[For an uncorrected transcript of the piece, see below at the end of this post].

He claims that Iran is going to use their engineering to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a major artery of oil transport from the Middle East to the world.

Iran is sitting on Natural Gas – a lot of Natural Gas. And a lot of it is at sea. There have been marine seismic surveys for sub-sea Natural Gas in the Persian Gulf over the last few years, and it seems, other countries have been spying on the Iranian offshore activities.

Clearly, with Iran’s intent to exploit its marine gas, there have been and will be construction ships and construction going on in the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz, especially the islands of Kish and Qeshm. This should not be mistaken as a risk to oil shipping. It should not be claimed as indications of Iran seeking to close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for economic sanctions.

What is at stake here is no less than Iran’s energy sovereignty – its sovereign right to enjoy the wealth from exploiting its own energy resources.

The international pressure for an end to fossil fuel subsidies would hurt Iranian internal economic development (much like it’s hurting Nigeria, currently), and it would be forced to export oil and Natural Gas – no doubt at low market prices. Iran may end up no better off for trading.

The Iranians bought myths about nuclear power hook, line and sinker, and they believe they have a right to develop civilian atomic energy. Other countries, the United States of America in particular, keep pushing this button and claiming that Iran is heading for developing nuclear weapon capability. This is the most unbelievable accusation since…oh, I don’t know, since the USA accused Iran of a plot for a used car salesman and a Mexican, or something, to kill a Saudi ambassador, which was unadulterated nonsense.

America’s insistence that Iran is a threat because they claim that Iran is working towards constructing nuclear weapons, is so ridiculous, that few seem to have realised it is “deflection” – a propaganda technique to divert you from the real source of tension between the USA and Iran.

What America really doesn’t seem to like is countries like Iran (and Venezuela) making autonomous energy decisions, and creating their own wealth by using their own energy resources in their own way.

Maybe the American war hawks think “Why cannot Iran be more like Iraq, with western oil and Natural Gas companies with discount contracts, crawling over new resources and selling it all abroad ?”

Anyway, what is clear is that the spat between Iran and the USA has nothing to do with nuclear power or idle brinkmanship about controlling the flow of oil as a retaliation against economic sanctions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83880880/

Bloomberg : 9 January 2012 : Lara Setrakian reports on the outlook for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz as Europe prepares to follow tougher U. S. sanctions on the country over its nuclear program and the status of a pipeline that would allow oil from the United Arab Emirates to bypass the waterway. The pipeline has been delayed because of construction difficulties, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Setrakian speaks with Linzie Janis on Bloomberg Television’s “Countdown.”

[Ticker tape reads "AHMADINEJAD TURNS TO CHAVEZ FOR SUPPORT"]

[Linzie Janis] “The Persian Gulf could be closed off to ships altogether, that’s if tensions continue to escalate between Iran and the West. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to meet with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez later on today as part of a tour of Latin America. He is seeking s”upport” as Iran faces tighter U. S. sanctions over its nuclear program.

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in translation] We will discuss the intentions of the arrogant system interfering and having a military presence in other countries. We shall coordinate with our friends in Latin America to address this matter.

[Linzie Janis] Well with the very latest Lara Setrakian joins us with from Dubai

Lara itell it looks like the U. S. and Iran could be on a – - collision course here.

[Lara Setrakian] Well moving closer towards it, as Iran inches towards what the U. S. has called “two red lines” – advanced nuclear enrichment at the underground Fordow facility, and shutting the Strait of Hormuz – something that Iran told the A. P. [Associated Press] they’ll do if the E. U. oil embargo goes through later this month. The highest level U. S. assessment to date – that Iran could shut the Strait that would effectively trigger a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf.

General Martin Dempsey, American Department of Defense, United States Army Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman] They’ve invested in capabilities that could [scratches nose - a classic sign of lying] in fact for a period of time block the Straits of Hormuz. We’ve invested in capabilities [rocking body slightly from side to side - a classic sign of swagger] to ensure that if that happens [giving a hard, fixed stare] we can, er, defeat that. [Looks down briefly - meaning that this information was a significant reveal] And so, the simple answer [shrugs shoulders to dimiss the concept] is yes, they can block it. Er… [ Looks down and to his right, our left, indicating a recall of something] And of course that is as well…[blinks to conceal the fact that he's cut something out] we’ve described that as an intolerable act [shrugs shoulders as if to say, those Iranians have got it coming to them] and it’s not just intolerable for us [shakes head from side to side] it’s intolerable to the world [rubs one hand over another, which is a sign of nervousness]. But we would take action and re-open the Straits [shuts lips in beefburger bun clench and nodding as a sign that no more useful information will be forthcoming].

[ Ticker Tape reads : THREATS TO STRAIT OF HORMUZ SHIPPING ]

[Lara Setrakian] Meanwhile it could disrupt the biggest sea lane for the world’s shipped oil, what one analyst called “the ultimate fear in the oil market – it would spike prices”.

[Linzie Janis] So what kind of preparation are you seeing to counter that risk ?

[Lara Setrakian] Well, one of the biggest contigency plans so far has floundered – a pipeline here in the U. A. E. that would run from Abu Dhabi to the Port of Fujairah. It would avoid the Strait. It’s a $3.3 billion dollar project but it’s been delayed – not ready until April at the soonest. And it’s meant to move 1.5 million barrels per day, most of Abu Dhabi’s output, say two days at sea, but the pipeline has been delayed repeatedly by construction issues – one energy analyst Robin Mills pointing also to a pipeline in Saudi Arabia that’s meant to be another backup system [ Ticker Tape reads "FURTHER CONTINGENCY PIPELINES PLANNED"] that could take oil to the Red Sea after 5 million barrels of oil a day capacity and it could be expanded – again, all contigency planning – to keep oil free from any Iranian chokehold in the Persian Gulf.

Linzie.

[Linzie Janis] Lara, thank you very much.

Also, see another word cloud and another.

I had never seen this televisual abomination before, and I was amused at the opportunities for cynicism in audience participation. It is possible to e-mail the producers of the show with the subject heading of those things that annoy you the most.

Standing adroitly in front of the “wall” to not quite conceal the phrases “The Wall” and “That’s Britain”, which indicated that not all viewers are fans of the programme, the presenters batted between them disparaging thoughts on wind turbines – since “wind turbines” were almost as unpopular as “dog poo”.

One wind farm, apparently, had been issued with a Noise Abatement Order !

The solution to noisy wind turbines, they claimed with a snort, whinny and jeer, had been found – turn them off when it’s windy !

They allowed the cognitive dissonance of this statement to ring in peoples’ minds. You, the audience, are intelligent. You know that wind turbines are designed to work when the wind blows. So, turning off wind turbines when the wind is blowing makes them useless.

And then, almost immediately, we were treated to an investigative report scripted at the level of a childrens’ TV broadcast, with Adrian Edmondson, “The Insider”.

To a background of stirring orchestral music, a helicopter surveyed Didcot Power Station. Oh mighty coal ! How grateful are we to thee, our succour and our strength ! Do you know that the UK relies on coal to generate 49% (or somesuch number) of our electricity ?

With unparalleled access, Ade gets to see the guts of the barely legal coal burning power plant, and then play at God in the beating heart of the National Grid, where demand is matched with supply. Those “godless” electricity consumers ! They all turn their kettles on at the same time ! During the hymns of the Royal Wedding ! It caused a spike in demand !

Nobody asks the question “Why are manufacturing companies still allowed to sell 3000 Watt kettles ?”

One e-mail was read out, and the writer made to sound a bit of a killjoy, something along the lines of “It’s all very well complaining about wind turbines, but none of your viewers have suggested any means to produce sustainable energy.”

Nobody questioned the source of the anti-wind power statements. Nobody questioned the truth and accuracy behind the scorn levelled at wind energy. Nobody questioned the deference to the major coal-fired power generation businesses. Nobody questioned whether the Reign of Old King Coal might be coming to an end. Nobody questioned whether supplies of fossil fuels might be challenged within a decade. Nobody questioned why wind power is such a successful, cost-efficient technology. Nobody questioned why the British energy-bill-paying public are going to be forced to pay extra for offshore wind power – turbines at sea – because of a small number of British landowners and false environmentalists that don’t want wind power on their land and their “precious landscapes”, but would rather have nuclear/coal/gas power plants – probably because they’ve got shares in fossil fuels and atomic energy construction companies.

So, the BBC proves once again that it is biased and ill-informed. Worse still, the BBC is perfectly happy to propagandise its viewers.

It’s no use complaining to the BBC itself, because their complaints system doesn’t work. And it’s no good complaining to the Press Complaints Commission because they’re toothless. All I can do is never watch this rubbish telly again. If you want my advice, I’d advise you to avoid it too. And if we all do the same, then, maybe, their lack of ratings might show them they’re treading water.

Let’s be clear here – the people in Scotland have a vision for future Renewable Energy, and so do many people in Wales and Ireland, but it appears English governance listens to fuddy duddy landowners too readily, and remains wedded to the fossil fuel industry and major construction projects like nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage.

It really is of no use putting off investment in truly sustainable and renewable power and gas. There are only two paths we can take in the next few decades, and their destination is the same.

Here’s how it goes. Path A will take the United Kingdom into continued dodgy skirmishes in the Middle East and North Africa. Oil production will dance like a man with a stubbed toe, but then show its true gradient of decline. Once everybody gets over the panic of the impending lack of vehicle fuel, and the failure of alternatives like algal biodiesel, and the impacts of a vastly contracted liquid fuel supply on globalised trade, then we shall move on to the second phase – the exploitation of gas. At first, it will be Natural Gas. But that too will decline. And then it will be truly natural gases. As gas is exploited for vehicles, electricity will have to come from coal. But coal, too, is suffering a precipitous decline. So renewable energy will be our salvation. By the year 2100, the world will run on renewable electricity and renewable gas, or not at all.

Meanwhile we will have had wars, rumours of wars, and just plain bomb-dropping, and lots of ancient civilisations will have bit the uranium-laced dust, and Scotland will have long since made a break for economic and political freedom. And we will have locked ourselves into dangerous climate change through our wanton burning of fossil fuels.

Path B – the logical long-term option and where we’re headed anyway – is to bypass climate change, bypass warfare and bypass idiocy and go straight to renewables.

But can the English Government work this out ? Can they see beyond their Cost Benefit Analyses and their short-termism and the calls to cut regulation and targets ? Can they imagine what life will be like in 30 years – and can they be made to be accountable to the future citizens of this country ?

We need to stimulate the development of renewable energy in the United Kingdom. It will take tax breaks, direct funding, subsidies. The Feed-in Tariff for solar power is essential in the current economic environment, to build a long-lasting electricity generation asset. If the British Government truly takes the prosperity of this country seriously, they need to plan for a significant deployment of renewable energy. We don’t know what the price of fossil fuels will be in five years time, ten years time. But we know that sunshine will always be free.

He asked after my interests in peace, and I described my ambition for renewable energy. The only way we can have peace and security is to have distributed energy solutions : homegrown climate-protecting energy in each country.

I sat down on a park bench to meditate on the poems chosen for the day, facing the British Medical Association, recalling how its stone facade was sprayed with innocent and misguided human blood on the day of 7th July, 2005. I was sitting under the weavework of the Hiroshima tree.

I saw a woman making her way towards the plaque under the tree. She was carrying a movie camera. I knew why she had come. She saw my white poppy, and realised I could answer her enquiry. “Is the peace meeting here at 2.30pm ?” I explained it had been at 12.30. I invited her to sit down on the bench next to me, so we could share.

Her name was Tomoyo Nakao, and she is at Okayama University in Japan, teaching in oral history. She was wearing Fair Isle design legwarmers given to her by her students. I gave her the sheet of paper with the memorial service poetry printed on it. I introduced her to Albert Beale of Housman’s Bookshop who had called the gathering, and was still in the square.

Together with Bill Hetherington of Peace News, they sat down on the bench. And that is how I became their cameraman, recording their discussion about poppies, peace and politics.

And then Tomoyo invited us to tea. Albert gave her a copy of the 2012 Peace Diary. And we carried on talking. As we walked past Gandhi’s shrine. We did a lot of remembering today. Tomoyo had been at the other end of Tavistock Square on 7/7. She took a picture. Albert had heard the bus blow up, but hadn’t known what it was. I had been in Stirling, at the EcoVillage camp convened for activists there for Make Poverty History and the G20 summit, and had listened to the radio in someone’s car over the course of several hours, as it became clear the scale of the atrocity that had been committed in London.

We talked about Fukushima Dai-ichi and the realisation in Tokyo of the risks posed to the people on the coast because of the city’s high power consumption. The unstable coast, where Tectonic plates regularly scrape and shake. We talked about why countries are deciding to walk away from nuclear power. We talked about safety concerns about nuclear power stations in America. We talked about the sense of coerced, artificial nationalism at the Albert Hall Festival of Remembrance the evening before. “It was just like my country in the 1930s”, Tomoyo said with anxiety. We talked about the people at the Occupy camp by St Paul’s Cathedral, and how they were wearing white poppies.

We shared what we knew about Japan trying to negotiate surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped. About why the bombs were dropped. We talked about depleted uranium shells, the lasting impact of war on generations of family, of nationalism being a response to austerity. We spoke about the reconciliation work going on in Japan, and how some things are being swept under the carpet, but should be remembered, explored, absolved. We spoke about the peace movements, the anti-nuclear movements.

Tomoyo finds her life in tension. She is criticised for pointing out problems in the way her country is handling the crises of the present and the past. People say she is against the peace movement. I said that she needs a strong heart. She must keep telling the truth. She is a prophet.

On the Tube, I met a 94-year-old woman with bandy legs, chest stiff with medals and the insignia of the Freedom of the City of London. She had been at the Cenotaph.

Later on the Overground, I saw a young man in a tee shirt that read “War is Over“, ironically also wearing a belt of bullets.

Yes, if we want it, war is so over.

Image Credit : Intelligence Squared

Yes, he’s right that solar photovoltaic systems are being incentivised more than other micro-generation, but there are several good reasons for that. For a first, the unit price of an adequate rooftop solar power system is in the region of the price of a car.

Most people use finance schemes to purchase cars, with monthly charges for example.

Similar schemes are not available for solar PV, where you have to borrow the whole amount for the system up-front – or take it from a savings account if you’re lucky enough to have one.

It is the sheer size of the cost of home solar that means that people won’t do it without subsidy. The one overriding concern of people when I ask them about what green energy they could consider buying, is the size of the initial outgoings.

People seem to be prepared to spend up to around £600 to £1,200, but no more. So, most people wouldn’t even consider a heat pump (cost somewhere in the region of £3,000 to £5,000), micro co-generation (Stirling engine Combined Heat and Power unit, coming in at around £4,500) or micro-wind turbine (installation around £3,500 depending on location).

Energy bill customers would however consider insulation and draught management, and maybe even stretch to a wood-burning stove – although the supply chain for the fuel would need to be good, and some urban installations are quite costly owing to smoke regulations.

However, there is a desperate need for more indigenous power generation in Britain. This is why solar electric on peoples’ homes, and community solar power schemes, are so important.

George Monbiot and others scorn solar power because they say that the generation of power does not match the demand for power. Maximum solar generation, they say, is in the summer, when the sun is high in the sky for long periods – but this does not match the need for power in the depths of winter at night.

There are two significant reasons why George Monbiot should think again.

1. Future summer power consumption

George Monbiot, like myself, accepts the science of global warming and climate change. Disturbances in the general climatic conditions where we all live will call for strong adaptational measures.

In London, where I live, there are regular warnings about the need to increase the tree cover as weather protection in both summer and winter – in summer for shade and local cooling, and in winter for protection against flooding and excessive rainfall. Trees need open, permeable ground around them, which can soak up excess surface water; and the tree canopies themselves can protect people from downpours.

In the summer or para-summer in what was formerly Spring and Autumn, there may be weeks of excessive heat. Until now, the UK has not had extensive air conditioning in buildings, unlike the United States of America. We are in “Cool Poverty”, not “Fuel Poverty”, during a heatwave. However, summer cooling will become increasingly necessary, especially in public buildings such as schools and hospitals which have been poorly constructed through contracts made under the Private Finance Initiative. The more rooftop solar there is, the better, as when the summer highs arrive, the solar power will be there to cool us down.

2. Energy storage for winter

The natural world makes use of summer conditions to soak up as much energy as possible. Plants and trees burgeon during the warm months. We need to act like the plants and soak up energy in summer to use during winter. Electricity is not something that can be stored easily – it needs to be used to do something that can be stored easily. Something that is ready to give energy back when we need it when our other renewable energies are less powerful – when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing and the waves are not churning.

We need to use the excess generation in summer to make energy for winter. Unused summer solar power should be used to make renewable gas; easy to store, and quick to respond to demand in winter.

Solar power can make energy for winter. That is why we need more rooftop solar.

Me, too, in my own way, I have been trying to address the Cabinet, through my Member of Parliament, who happens to be a Minister.

I took the trouble to hand this letter in by hand at the House of Commons – or rather – the place where mail and post gets X-rayed before delivery, these security-challenged times we live in.

1st November 2011

Re: Feed-in tariffs for domestic solar photovoltaic systems

Dear Iain,

I am writing to alert you to problems I have been experiencing in arranging an installation of a solar photovoltaic power generation system on my roof at home.

If the installation does not go successfully, I expect I shall be one of several of your constituents who have been let down by the start-stop nature of the Coalition Government’s support for the advancement of this vital small-scale renewable energy. I am therefore asking for your support as my democratic representative in addressing this issue in Parliament.

As you and I discussed in your surgery meeting a few months ago, increasing British solar power generation capacity is a highly desirable goal. For a number of reasons, solar generation is still expensive, not least because of the costs of hiring fitters and technicians. Yet as you yourself recognise in your role, increasing employment is for the benefit of all.

The first phase of development of virtually all energy technologies since firewood and horsepower have required the support of the state and the financing of large research facilities. Eventually, the energy technology can stand unaided and compete in the marketplace, but that initial incubation is vital to its widespread deployment and creating the economies of scale in the production of equipment.

The recent rapid increase in the size of the UK solar power installation industry has been solely down to the feed in tariff. I recognise, as do your colleagues in Government, that the feed in tariff needs to be wound down as the solar industry finds itself capable of walking on its own two feet, unit cost prices tumble with improvements in the engineering, and competition develops within the solar industry.

But it is in many expert opinions wrong to reduce state support sharply and prematurely, in the way your colleague The Rt Hon. Greg Barker MP of the Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced this week.

I understand that this is partly because of the economic situation, and the imposition of caps on budgets; and partly because of commitments made to other players in the energy industry who also need extensive subsidies and other financial support – such as the nuclear power industry.

However, since developing the energy supply in the United Kingdom is of critical importance, as identified in repeated reports from responsible authorities such as the House of Commons committees, the National Grid and Ofgem, I would suggest that support for the domestic solar power industry should be increased, not cut back.

I am willing to be corrected, but my cursory look at the figures from the most recent Digest of UK Energy Statistics report (DUKES), suggests that, last year, the feed in tariff cost the domestic energy bill payer £10 for the whole year. Of course, this figure should not be allowed to rise sharply, as this could start to make a meaningful impact on those who are fuel poor. However, it could be increased a certain amount.

Those who have not had the savings or the credit to purchase a solar power system at home will of course be paying a surcharge on their bills without receiving compensation from the feed in tariff. However, those generating power on their rooftops are providing a service to the nation, and I feel it is right they should be compensated for investing their own savings into national power generation. Domestic solar power has the potential to help prevent drastic negative steps such as opening a new coal-fired power station, something that would affect air pollution and carbon targets. The question has to be asked, even though the feed in tariff has caused an increase in everyone’s household energy bills, is the rise in domestic solar power preventing other kinds of costs, that everyone would have to bear ?

The main reasons why peoples’ energy bills are increasing are to do with the general market conditions in fossil fuels, and Government plans to levelise the playing field between high and low carbon energy sources. By contrast, green energy investment subsidy policies are only small factors in the change in the cost of bills.

The Coalition Government is considering applying a variety of means to penalise high carbon power generation, and incentivise low carbon power generation, in the Electricity Market Reform, and this financial support will be very costly. The “contracts for difference” and “carbon price floor” will benefit existing low carbon generators, such as nuclear power operators, but not necessarily stimulate new nuclear power construction. Added to which, a new nuclear power capability is at least ten years away. Instead of paying vast sums of public money to the nuclear power generators, why not put more money into the feed in tariff budget to increase generating capacity right now ?

My demand is that the Feed in Tariff budget be increased, I would suggest doubled. The Feed in Tariff is working, and resulting in a rapid increase in generation capacity from solar photovoltaics.

I would also ask that individual feed-in-tariffs are only slowly ramped down. The reason for this is because of the nature of the industry. When the generous feed in tariffs were announced, the order books of the solar power companies filled rapidly, and they have been unable to clear their back logs in a timely fashion owing to global market conditions and the availability of parts.

To cut the feed in tariff early and sharply is already having an impact on the viability of community schemes and solar power companies. Threats and actual lay-offs have already started. Order books have been closed. In your role in the Department of Work and Pensions, I would suspect you would prefer people to stay employed, so it may be an appropriate position for you to back the solar industry during the transition to lower feed-in tariffs.

I am enclosing a letter of “last chance” to my solar installer, to indicate my personal situation. Because of the state of the industry, I have been kept waiting for months for the right parts to be delivered, despite having paid a deposit in July.

Any help, advice and support you can offer would be very welcome. But in particular, I am asking for you to request your colleagues in HM Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change to double the feed in tariff budget and decelerate the reduction in individual feed in tariff guarantees.

Yours sincerely,

You have to be prepared to dodge flying nuclear trolls, but apart from that you too can contribute, as long as you have an in-depth knowledge of the price of everything in the UK electricity generation network.

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

Do you think it’s possible that nobody is immune to emotional reactions to the fate of the solar power industry ? For example, you say, “I find it most frustrating that others do not even attempt to contest the factual statements or assertions I make on the basis of evidence, but simply revert to the emotive and subjective.” And yet in the very preceding paragraph you say, “…the religious diatribe of the PV industry”, which some could validly claim is an emotive and subjective statement.

You seem to be quite married to the idea that the sole focus of assessing the solar PV industry should be the differential pricing between installed cost and module cost. I’m not going to argue numbers with you, but let’s take a look at money questions, if that is your sole concern.

You do not appear to take into account peripheral costs, such as the cost of the electronics necessary to hook a home solar system into the grid, nor the employment costs, nor practical details such as the cost of scaffolding.

More importantly you do not appear to have a recognition of the “externalities” – the costs to the whole electricity network of centralised generation and transmission losses. Can you offer an estimate of the value of unloading the local area of a grid in the neighbourhood of the solar PV system ? Can you offer an estimate of the added efficiency of having some local, distributed generation, so that the high voltage network does not have to transform power down to the local area ? Have you an idea of the carbon displacement value from having zero-emissions generation in the local grids ?

XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX mentioned that there needs to be additional grid management and reconfiguring of cabling if small scale solar generation is taking place on a wide scale. But how does the cost of that compare to having to put up major new cabling for bringing new wind power south to England from Scotland ?

There are people who have looked at these questions of costings. Over the last few years I have read a few things on this, but the references are not uppermost in my mind, sorry to say.

The electricity generation industry are showing extreme reluctance over new investments – partly due to fluctuations in Government policy, partly due to continued risks from carbon pricing being imposed (which I am against), partly due to the volatility in the global energy commodity markets, partly due to stress from the economic volatility and the lack of credit.

True more than ever before is the pragmatic fact that all new energy deployment will require state subsidy.

In the face of all this nothing-doing, the two things that have continued to accelerate have been wind power and micro-solar.

Greg Barker MP keeps uttering “867 million” as if that’s a larger number than the several billion committed to Carbon Capture and Storage and new nuclear subsidies. We won’t see any real benefits from CCS or nuclear for at least a decade. Why should we spend money now on these things ? If you look at it carefully, you can see that the “867 million” in the Feed-in Tariff budget is producing more real benefits in the current moment than any of the other proposed reforms of the electricity “market”.

I reckon he should be allowed to double the feed in tariff budget. Naturally, he should start slowly ramping down the tariff amounts guaranteed to new solar PV installations. It makes sense as the module prices are reducing (although other costs are not). It doesn’t make sense to kill the industry off with this sudden, early 50% reduction in state support.

I think that rooftop solar has to be part of the “energy mix”, and that we cannot afford nuclear power and carbon captured-coal (or CCS in general).

I have taken an approach with my individual energy use that matches the way I feel my country should behave. I have taken actions to reduce my personal energy use and increase the amount of renewable energy that I use, and hopefully, I shall have some microsolar very soon, despite Greg Barker MP’s unwise intervention in the functioning of the industry. If it all goes according to plan I will be using very little gas and exporting electricity on a net annual basis. That will make me one of the nation’s electricity generators – and decentralised power will be working.

For the record I am neither a member of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or the Green Party and I don’t own any shares in the solar power industry.

Regards,