Energy

Despite continuing low oil prices having all but bankrupted the fracking industry, North Sea oil and gas production just hit a 15 year high.  According to Emily Gosden in the Telegraph: “Oil and Gas UK said it expected last year’s 10.4pc increase in production – the first rise in 15 …

In a glowing article for the Falkirk Herald, Stuart Barber makes some remarkably optimistic claims about the future of the Ineos refinery in Grangemouth: “In five days time a cargo ship the length of two football pitches will dock at the Ineos jetty in Grangemouth to off load nearly one …

There is something very wrong in the world when climate campaigners find themselves on the same side of an energy debate as arch climate change denier Lord Lawson.  That, however, is exactly where we find ourselves following the government’s insane decision to proceed with the nuclear power plant at Hinkley …

In the run up to last year’s general election, following a complaint from Labour peer Lord Lipsey, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)  banned a Greenpeace advertisement which claimed that: “Fracking threatens our climate, our countryside and our water. Yet experts agree – it won’t cut our energy bills.” According to …

There are some things that you simply cannot say without producing howls of outrage.  Here’s one of them: you will not solve the problem of climate change even if you generate all of the world’s electricity from renewables.  The truth of this statement is self-evident if you take the trouble …

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has given the go-ahead for the MeyGen tidal energy project in the Pentland Firth between the Orkney Islands and the mainland.  The scheme, which initially involves deploying 86 1MW offshore tidal stream turbines, is expected to generate up to 398MW by the early 2020s. The …

A year after the incoming Tory government cancelled carbon capture and storage (CCS) funding, a committee of MPs has argued that the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should put CCS front and centre of UK energy policy. According to the MPs, previous problems with CCS stem from …

As the revamped UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy casts around for an energy policy that might just keep the lights on, they could do a lot worse than turn to the Tories’ favourite daily newspaper for a lead.  That’s the conclusion of climate campaigner and solar energy …

Fracking has made people stressed, divided communities and undermined public trust in police, government and the political process, according to Dean Kirby in i-News: “Residents near two proposed fracking sites in Lancashire have been ‘profoundly impacted’ by the plans even before a final decision on whether to approve them has …

One of the reasons fracking took off in the USA is that landowners also own the mineral rights beneath their land.  So when energy companies decided that oil and gas prices were high enough to make fracking possible, they had to pay landowners directly for the rights. The UK is …