What a week! It starts with a new PM who has shown little sign of recognising the urgency of net-zero actions, and finishes with a new king who has always been a keen friend to environmentalists. Will they behave to stereotype? Liz Truss’s energy policy needs plenty of detail fleshed out, but does at least … Read More
Dawn of a glorious new era for clean energy in the UK, or the start of more challenging times? We shall find out soon enough COMPANY NEWS SSE Renewables pays Siemens-Gamesa £528m for 3.8GW of windFast-growing SSE Renewables has completed the purchase of Siemens Gamesa’s 3.8GW portfolio of wind projects across southern Europe.The clean power … Read More
I return this week to a material that gets airtime every now and then: Thorium. The world might be a very different place if thorium was chosen rather than uranium to power nuclear reactors. I was led to believe that it was pressure from the military that swung the argument in favour of uranium, as … Read More
Will the real Kwasi Karteng please stand up: this week our Energy Secretary has bemoaned the use of imported biomass at Drax saying that it is not sustainable and “makes no sense to me”. The next day he announces a new consultation from the govenment to encourage Bioenergy with carbon capture (see below). His stance … Read More
I keep trying to peddle good news stories here, yet the politicians seem determined to undo it all. COMPANY NEWS UK pension funds buy 12.5% Hornsea 1 stakeOctopus Energy Generation and GLIL Infrastructure have acquired a 12.5% stake in UK offshore wind farm Hornsea 1 from Global Infrastructure Partners.Octopus made a £200m investment on behalf … Read More
Well, well, it looks like the Democrats have managed to get the Tax and Spend Bill through Congress! It took some nifty manoeuvring, which I don’t pretend to understand but this is highly significant in that it includes the biggest incentive programme for clean energy ever in the USA. With the US leading rather than … Read More
A small game of join the dots: A headline suggests that the UK is the second most ready to achieve Net Zero by 2050. Our prospective leadership candidates get surprised by the big cheer they get when they mention environmental policy and third, the biggest generator of levelling up jobs has been the renewables industry. … Read More
My wife showed me a piece this week in Remodelista about a gorgeous off-grid hut in Majorca HERE which included a novel power system: In fact the architect, Mariana de Delás makes an interesting point: the wheelbarrow contains power banks which run all electrical requirements in the hut, which involves wheeling the power to the user.. … Read More
So, we do have a windfall tax on oil companies in the UK, but the not-an-emergency budget has left hanging the prospect that electricity generators might be hit too, which would undoubtedly affect renewables investment and, yet again nothing on energy efficiency. Company news Polestar invests in extreme fast charging battery company StoreDotPolestar has made … Read More
One beneficiary of the change in views on energy costs and energy security has been sentiment towards nuclear power. My “focus” today may serve as a reminder that nuclear is a far from perfect solution especially as regards costs Company news 5MW gigastack project awarded £9.3m in UK Government fundingITM Power announced it had won … Read More