Incentives to boost the number of electric cars on the UK’s roads were announced by the Department for Transport earlier this week, in an attempt to encourage a greater uptake of the green vehicles.

Eight cities – London, York, Bristol, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Oxford, Derby and Dundee – have been awarded funding and will share a £40m kitty between them. The cities all have different plans for the funds, with Milton Keynes and Derby to permit the use of electric cars in bus lanes, Bristol offering free parking and York installing new recharge points at a solar-powered park-and-ride facility.

The new policy will also help to reduce the UK’s currently-illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution and to meet carbon budgets. A similar scheme, whereby the government subsidised £5,000 of every electric car purchased, was launched in 2011 and has proven very successful.

Transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, said: “I want to see thousands more greener vehicles on our roads and I am proud to back this ambition with £40m to help the UK become international pioneers of emission-cutting technology.”

At TrakRap, we fully support incentives which highlight the importance of sustainability in the UK. Positioning the country at the forefront of the electric car revolution is a great step to take as it sends out the message that we are fully committed to improving air quality and planning for the future.

After the recent story regarding Drax power station switching from coal to biofuel, we thought we’d take a look further afield at the practical benefits that sustainable energy production on a large scale has brought to parts of Scandinavia.

Denmark has revealed its wind power figures for 2015 and they make for fantastic reading – the above-average amount of wind last year helped Denmark to produce a world record 42% of its electricity from wind turbines.

On one occasion in September, the country was able to operate without needing to switch on a single central power station and, in July, Denmark produced so much electricity that it was able to meet all its electricity needs and export another 40% overseas!

Needless to say, the Danes are on course to meet their 2050 target of producing half of all their electricity courtesy of wind.

Chief policy officer of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), Kristian Ruby, said: “These figures show that we are now at a level where wind integration can be the backbone of electricity systems in advanced economies.”

Here at TrakRap, we’d like to applaud the Danes’ continued implementation of sustainable energy production. Their incredible success proves that an environmentally-friendly approach will deliver positive results, benefiting the country and the rest of the planet, and raising the bar for everybody else.

In the ongoing battle with climate change, trees are a natural first line of defence as they help to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that are present in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, there simply aren’t enough of them to cope with the quantity of greenhouse gases, and, at present, too few trees are being planted to make up the deficit. 

Happily, some interesting news from the US has reached us this week, as it has been revealed that two designers in Boston have been recruited to develop artificial trees capable of absorbing carbon dioxide, before either storing it or converting it into fuel. 

A spokesperson for the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions in Arizona claims that one square kilometre of artificial trees could theoretically remove four million tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually. 

There is a downside, however – the artificial trees don’t resemble real ones, as developers prioritise the efficiency of the carbon-removal process over realism. Affordability is also an issue, but once the technology has been perfected, its designers estimate that the cost of removing carbon dioxide will be as little as $100 a tonne.

Pioneering new technologies that challenge the norm and that are designed to lessen our impact on the environment is exactly what we deliver here at TrakRap.

Drax power station in North Yorkshire is the biggest in Britain and, historically, one of its biggest polluters. However, the gargantuan site has now switched from burning coal to burning low-grade wood pellets sourced from working forests in an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint.

Although converting a power plant from coal to biomass has never been done on this scale before, two of Drax’s six units have already been completed, and a third will be burning 100% wood before the end of the year, at a total cost of £700m and with an estimated carbon saving of more than 80%. Additionally, the two biomass-burning units at Drax already generate approximately 12% of the UK’s total renewable-electricity.

According to Drax Group’s chief executive, Dorothy Thompson, it is a switch the company has been keen to implement for some time. She said: “We used to be the biggest carbon emitter in the UK, which we were not comfortable with. (But) at the time, it was simply thought not possible to burn biomass in a unit of any size that had been used to burn coal.”

Here at TrakRap, we think that this represents an excellent example of an evolution in energy creation, and a very encouraging start to 2016. Drax used to burn around 30,000 tonnes of coal a day; today it uses about seven million tons of biomass waste a year.

With this winter’s unseasonably mild weather looking set to stay well into next year, it should come as no surprise to hear that 2015 has been the year with the highest ever average global temperature. Twelve months ago, 2014 was crowned the hottest year on record, and early indications already predict that 2016 will be hotter than 2015, meaning that the three hottest years ever are almost certain to fall consecutively between 2014 and 2016.

The high 2015 temperatures can be attributed to ongoing climatic changes being supplemented by the latest El Niño phenomenon - a recurring weather pattern caused by unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean.

According to the UK Met Office, “the current situation shows how global warming can combine with smaller, natural fluctuations to push our climate to levels of warmth which are unprecedented in the data records.”

The continuing rise of worldwide temperatures is obviously a huge concern, but at TrakRap we’re opting for optimism again.

There is still plenty of work to do to bring the planet in line with the new 1.5c heat limit target, not to mention working towards a zero-emissions future. 

However, the agreements reached at this month’s historic climate change summit in Paris have increased our confidence that, with a renewed focus on sustainability and environmentally friendly practices, we can collaboratively forge a greener future.

Clean energy research and development has received a boost, with 19 countries promising to double the amount of funds invested in the sector. The countries - which include the UK, the US and China - represent the biggest global economies and oil and gas producers, and will help to bring the total amount of investment to $20bn over the next five years.

The move comes parallel to an initiative from an elite group of business leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, who have pledged to take more investment risks in order to speed up the transition of environmental technologies from research to marketplace.

“This announcement should help to send a strong signal that the world is committed to helping to mobilise the resources necessary to ensure countries around the world can deploy clean energy solutions in cost-effective ways in their economies,” said senior White House advisor, Brian Deese.

More good news also surfaced this week, as figures regarding 2015’s global fossil-fuel emissions indicated that, for the first time during a period of global economic growth, the amount of carbon dioxide that was released remained stable for the second consecutive year.

At TrakRap, we’re happy to hear both pieces of news, and particularly excited about the clean energy investment announcement. Cleaner technology is an issue close to our hearts, so we see this as an early reason for optimism ahead of the new year.

The EU will use this week’s climate change conference in Paris as a platform from which to launch ambitious plans to increase worldwide recycling rates, with a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2-4% within 15 years.

The new targets also state that, by 2030, all European countries will be required to recycle 65% of their municipal rubbish and 75% of product packaging. Additionally, no more than 10% of all disposed waste will be permitted to enter landfill dumps, and the amount of food waste is to be halved.

As well as hopefully prompting non-EU countries to follow suit, the new measures should bring into line Europe’s recycling rates, which fluctuate wildly from 66% in Austria to just 4.5% in Romania. The UK’s rate currently stands at 45%.

European Commission vice president, Frans Timmermans, said: “Our planet and our economy cannot survive if we continue with the ‘take, make, use and throw away’ approach. We need to retain precious resources and fully exploit all the economic value within them. The circular economy is about reducing waste and protecting the environment, but it is also about a profound transformation of the way our entire economy works.”

Here at TrakRap, we’re delighted that the issue of recycling is being placed front and centre before a global audience. It is an issue of which everyone can take ownership to help combat climate change.

The UK could soon be at the centre of a new global nuclear industry, after Chancellor George Osborne pledged to spend at least £250mil on innovative nuclear technologies, with the aim of building one of the world’s first mini-reactors – or ‘small modular reactors’ (SMRs) – in the 2020s.

SMRs produce less than 300MW (0.3GW) of electricity, as opposed to the 1,000MW (1GW) produced by the majority of existing nuclear plants. They have all the advantages of traditional nuclear power but are cheaper and quicker to produce and have the advantage of not needing colossal structures in which to safely house them. 

The potential market for SMRs will be £250 - £400bn by 2035 – representing a very significant global market. Energy secretary Amber Rudd said: “We are fully enthused about SMRs and we are doing as much as we can in terms of supporting the technology. SMRs would be an excellent way forward.”

At TrakRap, we’re proud that the UK is at the forefront of new fuel technologies. With evidence showing that nuclear power is a safe means of generating electricity, and with mini-reactors already being in use on military ships and submarines, we think that this development represents fantastic news.

In the next few years, Cornwall’s Eden Project could become one of the only geothermal plants in the UK after it was announced that ‘hot rocks’ situated three miles beneath the site could generate enough clean energy to power the entire park, and an additional 4,000 homes.

Energy would be generated by pumping heated water up from the rocks through small bore holes, with the geothermal energy then being used to power features such as fish tanks, biomes and greenhouses.

Ultimately, it is hoped that geothermal energy will be used to produce up to 20% of the country’s overall power, allowing the UK to join a select group of only five countries who currently do so, including Iceland and the Philippines.

Augusta Grand, head of policy at the Eden Project, said: “The government has clearly understood the benefits of geothermal power. Given that the North Sea oil and gas is now running out, this would be a good follow-on and a great opportunity for our oil and gas industries to look at an industry that they would really understand. It’s incredibly important for the UK to have a secure energy future.”

Here at TrakRap, we believe that any big organisations employing renewable fuel sources is fantastic news and we hope that the Eden Project’s ambition influences others to do likewise.

Factors including a rise in the cost of power as a proportion of household budgets have resulted in The World Energy Council downgrading the UK’s energy supplier status from AAA to AAB in its annual ‘Energy Trilemma Index’ this week.

The index refers to a country’s ability to provide sustainable, secure and affordable energy – something the UK has struggled with recently. As well as the price increase, the strain on the infrastructure was made abundantly clear only last week, when the power industry was asked by the National Grid to generate more electricity as a result of several energy breakdowns.

The UK will, however, be able to regain its triple-A rating if it provides more backing for the renewable energy sector, although the Government’s recent decision to cut subsidies in this area means that a further downgrade is also a possibility.

In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said: “The UK is still a world leader for energy - and our priority is providing clean, secure and affordable power for hardworking families and businesses. We’ve made record investments in renewables and are committed to lower-carbon secure energy.“

At TrakRap, energy efficiency influences everything we do. Although disappointed to hear that the UK’s energy status has slipped, we are pleased that plans are in place to turn things around.