Posted on May 13, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Natural gas and electricity prices will get higher. British Gas increased electricity and gas bills by an average of 15% this January and is now signalling further large price increases. It claims that its profits have been hit by a 92% increase in the wholesale price of gas in the past twelve months and therefore [...]
Filed under: Coal, PV, carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, fuel poverty, gas, global warming, gordon brown, heat, microgeneration, natural gas, nuclear, oil, power, solar, solar energy, solar panels, targets | Tagged: Brazil, canute, China, climate change bill, India, kyoto, Micawber, Pakistan | No Comments »
Posted on April 26, 2008 by robertkyriakides
If you run a business you know that the stock that you hold (known in the US as inventory) is critical to the success of your business. The more stock that you hold the more capital you have tied up; in some businesses stock decays with time (such as food) or becomes less valuable by [...]
Filed under: Coal, climate change, electricity, energy, global warming, microgeneration, natural gas, nuclear, oil | Tagged: "just in time", Alex Salmond, E.ON UK, energy stocks, fuel protest, fuel stocks, gas imports, gas stocks, inventory, stock, uranium | No Comments »
Posted on April 25, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Environmentalists today associate burning fossil fuel with carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn are associated with climate change and global warming. This is a relatively new association, although the theory of global warming has been around for over a hundred years.
Before the greenhouse effect took root in the popular imagination the main effect of [...]
Filed under: Coal, carbon emissions, climate change, energy, global warming, pollution | Tagged: acropolis, athens, carbon dioxide, coal burning, damage to buildings, fossil fuel buring, nitrous oxides, parthenon, portland stone, smog, st pauls cathedral, sulphur | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 24, 2008 by robertkyriakides
The price of oil still rising but the economy of the world is slowing down. This at first sight seems like a paradox. If the world’s economy slows down you would expect less energy to be used and therefore the price of oil should fall. Today oil stands at around $120 a barrel – it [...]
Filed under: Coal, John Hutton, PV, biofuels, biomass, carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, gas, global warming, heat, malcolm wicks, microgeneration, natural gas, oil, renewables, solar, solar energy, solar panels, tax, transport, wind turbines | Tagged: bank liquidity, Bank of England, David Strahan, Defra, energy ministers, LIBOR, oil consumption, oil price cycle, oil prices, rights issue, Royal Bank of Scotland, sub prime, the last oil shock, the Treasury | 12 Comments »
Posted on April 23, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Sometimes you can only see a picture clearly if you step back from it, so you can see the whole canvas. So it is with energy. Without any doubt we are heading for an energy crisis. The oil will probably peak – that is to say reach its maximum production in ten years time. Oil [...]
Filed under: Coal, biofuels, carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, global warming, gordon brown, natural gas, oil, solar, targets, transport, wind turbines | Tagged: Alan Garcia, Bolivia, carbon cycle, cars with large engines, Evo Morales, expensive food, maize, palm oil, peak coal, peak gas, peak oil, peak uranium, Peru, Philippines, rice prices, sugar, uranium | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 22, 2008 by robertkyriakides
The Scottish Parliament has always been a supporter of renewable energy; its record is exemplary – far better than Westminster’s on renewable energy, so when it announces a decision to reject an application to build 181 wind turbines to generate electricity on the Isle of Lewis some eyebrows were raised.
I am sure that the application [...]
Filed under: Coal, carbon emissions, climate change, electricity, energy, gas, global warming, natural gas, parliament, wind turbines | Tagged: carbon content of peat, carbon sink of peat, peat, scottish parliament | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 9, 2008 by robertkyriakides
I have written in this web log about what I perceive to be the failings in the Emissions Trading Scheme, much beloved of the United Kingdom Government as the means of curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The scheme in effect licenses large emitter to produce so many emissions each year; if they produce less they can [...]
Filed under: Coal, carbon emissions, carbon trading, climate change, electricity, energy, global warming, microgeneration, power, renewables, targets | Tagged: coal buring power stations, Emisions Trading Scheme, ETS, gambling, ofgem, trade & cap | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 7, 2008 by robertkyriakides
The concept of “peak oil” is well known; there is a stage when we have less oil in our world’s reserves than we have used. It does not take much imagination to understand that this is not good. M King Hubbert was a geologist working for Shell in the 1950s.
He proposed that the rate [...]
Filed under: Coal, caol, carbon emissions, carbon trading, climate change, electricity, energy, gas, global warming, microgeneration, natural gas, nuclear energy, oil, power, renewables | Tagged: china coal, coal reserves, Energy Watch group, hubbert curve, M King Hubbert, oil reserves, peak coal, peak gas, peak oil, peak uranium, the Energy Age, types of coal, US coal | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 19, 2008 by robertkyriakides
Someone who consults for JP Morgan Chase and Co and also for the Zurich Insurance Group is trying to persuade countries like China to drastically cut their carbon emissions. You may ask what JP Morgan Chase & Co and the Zurich Insurance Group have done themselves to cut carbon emissions; the answer is not very [...]
Filed under: Coal, Nicholas Stern, PV, Tony Blair, carbon emissions, climate change, energy, global warming, microgeneration, weather | Tagged: carbon emissions during Tony Blair's premiership, environmental policies of nations, Jeremy Leggett, JP Morgan Chase, Mr Blair's legacy, Mrs Thatcher coal unions, olympic games, Prime Minister, solar century, Stern Report, subsidies for photovoltaics, the great persuader, war in iraq, Zurich Group | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 17, 2008 by robertkyriakides
When we breathe in we inhale not only air but dust, and very small particles of stuff that we humans have put in the atmosphere. We know that these can be harmful – coal dust and asbestos dust spring immediately to mind.
Because we are putting relatively speaking so much into the atmosphere scientists are [...]
Filed under: Coal, biomass, cancers, carbon emissions, climate change, energy, heat, pollution | Tagged: asbestos, asbestos mining, bimass boilers, cancers, clean air legislation, coal mining, heart disease, lung cancer, PAH16, particle toxicology, polycycliv aromatic hydrocarbon, port talbot power plant, smokeless zones, wood burning | 1 Comment »