Energy

There is a mismatch between the fracking companies’ investment brochures and the cash flow recorded in their accounts.  In the years after the financial crash, this did not seem to matter too much.  In the face of near zero percent interest rates elsewhere, the fast-growing US fracking industry offered one …

Among the many disagreements between environmental campaigners, government ministers and business leaders, there is one central point of agreement – renewable energy harnessing technologies are the solution.  While campaigners may rail against the lack of commitment to deploy these technologies, only a minority among them is prepared to contemplate an …

For all the talk about electric cars and renewable electricity, global oil production rose above 100 million barrels a day last month.  For all the policy pronouncements to the contrary, the stark reality remains that our insatiable demand for oil, the products of oil, and all of the stuff that …

Renewable energy campaigners were quick to welcome a European Court decision to ban the UK’s electricity capacity auctions last week.  The court ruled that the auctions – which are designed to ensure that additional capacity is available at times of high demand (such as during the “Beast from the East” …

There is an irony to Cuadrilla restarting its fracking activities in the UK in the same week that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its dire warning that we have just 12 years to transition to a zero-carbon economy if we are to stay below the 1.5oC above pre-industrial …

Among the biggest “green” myths of recent times was the wildly outlandish claim that we had reached “peak oil demand.”  The economists promised us that as increasing numbers switched to renewable energy, electric cars and digital working, so an ever larger part of the world’s remaining oil would be left …

To a general public that is clueless about net energy issues; solar roadways appeared to be a good way to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.  As the hype had it, there is abundant sunlight and more than enough road space on which to collect it.  So it was that Solar …

Can you run a self-driving car on a desert island? Of course not: There are no roads; and there is no fuel for the car. Why do I mention this?  Because the received narrative around climate change and so-called “peak oil demand” is that new technologies like electric self-driving cars …

These days, the UK government’s Business Secretary, Greg Clarke has the appearance of a man who has stared into the Abyss and seen the impermanence and futility of existence.  Just two years ago, when he was given a business brief that included the old department for energy and climate change, …

When contemporary economists, politicians and journalists proclaimed the imminent arrival of “peak oil demand,” they were hardly espousing a new idea.  In fact, they were merely repeating an idea that was doing the rounds in the 1850s – an idea that was thoroughly debunked. In those days, it was coal …