As the issues of climate change escalate, it is heartening to report that each year local Leisure Centres in Pembrokeshire are saving over 30 tonnes of carbon from being released into the environment. This energy-saving initiative to cut the area's carbon footprint is the result of a collaboration between Pembrokeshire County Council and PowerMaster, a Wakefield-based company that works to integrate energy-efficiency into the economic fabric of our society. The county council focused on cutting carbon emissions from swimming facilities in Pembroke and Tenby. As Geoff Renshaw, of Powermaster, explained: "The starting point for any successful energy saving plan is to determine early on just where energy can be saved. Large, immediate savings are likely to be found with the a/c motors that drive pumps and fans within swimming pools. These would normally run flat out 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What a waste! So, here in Pembroke and Tenby, the council decided to install variable speed drives to control these motors, which means that they can be slowed down and speeded up according to demand. And if you consider that a 20 per cent speed reduction will give a 50 per cent reduction in energy, you'll see how it is that such a dramatic cut in carbon output can be achieved so quickly." So what does this 30 tonnes equate to? Well, each of us produces around seven tonnes of carbon per year, so that's four or five people's worth of carbon. Or, the same amount of carbon as it would take to put 7,500 mangos on your local supermarket shelf. This may sound frivolous, but with a national government goal to achieve a 20 per cent CO2 emission reduction by 2010, Pembrokeshire really is paving the way for a greener future.
