Despite the election of a Government dedicated to give a big boost to the programme of insulating buildings in the UK, the programme has virtually ground to a halt. Applicants report a string of excuses being given by contractors as to why installations cannot be done.
Blog
How French nuclear output has declined faster in France than Germany
Whatever one thinks of the German decision to phase-out nuclear power, a really strange thing is that the French are coordinating an unintentional phase-out of nuclear energy. At the same time as Germany has been running down its nuclear production. Much attention has focussed on criticising German policy, but much less on criticising what is a continuing failure of French energy policy.
How Miliband’s Great British Energy deal will make offshore wind a lot cheaper
The recently published proposals for Great British Energy could radically reduce the costs of offshore wind compared to what would otherwise happen under the increasingly expensive existing way of building offshore windfarms in the UK. This will be very important for rolling out the large number of GWs of offshore wind that are needed to meeting the exacting targets for clean energy by 2030.
How economists get it wrong about the value of home solar pv and batteries
One of Oscar Wilde’s characters in a play said that “a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Much the same could be said of some (usually neo-liberal inclined) economists who report about the much higher costs of home green energy installations compared to large-scale ones. Not only do they not understand the value of the home energy installations, but they are actually remarkably choosey in the prices that they quote when comparing home with large-scale installations.
Nuclear black hole could deal a knock-out blow to Labour’s renewable targets
Labour’s ambitious target for offshore wind could be quietly shelved to make way for the giant funding commitment to pay for Sizewell C nuclear power plant
Much of Labour’s manifesto commitments for clean energy, a state-owned ‘Great British Energy’ company to promote new technologies and funds to support buildings-based insulation and low carbon measures, have been widely flagged already. But there’s not much attention being given to two big, interlinked, threats to Labour’s clean energy strategy. One is the looming black financial hole that the incoming Labour Government will trigger as it gives the financial go-ahead for Sizewell C. The second is the problem of organising a much more rapid build-up of renewable energy than the Conservatives have managed to achieve. Both will involve the Treasury having to commit themselves to supporting forward spending, and we know that money is tight!
The astonishing growth of renewable energy – Renewable energy is taking over the world!
As I say in my forthcoming book Energy Revolutions, Profiteering versus Democracy (PlutoPress): ‘if recent growth trends in renewable energy continue, then sustainable renewable energy sources (mostly wind and solar PV) will make up 100 per cent of world energy consumption (all energy, not just electricity) by the year 2050. ……..Based on trends over the last ten years, nuclear power would be projected to supply only around 3 per cent of world energy in 2050. There is a consistent trend in the last ten years of world growth in renewable energy (mostly wind and solar power) of 12.6 per cent per year…….By contrast, the total primary energy consumption (that is, all energy, not just electricity) is showing an average growth of 1.4 per cent per year over the previous ten years’ This is shown in a Table below taken from my new ‘Energy Revolutions’ book (published by Pluto Press):
Storage and balancing for a 100% Renewable Energy UK!
See the updated storage and balancing guides for 100 per cent renewable UK scenarios and issues – and also studies on 100% renewable energy systems around the world. This includes including the summary document ‘options for energy storage’ at our webpage HERE
There’s lots of fantastic links including links to videos and top papers and reports!
Exposing myths about building French nuclear power – How French nuclear construction times and costs have been getting longer and longer – for a long time
It has been standard in the UK to talk about the wonders of the French nuclear programme and how if only we copied them nuclear power would get cheaper and cheaper. The story has gone ‘If only we built a series of nuclear power plant like they did’. But it turns out that the idea that the French nuclear programme was ever getting any cheaper was a myth.
How the Government is gaslighting us about offshore wind costs
The offshore wind schemes that will be given contracts by the Government this year will cost the public a great deal less than the budget implies and might even save consumers’ money
On March 6th the Chancellor announced what amounts to one the greatest pieces of energy gaslighting that I can ever remember (and that is saying something!). Jeremy Hunt claims that the Government is set to subsidise offshore wind to the tune of £800 million. In reality, the offshore wind schemes that will be awarded contracts (that will pay guaranteed prices for electricity output) will cost the consumer very little, and might even save them money. It is monumentally ridiculous to claim that the Government will spend anything approaching £800 million of its published budget supporting offshore wind. That is, given the electricity price projections for the future.
Why the UK’s claim to be effective in cutting greenhouse emissions should be doubted
It is now very well known that the UK has achieved big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in recent decades. But the notion that the UK is in the lead in action on climate change need to be taken with a bucket load of salt. Britain’s apparent big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions reductions since 1990 are heavily based on British de-industrialisation and domestic impoverishment and less on deliberate policies to reduce emissions than may be claimed.
SMRs are useless says the UK’s leading SMR analyst! – 100 per cent renewable energy is much more feasible!
Professor Stephen Thomas, the UK’s leading analyst of ‘small modular (nuclear) reactors’, has concluded that the idea faces a dead end, with no future. Yet the UK continues to give large grants to hopeful companies to develop these white elephants. The Government has proclaimed the need for ‘billions of pounds‘ of investment in SMRs. Meanwhile badly needed district heating networks to be supplied by large-scale heat pumps and a range of other realistic clean energy initiatives go unfunded!
Rise of the Britsh solar farm that doesn’t have government support
Increasing numbers of solar farms are going ahead without any contractual support from the Government and some of them are based on cooperative or community support
Voltalia is among the latest to signal the start of construction of a solar farm which has no financial support organised by the UK Government. The project is being backed by the Co-op. I want to avoid the term ‘subsidy-free’. That is because the UK Government only gives out contracts for difference (CfDs) to renewable energy generators to pay them guaranteed prices that are well below the UK wholesale power prices.
100 per cent renewables rather than Small Modular (nuclear) Reactors Come to the webinar on Wednesday February 21st!
Leading experts will support the petition calling on the UK Parliaments’s Environmental Audit Committee to conduct an enquiry into the practicalities of a 100 percent or near 100 percent renewable energy system for the UK. That is rather than the one-sided hearing held in December for small modular reactors (SMRs).
Environmental Audit Committee chases SMR fantasies. Support our campaign to change its priorities!
The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) of the House of Commons are busy chasing nuclear corporate fantasies for small modular reactors.
We want to complain about this set of priorities and insist on an enquiry into the practicalities of a 100 per cent renewable energy system for the UK.
However we need more funds to mount this campaign. Please donate to our Go Fund Me! website (see below)
Why the UN Report is right to say we’re heading for at least 3 degrees of warming
Despite a flurry of headline-jerking agreements at Dubai’s COP28 a UN Report suggests that global warming will reach 3 degrees. This conclusion, issued by the UN Environment Programme’s ‘Emissions Gap Report’, is based on the continuation of current policies. This assumes, for instance that in the UK and the USA, the targets for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 not achieved. This, by the way, is by no means an unreasonable assumption. In fact, as things stand at the moment, it’s dead right!