Britain is on the verge of an energy crunch.  Without significantly higher energy prices the infrastructure needed to keep the lights on will never be built.  But even at todays’ prices, businesses are closing, the wealthy are going off grid, and the precariat are disconnecting themselves. Unless you happen to …

China is now responsible for 10 percent of global warming according to a new report in the Journal Nature. The most obvious manifestation of the amount of pollution generated in China is in the poor air quality in its major cities.  In Beijing, smog is so bad that people routinely …

The UK tech firms are driving economic growth according to Chris Papadopoullos at City AM: “The so-called flat white economy of media, internet and creative businesses is now the second largest business sector in the UK. It accounts for 8.7 per cent of GDP.” The tech sector has overtaken retail …

Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan has raised concerns about the high level of private debt to GDP.  Chinese corporate debt is around 160 percent of GDP while private debt as a whole is around 230 percent; leaving Chinese banks at considerable risk from defaults. The Bank for International Settlements …

In the wake of the 2008 crash, we developed a form of schizophrenia.  We began talking about two economies: the “real economy” – the manufacturing and trade of goods and services that we mere mortals engage in – and the “monetary economy” – the daily exchange of computerised electronic numbers …

This may seem a frivolous question given that there is more oil beneath the ground than humans have burned in the last century.  But it is not so frivolous when we consider the impact that petroleum has on the environment.  If governments are going to meet climate change targets, sooner …

Seventy-one percent of the surface of the Earth is water… ninety-seven percent of which is saline.  Of the remaining three percent, two are locked up in ice caps and glaciers.  So, 7.5 billion humans depend upon just one percent of the water.  This is not just the water we drink.  …

Cochin International Airport in southern India has become the world’s first solar powered airport.  According to David Nield on Science Alert: “The airport uses 48,000-50,000 kilowatts of power every day, and the 45 acres of photovoltaic cells installed on the site can now take that strain and then some.” In …

According to finance expert Max Keiser, Russia will be out of oil by 2044, with the production peak expected to occur in 2020. Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, says that they have potential recoverable oil reserves of about 29 billion tons – enough to last for 57 years.  However, proven …

Buried beneath George Osborne’s cuts to disability benefits and his damascene conversion to a sugar tax was a measure that should alarm us all.  Osborne has made the tacit admission that energy is more important than the public finances. Between 1979 and 1999, Britain had been self-sufficient in fossil carbon.  …