West Midlands farmers and landowners will be finding out how bioenergy can benefit them at a conference being held in Shropshire next month.
Harper Adams University College, near Newport, will host the region's second dedicated Biomass Conference on December 16.
The one-day event, which aims to increase awareness and accelerate development of the region's bioenergy capacity, is being organised by Bioenergy West Midlands and funded by Advantage West Midlands
Organiser Sonia Large, Bioenergy West Midlands project officer at Harper Adams, said: "This conference will be of interest to farmers, landowners and rural business people who want to find out more about the UK bioenergy sector.
"An associated exhibition will allow delegates to speak directly to organisations that provide bioenergy technology and support.
Miss Large added: "While bioenergy has a central role to play in providing a sustainable UK energy supply, it also provides rural businesses with the opportunity to diversify by exploiting new markets and sources of income.
"Featuring biomass combustion, biogas and biofuels, the conference will focus on these renewable resources and highlight how the rural sector can adopt these technologies and turn them into business opportunities."
Delegates at the Conference, "Turning opportunity into commercial reality", will hear a series of speakers in the morning session, including an overview of the UK bioenergy sector by Sir Ben Gill, head of the government's Biomass Task Force review and former president of the NFU, and will hear details of the funding opportunities and support projects available across the West Midlands.
There will be opportunities in the afternoon to attend detailed sessions focussed on anaerobic digestion, wood fuel supply and heating systems, the Harper Adams University College biomass heater and biofuels.
To receive further information and a registration form, or find out about exhibiting at the conference, e-mail Sonia Large on slarge@harper-adams.ac.uk or telephone 01952 815 019 or download further information and a booking form here

THE final limited edition packs of an iconic card game that is a guide to cheaper-to-run cars are being sold as Christmas stocking fillers.

The Eco Vehicles Top Trumps game is among a series of easy-on-the-pocket gifts from the charity's online shop - www.carbonforum.org/product

The game - which created controversy among motoring writers - was developed by climate change charity Marches Energy Agency in association with Winning Moves, the Top Trumps company.

After a flurry of interest from around the globe, there are now just a limited number of packs left. The game was short-listed for a national award in the summer. It is sure to be a collector's item in the near future.

The green version of the school playground game includes only eco-friendly vehicles. Whereas engine size and horsepower used to be winning features on the key trump cards, now lowest CO2 emissions, fuel efficiency and range are superior.

So, out went Porsches and Ferraris and in came hybrids and electric motors.

The front of the pack features England goalkeeper David James's Chrysler car which runs on pure plant oil.

Kris McGowan, game creator and Senior Project Manager said, ‘It was a lot of fun designing the game and also receiving so many messages of support from fans. There really is a wealth of low CO2 vehicle options out there and the 30 vehicles in the pack are the cream of the crop.'

The packs cost just £5 each, plus postage.

Last quarter we highlighted our green transport policy and aspirations. This quarter, we've done even better than last. This is especially difficult in an expanding organisation working further and further afield.

Our location close to the train station means we can deter visitors from using private cars, our limited parking availability enforces this! We have a hierarchy of travel planning which is very simple:

Stop travelling - is the journey necessary? Make a phone call, or work from home where possible and practical.

If travel is necessary then bike or walking are the first options. We have ten times the bike parking spaces than vehicle spaces, hot solar showers and changing facilities and a bike to work scheme which many employees have made use of.

Public transport is the preferred mode of travel, as you can see from the results below. All employees are equipped with laptops enabling them to work on the move. We have this quarter eliminated flights altogether - journeys to Europe have all been done by train and bus.

Where public transport is not possible we have a fleet of low CO₂ vehicles, from our ultra efficient Honda Insight (still the most efficient car on the road at 80g/km CO₂) to our biodiesel fueled van which is used for major low energy lighting installations and Light Fantastic events.

We don't use helicopters and try not to fly.

We've recently added to our fleet of low CO₂ vehicles - we now have a canoe. With increasingly regular floods in Shrewsbury, we thought we'd better be prepared!

If you want to find out more about green travel planning or low carbon vehicles, download our Green Driving Guide (http://www.carbonforum.org/downloads ) or pick up a copy of our Eco Vehicles Top Trumps from our Carbon Forum website (http://www.carbonforum.org/product )  

** our 3 company vehicles which are energy efficient, led by the Honda Insight Electric Hybrid (Registration BC02 LOW!) This is a category A vehicle delivering some 83 mpg rated at 80g CO₂ per Km.  The VW caddy has been converted to run on Pure Plant Oil.  This is 100% pure rape seed oil purchased in reusable drums.  Our largest vehicle is our VW transporter which run on a 50/50 local biodiesel / fossil diesel mix.

Invest in Shropshire, a partnership of local authorities set up to showcase the best of what the county has to offer to business, will visit The Priory School - Business and Enterprise College, Shrewsbury this week (Thursday 20 November) to unleash young people's enterprising ideas.

The visit has been organised as part of this year's Enterprise Week (17 - 23 November), a national celebration of enterprise encouraging people to have ideas and make them happen.

Pupils will be invited to play an orange business game called Enterprise Effusion and advice will be offered to hopefully generate some creative business ideas.

As part of this, Marches Energy Agency will work with the school as they investigate the school's energy efficiency and carbon footprint. They are also helping with a competition for year 9, 10 and 11 pupils to design an eco-community.

Claire Cox, Shropshire County Council's Invest in Shropshire Officer, said: "It's great to be involved with The Priory School during Enterprise Week, I'm really looking forward to hearing some of the interesting, enterprising ideas their pupils have."

John Hurst-Knight, Shropshire County Council's Cabinet member for economy, added: "This is a great opportunity to learn from each other. It will also hopefully go some way to help foster an enterprise culture within the county."

Further information, call Claire Cox, Invest in Shropshire Officer on (01743) 252274.

The Long Mynd Hotel was host to a Wood Energy showcase event last Thursday. Over fifty people attended from around the region to see the two working ‘bio-mass’ installations

With rising heating costs now might be the time to make the switch to wood fuel. For many in the county on increasingly expensive heating oil, wood fuelled heating is a very viable option.

The “Autumn Bio-energy Fair” on 6th November was run as part of a European project called RADAR which welcomed over thirty international guests to visit renewable energy installations in Shropshire earlier in the year. Since then, research carried out as part of the project has indicated that the Shropshire Hills area could be self sufficient in energy from forestry and agricultural wastes. The results of this study were briefly presented last week. The real focus was on how this concept can go from being a theory to reality.

First hand advice was available from various organisations and installers at the ‘trade fair’.

Tristan Haynes, Technical Advisor at MEA said, “We had a great response to the event and many people got in touch as well who could not attend. It was great to be able to show two working installations and to have such a diverse range of suppliers and other support organisations from such a wide area present.”

The Long Mynd Hotel itself has even made the switch from heating with gas and oil to wood chip making it the perfect venue for such an event.

For more information on the event please contact Joe Bentley, at Marches Energy Agency, on 01743 277108 or email: joe@mea.org.uk