Green milk and greener homes

I have already written about the effect of industrial farming on the environment. There are non-industrial ways of farming, when the farmers do not farm intensively – for example when they farm “organically” to Soil Association standards, but these ways still affect our environment.

 

Dairy farming, for example, produces significant greenhouse gas emissions throughout every stage of the process of getting milk to our tables. The grass that the cows eat is fertilised, the daily milking of the cows requires energy, particularly heat energy in the sterilisation of the milking equipment, and then there is the energy needed to pasteurise the milk and finally package it and transport it into the stores.

 

We consumers then pick up the environmental chain by buying the milk which is usually sold these days in plastic bottles, throwing away the bottles after we have drunk the milk to add to our ever increasing landfill.

 

My father’s family were farmers in Cyprus; perhaps I should call them peasants. But all over the world farmers live close to the land and understand that the land and the environment must be respected. Farmers also understand that they have to plan for the long term. A fence is built to last, a barn is built to last, not to be written off over the next five years.

 

Most directors of large corporations such as banks, would be shocked at the long term views that farmers take but farmers know that while they have to survive for them it is not about getting a fat bonus by playing around with other people’s money.

 

The diary farmers have come up with a plan, supported by DEFRA, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 20% and 30%. They are also planning to reduce water usage, fertilisers and improve animal welfare, sourcing 40% of their energy from renewables by 2020.

 

All farmers used energy, particularly heat energy for cleaning processes. Heat energy is often provided by generators burning agricultural diesel (lower taxed diesel specially dyed to ensure that it is not used other than by farmers) because farms are often off the national gas grid network.

 

The diary industry’s plans are all perfectly achievable, especially as we have the technology now to help the farmers in their plan by offering renewable heat products.

 

I think that the approach should be to do what we can. Unfortunately so much effort is spent in trying to achieve the impossible, that we miss out on achieving the possible. Nowhere does this happen more than with energy. The dairy industry has shown some leadership and if they concentrate on the art of the possible they will succeed in their targets because the heat technology is there – especially with high heat solar panels like the new Genersys 1850. Its absorber is made from titanium oxide which gets very hot – too hot for domestic installations but ideal for industrial and large scale commercial and farming requirements.

 

An array of these panels on a milking shed roof would provide a significant proportion of a diary farmer’s heat energy needed for hot water sterilisation. They would save many of the associated emissions and would help make the milk “greener”.

 

So while it seems the diary industry is undertaking the art of the possible the house building industry is being led by the government to attempt the art of the impossible.

 

Trying to build a zero carbon home – a home that has no net emissions of carbon dioxide – is a very laudable aim, but our national policy is to try to do this at the expense of many more emissions being created because we are not having lower carbon homes, which rae perfectly achievable tomorrow.

 

Our national policy is that all new homes must be zero carbon by 2016 and I fear that is simply not achievable. What is more likely to happen by 2016 is that the target will either be dropped because it is not achievable or that the definition of what constitutes a zero carbon home (already having a somewhat fluid nature) will be redefined to embrace the possible.

 

It may be that 100,000 new homes will be built each year between 2008 and 2016. It would be far more effective, cost less and save much more carbon if we simply required each new home (including homes that are substantially rebuilt or extended)  from now on to have a solar water heating system. This policy is already law in places like Spain and Portugal, so I can see no objection in enacting a similar law in our wealthier more prosperous land.

 

The law would on average save half a tonne of carbon dioxide each year for each home on the gas network and around a tonne for all the others so on average the saving would be say 5.25 tonnes multiplied by 100,000 in the first year, which is 525,000 tonnes in year one, over a million tonnes in year two and so the savings would mount up.

 

While enacting this measure we could still pursue the zero carbon dream home.

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