Can the NHS be saved?

The NHS and its subsequent restructuring has been one of the biggest headaches of the Conservative government thus far. As a result, there have been many proposed solutions in attempt to solve this problem. Many have failed to cover the multi-dimensional aspect of the issue. The NHS is underfunded, understaffed, has poor watchdogs (in particular the Care Quality Commission) and they fail in many cases to provide basic levels of care. But, here are two politicians who believe that they have the answer:

Andy Burnham

After his defeat in the leadership race to the former Miliband brothers, Andy Burnham, the former health secretary, has rather eluded the political mainstream. However, as the Tories have tried to blame him for the NHS’s failings (they accuse him of causing 13,000 unnecessary death), he has come back to the fore.

In a recent interview with The Guardian Burnham outlines his big idea – “a really compelling vision for a 21^st century NHS.” His plan is to integrate social care into the NHS so that the system “look[s] after the whole person” from birth to old age. This does have some credit. With an ageing population and hospital cuts, the NHS cannot give the people a well-rounded healthcare system.

However, whilst this idea is plausible, it is still theoretical. With slow economic recovery and cuts beginning to be brought in, the question is how is he going to fund this. Burnham says that one option would be a levy on death duties. But, when he first proposed this policy before the last election, the Tory uproar over a new “death tax”, frightened Gordon Brown off the idea. As a result, not only is the idea politically toxic, but the idea of a new tax will be met with a hostile reception from the public.

Jeremy Hunt

In order for the NHS to remain sustainable, Jeremy Hunt believes that sweeping reform must be made for the next decade. These range from plans for a seven-day NHS to having a crack team of senior doctors to be sent into failing hospitals. He says in today’s interview in the Sunday Times that “if [the NHS is] really going to be sustainable we need to have proper out-of-hospital care.” Hunt hopes to achieve this by having family doctors check on vulnerable patients in their area in order to “rediscover and strengthen the doctor-patient relationship”.

Whilst he is often criticized for his inexperience, Hunt’s argument has strengthened in the wake of recent crises (Mid Staffordshire hospital and the death of young Daniel Pelka). This is largely because these levels of transparency serve to strengthen his demands for change. It is true that these reforms are ambitious. However, if he can now find away to work with the doctors and experienced healthcare professionals, maybe, just maybe, the NHS can be saved.

Related articles

• Andy Burnham interview: ‘We’ve lost the art of thinking bigger’ (theguardian.com)
• Berwick report: Jeremy Hunt warned over danger of understaffed NHS wards after Mid Staffs scandal (independent.co.uk)

Hope For Renewable Energy Policy At State Level

With the on-going political gridlock in Washington, the focus of clean energy policy has shifted to state level. A total of 29 states and Washington DC now have renewable standards and another 8 have set renewable energy goals. The standards require electric utility companies to produce some of their power from renewable sources. These have put an obligation on companies to reach a set target, and when the goals are voluntary, some states often use incentives to ensure these are met.

Residents have already seen benefits from these standards. Not onlyare they now seen as an effective way to lower carbon emissions and improve public health, but they also are helping to create local clean energy economies. For example, in 2012 nearly 195,000 people worked in the solar and wind industries. In some states this impact is larger than others. For example, in Texas there are now more people who work in the solar industry than who are ranchers.

With this also comes greater investment in the economy. In fact over the past decade $100 billion has been invested as a result of renewable energy standards. Unsurprisingly, this means that they have attracted the support of business and industry.

Farmers have also benefitted from renewable energy development. This is largelybecause they receive royalties from having wind turbines on their farms. These are not only an important source of income but as many renewable energy projectspay taxes, they help to support the local community as well.

These benefits now mean that state renewable energy laws are increasingly hard to repeal. Over the past year there has been a big push from conservative groups such as ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and the Heartland Institute to weaken/repeal these laws. However, they have been unsuccessful; in the 13 states where they attempted to do so, not one bill was passed.

One example of where this occurred was in Kansas. Here a bill delaying renewable energy requirements failed in the House committee. This is mainly because local manufacturers of wind turbines joined farmers in the opposition of the bill. This support among different interest groups means that even Republican strongholds like Kansas are more supportive of renewable energy than before.

There is still some way to go before renewable energy gets the same kind of national support. This is partly because it is still quite small economically: it provided just 5% of the nation’s electricity in 2012. However, this is growing fast. State level standards are expected to add 76,750 megawatts of new renewable power capacity by 2025, which is enough to power 47 million homes.

This means that hopefully more people and interest groups will be in favour of these laws and there will be more opportunity to enact meaningful change.

Organic Solar Cells to Revolutionise Renewable Energy

Organic solar cells are a type of solar cell that produce energy by mimicking the process of plant photosynthesis. Compared to current silicon based solar cells they are thinner and more flexible. This means that the production process is likely to be faster and cheaper than before.

 

However, until recently they lacked the efficiency to be able to compete with their commercial counterparts. For instance, they can achieve just 12% efficiency in turning light into electricity, compared with 20-25% for silicon-based cells. This is partly due to the problem of consistency as scientists have been struggling to find out why some types of molecules outperform others.

This has changed with the new report by the University of Washington and the University of Cambridge. They discovered that the differences in the performance of molecules is due to their “spin”. “Spin” is a quantum property of particles related to their angular momentum with electrons being categorised as either “spin-up” or “spin-down”. One of the reasons why organic solar cells seemed to be inefficient is due to the process of “recombination”, where electrons lose their energy. Researchers now have found that if they arrange the “spin” in a certain way then they can block this loss of energy and increase the current flow from the cell.

The team believe that the new design concepts from this work will help to close the gap between the organic and more commercial silicon cells. In the long term this will help to deploy solar cells on a large scale. There are also benefits outside of renewable energy. The researchers also believe that some of the design concepts could also be used in OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes). This is a fast growing display technology used to make the displays on phones and TVs more efficient.

Dr Akshay Roa, who is a Cavendish Laboratory Research Fellow, has commented that “this discovery is very exciting, as we can now harness spin physics to improve solar cells, something we had previously not thought possible. We should see new materials and solar cells that make use of this very soon.”

The breakthrough is important it means that better designs can be created for these cells. Even though solar cells now provide less than 0.2% of power in the US, better designs mean that the cells become more efficient and cost effective. As a result, in theory organic solar cells may revolutionize the way that we collect renewable energy in years to come.

The study has been published in the journal Nature.

Related articles

• Regulating electron ‘spin’ may be key to making organic solar cells competitive (sciencedaily.com)
• Electron spin key to solar cell breakthrough (venitism.blogspot.com)
• Weaving power generation into the fabric of everyday life | Lou Del Bello (theguardian.com)

Former Republican EPA Support Obama’s Climate Plan

A Republican Case for Climate Action

Former Republican leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) penned an op-ed in The New York Times last week supporting Obama’s new climate action plan and call for renewed action to tackle climate change in the face of political gridlock.

The former EPA chiefs, William D. Ruckelshaus, Lee M. Thomas, William K Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman, outline the inevitability of climate change and the lack of time to act decisively. Hence they call for the need for more workable policy solutions between the Republicans and the Democrats. Obama’s recent plan is the start of this by using his executive power to force through reductions in HFCs, carbon dioxide emissions and clean energy technology.

The authors recognise that the EPA has developed successful solutions in the past and have proven that the perceived compromise between strong economic and climate policy is false. However, they argue that more is needed to be done. For this to be achieved Republicans in Congress need to endorse Obama’s plan and start a wider debate towards finding appropriate solutions. Only if this can be accomplished then resolute action may be able to take place before it is too late.

Related articles

• Making ‘A Republican Case for Climate Action’, Former EPA Chiefs Say The Scientific Debate Is Over (thinkprogress.org)
• A Republican Case for Climate Action (rsocialconscience.wordpress.com)
• Republican EPA Administrators on Climate: “No Time to Waste!” (seattleenvironmentalactivists.wordpress.com)

Could the Price of Climate Change REALLY Be $60 Trillion?

Great article by Craig Shields. It really touches on the heart of the problem in the US; the conflict between the power of the corporations and the need for mass participation to overcome the biggest issue for our day…

Related articles

• Climate Change’s 60 Trillion Dollar Cost (guardianlv.com)
• Climate economist warns of impact of climate change (abc.net.au)

The Problem of Landfill

Freshkills in Staten Island, New York, was once one of the largest landfill sites in the world before it was closed in 2001.  Landfills are not only unsightly but they are also bad for the environment. For example, landfill releases toxic substances, which leach into the soil and ground water, and they release high greenhouse gas emissions, especially methane. Consequently, finding a solution is important to New York and the USA as a whole.

Solutions to this problem in New York are often varied. For instance, the non-profit Terreform has formulated a plan, through its Rapid Re(f)use project, where the future New York is made from its own landfill, from places like Freshkills. This would be done by automated robots who would sort through the material and find and build those suitable for construction.

On one hand, this may seem to be too far-fetched to actually occur in reality. Technically there are limitations due to the limits of the technology required to compact and strengthen the materials during the construction process. Moreover, the idea of building robots on such a large scale seems slightly too futuristic for the immediate problems being faced today.

However, there have already been other projects like this, albeit on a smaller scale, which have succeeded in this goal. For instance, in 2011 a UK recycling company was the first in Europe to achieve 100% materials reuse in a landfill recovery scheme. As most of the landfill was actually turned into building material for their new plant, it suggests that a future of mass material recycling actually may not be too far off.

In addition, there are projects who tackle the problem the other way round by diverting waste from landfill sites. For example, Build It Green! NYC diverted 1,200 tons of reusable building materials from landfill by selling salvaged building materials. Moreover, the localised nature of the project within New York means that it has a special impact in trying to make life more affordable and greener for the 190,000 they have helped since 1994.

Currently Freshkills is being reclaimed and the government is turning it into a park three times the size of Central Park. This suggests that a culture of environmental sustainability is beginning to occur. However, perhaps more importantly it also highlights the importance of local projects and participation in achieving environmental goals and developing solutions to complex problems, both to combat landfill and also other problems. Therefore, be it on a large or more localised scale the key to the success to many green solutions is through participation and debate.

Related articles

• Landfill Sites Find Reuse as Locations for Solar-Power Plants (solarquestpower.wordpress.com)
• Household waste is diverted from landfill (nanaimodailynews.com)
• Repeal of landfill restrictions gets first Senate nod (wral.com)
• Amazing ERO Concrete-Recycling Robot Can Erase Entire Buildings (inhabitat.com)