Energy

The same mainstream media that told us last month that we had a “climate emergency” that required urgent action seems determined to lull us back to sleep with a large dose of Bright Green hopium today.  That, at least is the only conclusion one can reasonably arrive at when Jeremy …

The unspoken flaw in the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” and the various forms of green new deal that are meant to bring it about, is that renewable energy is supposed to simultaneously replace existing energy sources and provide the additional power for an entirely electrified economy.  The problem, for now, …

One of the advantages of being a rocky island in the northeast Atlantic, right underneath the Gulf Stream is that you get to deploy record amounts of offshore wind turbines to delay the day when your economy grinds to a halt.  This is the reality of modern Britain – a …

Protesters today intend bringing central London to a standstill by blockading several major arterial roads into the capital.  For once, this has nothing to do with Brexit.  Instead, it concerns the increasingly urgent call for government to “do something” about climate change.  Exactly what that “something” is that must be …

Easter in the UK marks the start of the gardening season for the mass of the population (hardened gardeners never stopped).  The long weekend provides many working people with their first holiday since Christmas.  And with spring in the air, even the most reluctant of us are persuaded to get …

Britain is currently a land where anything can exist as long as it remains solely in the minds of the increasingly deranged individuals who believe it.  No, for once I am not talking about our politicians’ inability to understand Brexit.  This time I am talking about two diametrically opposite views …

A few miles from where I live there is a cycle track that is – apparently – spoiled by a series of stone slabs placed about a metre apart over a couple of miles.  They are, in fact, what remains of the world’s first steam railway sleepers across which in …

There is a story – possibly apocryphal – about a conversation between former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson and then President George W. Bush at a swanky Washington dinner party in 2003, in which Tillerson is reputed to have remarked: “FFS George why do you want to invade Iraq?  Why not …

In order to secure licenses to carry out fracking in the UK, the oil and gas companies involved signed up to a tight regulatory framework.  In part, this was done to sell fracking to a highly sceptical population.  Given Britain’s long history of extractive industries poisoning land and water courses …

If there is one thing that Britons like to complain about more than the weather it is the state of the trains.  An overwhelming majority of us in poll after poll believe that things were better back in the days before the unnecessarily complex Tory privatisation in 1996.  The current …