Waiting for future proof energy

The Royal Society has issued a statement saying that the United Kingdom’s way of providing and delivering energy to the population is “no longer fit for purpose”. I wonder what took them so long.

Why aren’t new homes required to have solar panels?

The National Energy Foundation has called for every property built in the United Kingdom to have solar panels. The foundation points out that the energy from solar is infinite and there is no good reason why every new home and building should not be required to have solar panels. It will reduce dependence on imported fuel and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

So why has not the government enacted a simple law requiring solar panels on homes?

London’s weather today is …er..

For the last few days London has been enjoying what for Londoners is very hot weather. The temperatures have reached 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) and it threatens to rise another couple of degrees for the next few days.

Consumer energy price rip off or not?

I wrote yesterday about the allegation by Consumer Focus that the big six energy companies are overcharging their customers, because they are not putting prices down as energy prices fall. A year ago oil and gas prices (as well as coal prices) were at an all time high. Oil was $147 a barrel and it subsequently fell to just under $40 a barrel; it now stands at $73 a barrel.

Energy, monopolies and cartels

 The ambition of every business is to become a monopoly, if it cannot achieve that, its ambition will be to become part of a cartel. The ambition of every government should be to prevent monopolies and to outlaw cartels.  A business having a monopoly or being part of a cartel enables it to make profits without any market mechanism to restrain those profits. It can charge what it likes and its owners will live a life of great riches.

Carbon dioxide levels have never been higher – almost

The highly respected journal Science published research recently which has attempted to discover what the world atmosphere’s carbon dioxide levels were for the past two million years. Bärbel Hönisch, is a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and with her colleagues she has been looking at the shells of single cell plankton which have been buried under the Atlantic Ocean.

Journalists, polar bears, caribou and climate change

There is a kind of simplistic approach that some journalists use when it comes to climate change. Some treat climate change as a religion claiming that a single very hot summer is evidence of climate change. Some are climate change deniers who can be even more fervently religious in their approach.