Joined: Nov 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 1,046 Location: London
Carbon Neutral « Thread Started on Nov 7, 2009, 5:52pm »
As I understand it (I do not claim to be an expert on the subject) this is where a company offsets the emissions that its business produces by carrying out its services for the client/customer. It can offset these emissions by doing something 'good' for the environment, such as planting trees. Obviously the most important stage in this process is significantly reducing emissions as much as possible in the first place, so there is less to offset ! This is in a nut-shell achieved by the company being as 'green' as possible.
AFAIK the only railway company in England which claims to be Carbon Neutral, is Eurostar. It does not charge passengers any extra to have there emissions offset, like airlines do.
Also I noted that c2c has prided itself on making all its trains 'greener' (as seen advertised on one of its unites).
Now this has made me think how disgraceful LUL's energy policies are!
For example, almost always, in the middle of a perfectly clear day outside stations are left with all the platform lights glowing brightly.. I have noticed this problem is particularly bad on District line stations EAST of Bromley-By-Bow. I don't know if the problem is AS bad on other lines.
Dot matrix boards are installed on platforms, they do not give ANY information, they are not wired up, they burn energy day and night displaying only the time!
At many terminus points paper is STILL sent to landfill with all rubbish ! Only a handful separate paper and other rubbish. This is disgraceful, imagine how many 10000's of newspapers are going to landfill every day.
At depots the recycling facilities are at best, abysmal. Usually one green paper bin, placed behind the DMT's desk. Nothing in the canteen/mass areas. Nothing for recycling drinks can's/bottles.
Internal lights burn at stations and depots 24/7 nobody seems to be bothered about turning them off, even in areas which anyone rarely visits. Similarly, PCs seem to remain on 24/7 even if nobody is using it.. when you have finished why not shut it down?
I could go on and on, LUL should be ashamed and I am including staff not just the company, but more facilities need to be in place to help us all be greener!
I recently applied to be the depot energy champion at my location and look forward to doing what I can to help this cause.
What are your thoughts on LUL and how it is (NOT) helping to tackle climate change?
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #1 on Nov 7, 2009, 6:16pm »
I couldn't agree more,and furthermore,I'd like to mention my own particular bugbear. I know this has been discussed in other threads,but I think it needs to be re-iterated until the message gets through. I'm speaking about the LCD screen adverts which are appearing especially alongside escalators in main stations,but also in other locations. I cannot BELIEVE these are being installed! These use shed-loads of energy (despite their being "greenwashed" as a paper-saving exercise).and most of this energy seems to be dissipated as heat. Touch one of these screens....they are noticeably warm. So not only are they a waste of energy in themselves,but by raising the ambient temperature,they increase the need for cooling systems (yet more energy demand),increase discomfort for passengers,and impair the reliability of critical systems which are temperature-sensitive. At a time when we should be thinking of ways of reducing energy consumption,these are a mammoth step in completely the wrong direction.....regardless of any marginal increase in revenue. As for carbon "offsetting", I am concerned that this is often used as an excuse to not do anything about tackling emissions at source,where some GOOD would actually be done. Rant over....I thank-you!
For example, almost always, in the middle of a perfectly clear day outside stations are left with all the platform lights glowing brightly.. I have noticed this problem is particularly bad on District line stations EAST of Bromley-By-Bow. I don't know if the problem is AS bad on other lines.
There is the other side of that though. There seems to be a supervisor at Ravenscourt Park who doesn't like switching the station lights on at all. I have had to call the controller to get the platform lights switched on more than once. I don't know why station lighting isn't controlled by sensors, this will solve the problem all round.
There is the other side of that though. There seems to be a supervisor at Ravenscourt Park who doesn't like switching the station lights on at all. I have had to call the controller to get the platform lights switched on more than once. I don't know why station lighting isn't controlled by sensors, this will solve the problem all round.
Actually, you may find that station is one of a handful of "Green" stations that were fitted with the sensors you mention. We have some on the Met and quite often hear from drivers that the lights have not come on.
They've done the bit about installing the sensors, but haven't had them correctly calibrated to ensure they come on when they should, and not when it's too dark to see the platforms.
Joined: Jan 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 268 Location: Westminster
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #4 on Nov 7, 2009, 10:17pm »
I know that being green is important, but China opens a new coal-fired power station on average once a week. We must all do our little bit certainly, but this is quite small fry in the bigger picture.
At the LURS talk by Mike Palmer last month on the Jubilee Upgrade, Mike was talking about how the power systems had had to be modified because of the regenerative braking on the trains and how they had to make sure that if every train braked at once it wouldn't overload the substations with the power put back in. This should help even things out a little!
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #5 on Nov 8, 2009, 2:37am »
I think ours a controlled by sensors. Depending on the weather conditions our lights are on from about 4:45PM to about 7:30-8:30AM in the Morning in winter. And about 7:30PM to about 5:30AM. Yard Lights are within the same ballpark. Only inside the sheds the lights stay on.
Station Buildings are the SMs choice. Normally they're off. Depends on the station.
Even we switch off one esclator per bank in the Loop stations during off peak periods.
Just about every station has a set of wheelie bins. One for rubbish. The other for recycling.
Merry ChristmasAnd a Happy New Year Cheers Brad. Puffing Billy Volunteer. Trainee Conductor and Engine Cleaner Myki: Wait what do you mean we have buses and trams! Metro now arriving at Richmond. Customers for the LilydaleBelgrave, Alemain and Glen Waverley lines please change trains at Richomnd
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 481 Location: Herts
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #6 on Nov 8, 2009, 8:52am »
Several of our lights inside our depot are motion sensitive; if there hasn't been any movement in a room within a certain period of time, they turn off. As I found out the day I had an overnight spare shift and was the only person in the messroom.. sitting quite still... and trying to do crosswords. I should have taken the hint and tried sleeping instead!
Joined: Aug 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 2,805 Location: Doncaster/Edinburgh
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #7 on Nov 8, 2009, 11:30am »
I thought that they did recycle the Metro and other freebie papers? When I've seen the cleaners at termini, they seem to separate the paper from the other rubbish.
I know that being green is important, but China opens a new coal-fired power station on average once a week. We must all do our little bit certainly, but this is quite small fry in the bigger picture.
Actually , there not installing so much new coal generation and that whch they are is cleaner and n many cases in the north is part of regional heating schemes. A few weeks ago I was at a talk by a fella from Vestas, and he told us that China is installing a lot of wind power and that China is the biggest spender now the biggest investor in wind power, because it is fast to deploy and payss for itself in a very short time period.
It is all of the nimby politics and environmental studies in the west that makes Wind expensive not the cost of the turbines themselves.
Joined: Mar 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 3,724 Location: Colonia Domitiana Lindensium
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #9 on Nov 8, 2009, 12:45pm »
There is quite a lot of off-shore wind farms here. Perhaps TFL could invest in one solely to supply the UndergrounD system, which would save an absolute fortune...... Not to mention the carbon neutrality thing.
Joined: Nov 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 1,795 Location: Behind you!! Nah, just kidding
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #10 on Nov 8, 2009, 1:09pm »
But would the underground (or even TfL as a whole) be allowed to generate its own power from a new station now?
From what I hear from station staff, TfLs internal recycling schemes are somewhere between non-existant and a joke, at least as experienced from an end-user perspective. Is there anyone perhaps further up in the right direction who could comment on what should be happening?
Joined: Mar 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 3,724 Location: Colonia Domitiana Lindensium
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #11 on Nov 8, 2009, 1:34pm »
They always used to, and to be honest, if they are funding it all why not? I know of farms in this area that use their own wind generators and sell the excess to the National Grid.
In fact there is a Church that uses something on it's windows to allow solar power to generate their electricity, and they also sell the excess to TNG.
The idea would pay for itself in a reasonably quick time.
Joined: Jan 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 268 Location: Westminster
Re: Carbon Neutral « Reply #13 on Nov 8, 2009, 3:18pm »
Quote:
Actually , there not installing so much new coal generation and that whch they are is cleaner and n many cases in the north is part of regional heating schemes. A few weeks ago I was at a talk by a fella from Vestas, and he told us that China is installing a lot of wind power and that China is the biggest spender now the biggest investor in wind power, because it is fast to deploy and payss for itself in a very short time period.
Actually, China is opening a great many 'dirty' power stations, which is mentioned often in the broadsheet newspapers. Just one of the examples I can find is here
Quote:
It is all of the nimby politics and environmental studies in the west that makes Wind expensive not the cost of the turbines themselves.
Wind is also not the best form of renewable power, no matter what the good people of Vestas do - as wind turbine producers, they are going to tell you that! I'm sure that many of these wind farms get built because there's so much money in it, contracts, etc. etc. but scientists cannot accurately predict what the wind will be like even within the next 10 minutes and because electricity is difficult to store it'll be impossible to ever depend on wind power as a source of power generation.
One area, in my opinion, much overlooked is tidal power, which is above all else, reliable; it's relatively easy to calculate the rise and fall of the tides for the next 10,000 years, and if you think about the amount of energy there is to be harnessed in this, the mind boggles. One could also look at the post-war Labour government that set up the huge hydroelectric plants in Scotland that are still producing a large percentage of Scotland's energy many decades on.
![[Home]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/menu/home.gif)
![[Help]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/menu/help.gif)
![[Search]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/menu/search.gif)
![[Login]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/menu/login.gif)
![[Register]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/menu/register.gif)
![[Search This Thread]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/search2.gif)
![[Send Topic To Friend]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/buttons/sendtopic.gif)
![[Print]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/buttons/print.gif)
Author![[avatar]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/avatars/bunny.gif)
Logged![[avatar]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/Motorman/Paper-Men.gif)
![[avatar]](http://www.michaelwoodside.co.uk/p2a.jpg)
![[aim]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/aim.gif)
![[homepage]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/buttons/www_sm.gif)
![[avatar]](http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2936/mykiscreen.gif)
![[avatar]](http://www.coralleane.co.uk/wordpress/wp-includes/images/teddyhat.jpg)
I should have taken the hint and tried sleeping instead!
![[avatar]](http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/6388/image101ks9.jpg)
![[avatar]](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.johnston570/73Avatar.jpg){kind=avatar}
![[msn]](http://s4.images.proboards.com/msn.gif)
![[image]](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.johnston570/Fosters.gif)
![[avatar]](http://images.fotopic.net/yr3go4.jpg)
![[avatar]](http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/centralsimon/phpBBttLP_c1PM.jpg)
