Biomass

Campaign groups believe the payments will be too low to encourage significant numbers of people to install small scale renewable energy in their homes and communities

Children are learning to use stoves made from cow dung and termite mud in a battle to reduce consumption of timber for fuel

Campaigners have criticised the Environment Agency for not requiring a new wood-chip power plant in South Wales to reuse its waste heat

The Government has given the go-ahead for the biggest biomass plant in the world to be built on the South coast of Wales.

Each year, UK livestock produce some 60 million tonnes of collectable faeces. If left to run into water-courses or even spread on fields, this waste can lead to the same problems associated with excessive fertiliser use – algal blooms and aquatic life starved of oxygen.

Today's energy policies are concerned overwhelmingly with generating electricity. But 84 per cent of the energy we use at home is to heat our rooms and hot water. What if that energy could come from a source which is not only renewable, but is cheap, readily available, and even improves the environment it is extracted from? Adam Nicolson reports on the growing potential for wood fuel in Kent

Growing crops to solve the planet’s energy needs doesn’t work. Recycling the energy in our waste just might have a significant part to play. By Jeremy Smith & Jon Hughes

Unlike large dams, now widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and ineffective, micro-hydro involves the use of small mills and dams to provide clean energy and an alternative source of income for rural communities.