Increasing energy prices - why they will rise and rise and what we can do about it

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 [...]

Windfall profits but not from wind farms; the blighted emissions trading scheme

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 [...]

Peak Coal - when will coal run out?

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 [...]

Humpty Dumpty, Zero Carbon Homes and public confusion

The National House-Building Council Foundation, which is an independent research institution, connected to the NHBC, but operating separately and works closely with the Building Research Establishment, to look at the Government’s target of all new homes being “zero carbon” by 2016. 
The definition of a Zero Carbon Home is a bit of a Humpty Dumpty definition. [...]

Storing electricity with compressed air

Professor Seamus Garvey is a Professor at Nottingham University’s School of Engineering and he has been championing the concept of electricity storage by using compressed air. Storing electricity is hard to do in an environmentally acceptable way.
Electricity demand and supply is intermittent. Electricity generated from renewable sources is also intermittent. We can store electricity [...]

The new nuclear renaissance - an easy decision but…

John Hutton is Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. By training he is a lawyer, but he now is in charge of Energy for the United Kingdom. His problem is to set out an energy policy that will provide the nation over the long term with energy as cheaply and as low [...]

Energy prices, free markets and Russian Gas

The last of the big six energy suppliers, Scottish & Southern Energy, announced a price rise a couple of days ago which will take effect from 1st April 2008. They blame wholesale price increases and they are right to do this. They also point out that transmission costs are also going up as are “environmental costs”.  
Like all [...]

Carbon Feet -emissions by microgeneration and other renewables

Iain Fraser posted a response to my post of 10th March asking me to cite my sources for my figures. It is a perfectly reasonable request but as I was away from my office it was hard for me to do that. Mr Fraser may think that I have a bee in my bonnet about biomass [...]

The China Argument and using cars less

I watched a television programme about Ms Kris Murrin, a woman who tries to persuade people to use their cars less and walk and cycle more. In the Channel 4 documentary series The Woman Who Stops Traffic, Ms Murrin encounters all sorts of arguments about why people should not give up their cars for a day, [...]

Smart meters - who wants them and why turkeys don’t vote for Christmas

When I wrote about smart meters yesterday I published my post before the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) had announced the result of a 32 month enquiry into the National Grid’s practices in relation to smart meters. National grid have been fined £41.6 million. Ofgem, as a regulator, has a duty to ensure [...]