their prices, the government reconsiders biofuels and the weather might improve. The prices wont drop down much, and then it will just be temporary.  But in the long term, yes, we’re going to have to get used to paying £1 and beyond for a loaf of bread.

It might be time to bake your own.

This is pretty. This is environmentally friendly.

…and it’s too damned expensive.

Still, marvel at the Lightning GT - Britain’s first electric sports car. At £120,000 you will never be able to afford it, but with a little luck you might be able to point one out to your friend sometime. It will probably have a green-campaigning celebrity behind the wheel.

As plucked from The Telegraph:

But the sleek £120,000 sports car runs on 30 onboard rechargeable batteries and emits no direct greenhouse gas emissions.

Ten minutes of battery charging will allow the driver to travel 200 miles and the “regenerative braking” means the batteries receive a boost every time the car decelerates.

Despite their price, cars like these are important. It changes the image of ‘green. Green companies cosying up with great designers is a good thing. Green stops being the charity/recycling option and becomes the premium option. There is good money in that.

If you’re interested in the car be sure to read David Adams’ opinion.

And luckily, the Telegraph has listed nine of the best green cars available in the UK. Many are affordable and rather impressive.

BP Head Tony Hayward doesn’t see a problem with oil. In a somewhat candid statement reported in The Guardian, Tony Hayward explains oil prices are high not because the oil is running out, but because the supply from countries like Russia and Venezuela is restricted, whilst many other areas are off-limits.

Hayward defied predictions from some of his peers that current oil production of around 81.5m barrels a day may never be exceeded. He suggested 100m barrels may still be possible. The era of cheap energy was over, with oil prices moving steadily upwards over the past six years, but this was definitely not because the world is running out of oil, he said

The problem is the world is running out of oil. It’s an undisputed fact. Oil is a fossil fuel, we’re using it and it’s never going to come back (within the foreseeable human time-line). The world has been running out of oil since the Chinese began pumping oil from the ground over 2500 years ago, and it’s most certainly been running out since Colonel Drake launched the modern commercial oil well nearly 150 years ago. Many of the problems in the world can be explained by oil running out.

The problems BP’s Tony Hayward describes are short-term exacerbations of a longer-term problem. Yet these could be helpful. This short-term crunch could be the sharp shock needed to focus on efficiency and renewable energies.

Leo Hickman reports in the Guardian about the launch of a voluntary personal carbon trading scheme. The concept allows anyone filling up at BP garages to use their loyalty cards and record the level of carbon dioxide they are emitting into the environment.

Each volunteer will be given a monthly allowance of carbon credits which they will then be able to trade with other volunteers using an online trading system dubbed the CarbonDAQ. Volunteers who are thrifty with their credits will, using a virtual currency, be able to sell their spare credits to those needing to drive further than their allowance allows.

By consequence this creates a virtual currency which, if adopted on a broad scale, offers benefits to many. However the targets might be too ambitious to achieve at the present time.

Each volunteer in the trial will be allocated credits representing five tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum. This total equals roughly half the total lifestyle-related carbon emissions of the average UK citizen, but is meant to be illustrative of the kind of emissions reductions the UK government says each citizen needs to achieve in coming decades to prevent “dangerous climate change”.

A better approach would be to set smaller annual percentage reductions to allow participants to adapt to a steady change which can then meet the necessary targets. Substantial, instant, reductions are unlikely to meet with the approval or widespread acceptance.

This Monday (9th June) is National Liftshare Day. Organisers liftshare.org aim to encourage motorists to gives fellow employees a lift on their way to work. As reported in The Guardian:

• For those of us who love our cars too much to give them up, there is still a way to be greener. Next Monday is National Liftshare Day. Giving someone a lift to work may not be a revolutionary idea, but it can help. Even if you only give one person a lift, that’s an instant 50% reduction in your combined CO2 emissions.
• Then there is the 50% reduction in your combined contributions to road congestion, car-parking space at work, fuel costs - and if you’re the share, you get to be chauffeur-driven to work. The organiser of the day, liftshare, also claims the inherent social element is an added bonus, suggesting it may even increase your employment opportunities.

Practically, the rising cost of oil and living expenses may force more environmentally-friendly forms of transport upon us in the long run. Those organisations which can adapt early and take a proactive stance to getting their employees to work will reap great benefits.

MetaEfficient has an excellent blog post illustrating and describing how you can convert your car to an electric vehicle. It’s written for an American audience, but there’s no reason why much of the advice cannot be applied to car owners in the vehicle.

It appears to be a simple enough process, but it requires several thousand pounds in start-up capital, which might dissuade the more risk-adverse car owners.

“Basically, electric conversion involves removing the entire internal combustion engine from a vehicle, installing an electric motor in its place, and also adding a large bank of batteries. A conversion will cost you about $6000 in parts, and about $1000-$3000 for batteries and installation. But, for this up-front  expense, you’ll get a zero-emissions vehicle that costs only a few cents per mile to run. Your electric car will also be more reliable and require much less maintenance that a conventional one. Remember that gas-powered cars cost the owner about $1800 per year on average for fuel costs alone, and there is the addition expense of engine maintenance and oil changes.”

Is this a realistic option? There are three major problems with this conversion. The first is the capital, it requires good faith that an electric vehicle is cheaper in the long-term than an internal combustion engine. Second, batteries cost between $1000 - $3000, and need to be replaced every 3 - 4 years. This eliminates much of the fuel savings. Finally, the car has a range of 60 - 80 miles, yet needs 8 - 12 hours to fully charge. This significantly restricts the use of the vehicle.

Our verdict? At the moment it’s best for owners of extremely light-weight, short-journey, keen-greens only. More likely, the same people who are already cycling these distances to work anyhow.

There is a lot in the news at the moment about the Government’s green taxes, fuel protests, the price of oil and Gordon Brown’s meeting with oil chiefs to resolve the problem. If you’re a little overwhelmed, or just plain busy, here is a simple explanation.

The price of fuel is rising to such an extent that if the Government goes ahead with additional green taxes it will force many companies out of business. However, if the government fails to push ahead with these taxes it will signal that the environment features relatively low on the government agenda and is likely to be pushed further down any time we have a crunch. So it really is quite the predicament for our beleaguered Prime Minister.

What it means for you:

Well, if you bought a gas-guzzler since 2001, or plan to buy one in the future, you might be hit with a tax charge of up to £200. Alternatively, the charge might be dropped and bigger environmental problems, and taxes, will arise in the future.

It’s a rather academic debate mind. Oil is a fossil fuel, it’s going to run out. The less oil that remains, the more it’s going to cost. So any protests based on the price of oil is short-term. Whether now or next year, the price of oil will rise. The less oil we have, the more it’s going to cost.

Our view? Keep the taxes. Companies that want to survive will innovate, become more efficient, lobby for research on renewable sources of energy. Companies that don’t want to survive, wont.