Climate secretary says landscape must change
Energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne has urged countryside conservationists to accept that landscape change is inevitable in the battle against climate change
Addressing the Campaign to Protect Rural England last week, Huhne said that trade-offs will be needed between the long-term survival of landscapes and the security and affordability of electricity supplies. "Sometimes, national need will mean we have to sit down and take a tough decision about local impacts," he said.
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New report down plays significance of shadow flicker
A new report from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) concludes that shadow flicker has not proven to be a nuisance in the UK.Read more
UK underinvestment wins again
A few months ago we wrote about forward thinking Aberdeenshire whose planning authority published a set of guidelines specifying the circumstances under which a wind turbine application would be granted- thus removing local politics and nimbyism from the equation.
That combined with a rich wind resource let to a somewhat inevitable "gold rush" of applications which in turn has led to the operators of local aviation RADAR systems to start objecting to all new proposals.
Community and commercial schemes alike are now being withdrawn or rejected pending the anticipated rollout of a new RADAR system to mitigate the "clutter" caused by wind turbines. This new Raytheon system is as yet still un-tested and assuming successful tests later this year, it could still be 5 years before anyone agrees to actually pay for the upgrades.
Contrast this with our recent visit to the island of Gran Canaria where we had a tour of the ACSA wind turbine factory. The airport is surrounded by hundreds of wind turbines right up to its perimeter fence and yet the commercial and military aircraft (yes there are F-18's parked next to the runway when you land) seem to fly around quite well without bumping into anything.
How does a relatively poor little Spanish colony island afford to do something that seems almost impossible here in the UK?
New minimum rewards for communities announced..
...but doesn't go anywhere near far enough!
Yesterday RenewableUK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association) announced a new protocol for wind energy developers to pay local communities an annual sum of £1,000 per megawatt of capacity installed. This means, for example, a developer who installs a 1 or 2MW turbine grossing over £500,000 annually, could expect to pay just 0.2% to the local community.Read more
Energy rationing coming to the UK?
Few if any will have heard of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO) however this group comprising over 20 MPs of all parties has met regularly since 2007 to research and debate policy on how best to transition the UK away from fossil fuels.Read more
Competition for Russian oil increases
With the opening of a new oil pipeline from the worlds number one oil exporter, Russia, to the number one oil consumer, China, signals a number of worrying trends.
The fact that Russia overtook Saudia Aradia in 2009 marks the recognition that production there has probably peaked and is now in decline. Saudi was long known as the "swing producer" picking up the slack as one by one, other oil producing fields went into decline.
Secondly, the flow of oil to China means that Western Europe will be in competition with the worlds new economic powerhouse. As oil prices continue to rise can Europe afford a bidding war with China?
Lastly, we've already seen how the Russians can behave when, in 2009 they simply turned off gas supplies to the Ukraine because of "payment disputes".
Are we there yet? Petrol prices hit new highs.
According to BBC News online petrol prices have reached new all time highs with a litre of unleaded now averaging nearly £1.22 and diesel at nearly £1.26.
Fresh increases are expected in January 2011 when higher VAT rates kick in.
Oh, and don't forget gas and electricity price increases of between 7% and 10% have been announced by British Gas and Scottish & Southern.
Added together this makes renewable energy look cheaper every day.
Richard Branson warns on peak oil
BBC Radio's Today programme today featured a report from ITPOES (the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security) that includes the Virgin Group of companies:
The serious issues highlighted by the Gulf of Mexico spill serve to underline the vulnerable state of future oil supplies. The UK needs to prepare for an era of expensive oil, and this means we must step-up our commitment to reducing dependence on oil.
Feed In Tariffs left unchanged by CSR
After much speculation that the Coalition government would slash the feed-in tariff set by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Chancellor George Osborne today announced there would be no immediate unplanned cuts:Read more
Plans for Severn River Barrier Axed
It came as no surprise to many commentators that the Severn River tidal scheme was axed today - just 3 days before the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Instead the Coalition Government plans to initiate another batch of nuclear power stations and to further promote renewables.Read more