Andrew Warren

Regenerating the inner cities — the energy dimension

Abstract The government has decided to put more resources — political, intellectual, financial and administrative — into the countrys less prosperous inner city areas. The localities pose a many-sided set of problems within which unemployment, a decaying built environment and a concentration of social problems interact with each other to different degrees in different places. These same places also afford contrasting opportunities for change and renewal. It is now increasingly recognized, therefore, that any attempts to assist them must acknowledge both the extreme complexity of the problem and the likely diversity of any partial solutions. Although the encouragement of improved efficiencies in energy use might at first sight appear to be somewhat tangential to the core issues of the inner cities, energy conservation programmes can in fact ameliorate some of the problems in many of these locations. The present study is the product of a decision by the Association for the Conservation of Energy to examine the ways and circumstances in which the interests of the energy efficiency industry coincide with the ambitions of government in the inner cities. It demonstrates the variety of ways in which initiatives which are primarily designed to improve the efficiency of energy use in such locations can have a very much wider economic and social impact, and can assist in the rehabilitation and revival of those places and their communities.

The UK energy select committee greenhouse report

Abstract The UK House of Commons Energy Select Committee has recently produced a report on the greenhouse effect. Despite a Conservative-dominated constitution the Committee accepts that market forces cannot solve the problem, and makes recommendations for changes in policy particularly with regard to efficiency.

Saving Megabucks by Saving Megawatts

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses methods to save megabucks by saving megawatts. The use of differing criteria between investment in the efficient use and investment in the supply of energy has led to a gross misallocation of resources in Britain. It is vital to establish a satisfactory mechanism for ensuring preference for the energy resource that involves its provider and, therefore its ultimate consumer, in the least cost. It has become manifestly clear over recent years that such a simplistic approach to energy supply and demand equations does not produce optimum results. Most utilities have traditionally seen themselves as the suppliers of a commodity, and like many other enterprises, strive toward increasing profits by increasing sales of their commodity.