The Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes

It is about time that I wrote in these posts about a United Kingdom body that in its quiet way does a great deal of good work in the field of emission savings by way of educating and exchange information across businesses concerned with energy in some way. That body is the Energy Efficiency Partnership [...]

Why are we still using plastic bags?

For many years plastic supermarket bags have caused terrible environmental problems. They are taken to landfill sites because they cannot be easily recycled, where they either do not rot in the ground or get blown over the countryside ensnaring birds and animals. They are made from finite resources like oil which itself has a significant [...]

Modelling specific regional climate changes

I wrote yesterday about how difficult climate modelling is – in fact it is so difficult that you might well wonder why we try to do it. I think that climate modelling is an almost impossible task; even if you actually manage to start to get your model right, you will discover that there is [...]

How to predict the future climate of the planet

Predicting climate change in general terms must be the one of the hardest things for climate scientists to do. You need massive computer processing power, huge amounts of data and most importantly some reasonably accurate assumptions upon which to base your predictions. With these tools you can do one of the hardest things in your [...]

El Niño is coming back

Some guests are unwelcome but necessary. Flies are a nuisance but they serve a useful purpose. Strange weather events that happen every few years bring good and bad consequences. After an absence of three years El Niño is back, bringing good things for some and bad things for others.

The clouds theory of climate change

When climate change researchers put all the data into their computers they make certain fundamental assumptions; are those assumptions correct, or have they got the cause and effect the wrong way round. One group of scientists think that some climate researchers have put the egg before the chicken, and they claim undoubtedly that the chicken [...]

Rubbish, wheelie bins and recycling

For years the United Kingdom had a very unhealthy attitude towards its rubbish compared with its European partners. There were weekly rubbish collections from the home; some places allowed you to put your rubbish out in plastic bags, whereas others insisted that you place it in a traditioanl cylindrical bin. When the dustman came they [...]

SAP 2009 Consultation – the solar thermal aspects

I have complained about the number of consultations that the government creates; most are fairly pointless but once in a while there is one which is important. There is currently underway a consultation about Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) which is a way of calculating the energy usage of homes in the United Kingdom and creates [...]

What makes a good solar thermal panel

Very few people understand what it takes to build a good thermal solar panel. They should be designed not, as a layman might think, to be as hot as possible because then you would create overheating problems. The important thing is to design them to provide useful heat in all conditions.

Genersys launches in Santiago, Chile

Santiago is the capital of Chile. It is a fine modern city with some very interesting architecture and a splendid pace of life which I have found very comfortable. Santiago, like the rest of Chile, suffers from high energy prices, a lack of energy independence and in the case of Santiago atmospheric pollution caused by [...]