What is a healthy room temperature? On releasing its Cold Weather Plan for 2014, Public Health England has recently revised its recommended minimum levels to keep in good health. No longer, they say, do…
Take a hard look at the painful process of de-carbonising the UK’s electricity supply, and it’s clear that the options on the table are not great. From the outset, changes to the system generate further…
Do we have enough onshore windfarms, or do we have too many? And who decides what “too many” looks like? The Conservative Party has announced it would end subsidies for new onshore wind farms if it won…
There is a boom in renewable energy sources coming online worldwide, but the predominant types – solar and wind – are problematic due to their variable nature. For most regions of the world, the sun cannot…
The inhabitants of a frequently cold and windy country like the UK need to heat their homes, even in what is loosely termed “summer”. This is achieved mostly by natural gas-fed boilers – but this dependence…
Britain’s homes are responsible for almost a third of the nation’s energy use, despite decades of gradually improving energy efficiency. For the UK to meet its targets for carbon emissions reductions by…
Energy-generating solar panels provide the opportunity to generate low-carbon electricity from the roof over your head, at a cost that has fallen dramatically and continues to slide. So many governments…
While a privatised energy market has delivered stable and cost-effective electricity to Britain’s national grid for 25 years, the world and the pressures it faces are changing. A group of Newcastle University…
The escalating situation in Ukraine has focused the minds of Europe’s leaders on their countries’ energy needs and how to meet them. Energy security has quickly become a strategic priority for the EU…
The Conservative Party apparently plans to introduce a moratorium on future onshore wind farms from 2020, hanging their hat on the growth of offshore wind instead, and following Germany’s lead by expanding…
With floods sweeping the country, energy policy has slipped down the agenda since Labour’s attention-grabbing price freeze policy announcement. And this of course is unfortunate, as energy policy is central…
A potential government investigation into British Gas has offered up the chance to restructure the market in a way that has not happened since the industry was privatised, and could skew the market to…
It is ironic that it is the Labour frontbench leading the charge against what it calls the UK’s “broken energy market”, because practically every controversial aspect of the energy market was the creation…
To anyone following recent discussions about the UK’s energy sector, it might seem the nation is entirely lighting-obsessed. When announcing the deal that paved the way for a new nuclear power station…
Energy prices seem seldom out of the news. Politicians show their frustration with the energy market in proposing various solutions. This week Tory grandee and former prime minister John Major has called…
There has long been talk of the need for a “nuclear renaissance”, and now it seems underway. The deal has been struck that would see the first new British nuclear power station in a generation. But is…
First the banks lost the public’s trust, then the tax activities of some large corporations were brought under scrutiny. So perhaps taking on the “big six” UK energy companies as household fuel bills incessantly…
Germany and the UK have ambitious clean energy policies. Both have set themselves national emission reduction targets beyond the European Union’s goal of 20% below emissions levels of 1990. Germany has…
The islands off the north and west of Scotland hold the UK’s best renewable resources, yet for more than a decade energy policies have prevented them from realising their full potential. Due to long out-of-date…