Leverage, confidence and the credit crunch

My proposition is about the economic circumstances that now prevail. I think lack of confidence created a fall in prices, which by the process of leverage operating more quickly in reverse in turn created a lack of liquidity (or money) the so called credit crunch, which is really a confidence crunch.

Can plankton help us fight climate change?

The planet is now only able to store away half the carbon dioxide that is put into its atmosphere each day. The carbon dioxide that is not stored remains in the air for around a hundred years, creating an ever increasing barrier of insulation around the planet that prevents heat from escaping, causing global warming.  [...]

Carbon trading – should we bother with an Emissions Trading Scheme?

The European Commission thinks that a global market for trading carbon should be part of a way to tackle climate change and is working to create a worldwide carbon trading market. Climate change is so serious that we should welcome anything that we help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but I have fears that global or [...]

Has the climate changed irreversibly?

Whether the changes to our planet’s climate become irreversible is not a question that has until recently bothered too many people; most scientists have been warning that the climate changes are in a process which, if nothing is done to arrest or reverse them will become irreversible and most agree that we have not yet [...]

Lord Truscott and the scandal of Phase 2 Low Carbon Building programme

Lord Truscott has been in the news recently. He is not terribly well known and I had not heard of him when I made a complaint to Alistair Darling about Phase 2 of the Low Carbon Building programme two years ago. Mr “framework” concept of approved suppliers but did not bother to notify the solar [...]

Who regulates the climate change regulators

When he wrote about the great crash of 1929, Professor J K Galbraith wrote (and here I paraphrase his words) that it is always hard to find a way of regulating the regulators, but even harder to impart wisdom in those who should be wise. I am not going to write about the credit crunch [...]

A renewable heat consultation and the renewable heat expertise of the Energy Research Establishment

When I started Genersys I used to do many presentations of solar thermal to a wide range of audiences. My last slide has a simple slogan “We need an energy policy, not an electricity policy”, because then, only four or so years ago, energy, climate change and emission discussion, legislation and policy centred wholly on [...]

British Gas reduce their prices by 10% for gas but for the poor it will make no difference

Gas prices have risen and risen and risen again, and in the past few months the natural gas whole price has fallen and the United Kingdom’s six energy suppliers (I know there are a few more than six but six have 98% of the market) have come under pressure to reduce consumer gas prices. British [...]

Zero Carbon Homes

It’s a nice catchy phrase, “zero carbon homes” but what does it mean? The phrase was invented by a Government Minister as a short pithy explanation of a policy which was to ensure that one day in the near future all United Kingdom homes that were built would be built in such a way so [...]

Why a free energy markets prevent us from reducing emissions

I wrote yesterday about who controls Europe’s natural gas (the answer was Gazprom, in turned controlled by the Russian Government). There are problems of energy security, which impact direct on prosperity, heath and well being, which arise if a nation is not in control of their own energy. I do not think that such nations [...]