Posted on May 31, 2008 by robertkyriakides
It is sometimes argued that renewables sometimes create worthless energy at a very high cost; they only exist with huge taxpayers’ subsidies or as a result of users of non renewable energy being fined or taxed. It is further argued that if climate change is not caused by fossil fuel burning (perfectly feasible, but highly [...]
Filed under: carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, heat, microgeneration, nuclear, nuclear energy, pollution, power, renewables, solar, solar energy, solar panels, wind turbines | Tagged: are investments in renewables foolish?, cost of renewables, high subisidies of renewables, how to spend your labour, nuclear de-commissioning costs, soalr panels stagnate, wasted energy, worthless energy | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 30, 2008 by robertkyriakides
This week parts of the United Kingdom suffered power cuts. You might expect it in the depth of winter, but not on a rainy day in May. Why should there be any power cuts at all? Forty years ago, Jimmy Webb gave the clue in his song:
I am a lineman for the county
And I drive [...]
Filed under: carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, gas, gordon brown, microgeneration, natural gas, nuclear, nuclear energy, oil, solar, solar energy, solar panels | Tagged: energy policy, Escomm, fluctuations in load, jimmy webb, network events, network resilience, oil companies, opec, power cuts, power load, regulated free energy markets, spare capacity, super nuclear, transformers, why there will be more and more power cuts, wichita lineman | 10 Comments »
Posted on May 29, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee think that personal carbon allowances would be a useful way of reducing emissions. The system that they have in mind is complicated and like most of the systems that really clever people invent it seeks to change people’s behaviour by a system of incentives and penalties and shies away from introducing [...]
Filed under: Hilary Benn, biomass, carbon emissions, carbon trading, climate change, electricity, energy, heat, microgeneration, parliament, renewables, solar panels | Tagged: carbon cap and trade, carbon taxation, Environment Audit Committe, suggested "green" taxes, unintended consequences | 5 Comments »
Posted on May 27, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Solar thermal systems – producing hot water and/or central heating support need panels and these panels are usually fixed to a roof. In the United Kingdom we have literally hundreds of roofing materials and types as well as roof designs and locations so a manufacturer like Genersys designs roof fixings which we hope will cover [...]
Filed under: carbon emissions, climate change, energy, global warming, heat, microgeneration, pollution, solar, solar energy, solar panels | Tagged: "A" frames, flat roof, in roof, metal roof, on roof, pan tiles, racks, roof loads of solar panels, solar roof fittings, thatched roof, weights of soalr panels, zinc roof | 6 Comments »
Posted on May 26, 2008 by robertkyriakides
The 2007 Energy White Paper proposed a Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme which fills some of the very large gaps in the Emissions Trading Scheme but continues the ETS policy of “cap and trade” as a way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The Carbon Reduction Commitment (which I shall now call CRC) aims to reduce emissions [...]
Filed under: carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, heat, microgeneration, solar, solar energy, solar panels, targets | Tagged: carbon allowances, carbon league tables, climate change levy, CRC, electrical, emissions trading scheme, Energy White Paper, ETS, MRS, NHS hospitals, penalties, rules of CRC | 7 Comments »
Posted on May 25, 2008 by robertkyriakides
I wrote yesterday about the very high oil prices and explained the various views of where the oil and natural gas prices will be in the future. You will remember that they have doubled in twelve months and I expect that they will double again over the next 12 to 24 months.
The United Kingdom’s energy [...]
Filed under: climate change, energy, gordon brown, oil | Tagged: currency exchange, energy white papers, heating oil prices, oil prices, poec, UK energy policy, us economy | 5 Comments »
Posted on May 24, 2008 by robertkyriakides
The oil price is getting higher and higher. This time last year it was $66 a barrel. On 22nd May it reached $135 a barrel, jumping by 2% in just 24 hours. It seems that when the United States announced that its stocks (or as they say inventory) of oil showed that they are holding [...]
Filed under: Coal, carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, fuel poverty, gas, global warming, gordon brown, microgeneration, natural gas, oil, petrol, solar energy, solar panels | Tagged: China, gas futures, gas price, Mr El-Badri, natural gas price, oil price, oil speculation, opec, what an individual can do about high energy prices | 11 Comments »
Posted on May 23, 2008 by robertkyriakides
The great and the good of the world have decided that one of the best ways to combat excessive carbon dioxide emissions is by way of a “Clean Development Mechanism”.
In December 1997 at Kyoto in Japan the world’s nations agreed that nations that have fixed limits for their greenhouse gas emissions can assist other [...]
Filed under: Coal, carbon emissions, carbon offsetting, carbon trading, climate change, energy, global warming, targets, tax | Tagged: carbon tax, carbon trading, cdm, China, clean development mechanism, ETS, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, JI, joint implementation, kyoto, Marks & Spenser, plastic bags, Roger Piekle, Yuji Mizuno | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 22, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Carbon offsetting is a large industry which sells people things that might or might not be what they expect to purchase and might or might not work. The industry is entirely unregulated although there is a promised “Code of Conduct” for the UK there is no agreed standard about what people are allowed to sell [...]
Filed under: carbon emissions, carbon offsetting, climate change, electricity, energy, global warming, heat, microgeneration, solar, solar energy, solar panels | Tagged: definition of a carbon offset, definition of carbon offsetting, pricing of carbon offsets, principles of energy use, regulation of carbon offsets, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Energy Age | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 21, 2008 by robertkyriakides
