Categories
Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change

Camped On Your Doorstep

What would you do if you met a Climate Camper face to face ? And how could you be sure ? Would they have dreadlocks ? A facepainted clown face, raggedy, dirty clothes ? Would they be shouting ?

More to the point, would they be getting in your face ? Or in your way ? Would they be threatening or violent or extremely negative ? Or would they offer you a cup of tea and a nice wholemeal organic flapjack ?

Categories
Bait & Switch Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow

Big Energy : Fighting for Survival

The Carbon game’s up : within 40 to 70 years the Petroleum empires will be gone. Even with massive new investment, Hydrocarbon production will be peaking. With supplies of Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and yes, even Coal, starting to fall away, a crucial sub-plot will begin to play out.

Categories
Big Picture Carbon Capture Climate Change Energy Revival Growth Paradigm Low Carbon Life Media Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Technological Sideshow

Pouncing on the Pussycat Parade

He may prowl like a cat and purr like a cat, and make out he’s soft and sweet in interviews, but Peter Mandelson’s ideological positioning gives him the impression of him more resembling a pawn, an eel or a rat, and gives me a shudder of disgust; and I’m glad to hear the Climate Rush non-Pussycat Dolls have seen fit to pounce on him :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/10/mandelson-climate-protest-vestas

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Media Meltdown Methane Madness Methane Management Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves

Deep Gas : Russia Dives

A cursory Western reader of news about Russia would find curious snippets with little context or explanation. “Russia plants flag on Arctic floor” from 2007 or “Vladimir Putin dives to bottom of world’s deepest lake” from 1st August 2009.

With the new streamlined Russian openness strategy, the information is not withheld, just dumbed-down, it seems. When reported in the Western press, it’s easy for further meaning to erode at this extra remove. But there is a story here. What are they up to ? Staking claims in the Arctic and mining for unconventional Hydrocarbon fuels underwater, that’s what.

Categories
Bait & Switch Big Picture Burning Money Energy Revival Media Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow

Nuclear Drive : Barbecue Country

A number of media outlets have been skewered and grilled one more time in the last fortnight by the Nuclear industry and it’s paid-up or paid-to fans. It feels like the poor lamb hacks have been gambolling and frolicking too close to the fire.

Just getting a Press Release in the papers is not equivalent to convincing a critical mass of people to support your energy technology of choice. It’s like roasting and toasting a very dodgy piece of carcase/carcass and adding hot pepper sauce to hide the bacterial slime.

Even recruiting a senior former British Government Minister to the radioactive cause is not sufficiently influential for a good portion of the electorate. That’s like pulling some Amazon-killing soya-fed dead cow out of the freezer and finding it’s several years too old to eat.

Nuclear Power has a bad track record, and the last couple of years have been near-on laughable.

Categories
Big Picture Carbon Capture Climate Change Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Pet Peeves Renewable Resource Technological Sideshow Utter Futility

Feel The Greater Burn

I cannot offer an opinion about the validity of this research, because I haven’t read the science paper with the calculations, I haven’t spoken to the researchers, or entirely understood their model from the news report, but I’ve got to admit the results appear intriguing.

The authors speak to my key annoyances : the proposals for new Nuclear Power and Carbon Capture and Storage. And they say we shouldn’t do it : the net heat from “thermal” power generation is going to be dangerous regardless of what we do with any resulting Carbon Dioxide.

Categories
Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Capture Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow

Joan Ruddock : “Less Attractive”

A curious little news item caught my eye last week : a Reuters report of the official opening of the Britain’s largest Carbon Capture project in Renfrew, Scotland :-

https://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE56R00E20090728

All pretty standard hot-off-the-Press-Release fare. You would have thought it was a fine thing, a noble undertaking, a breakthrough. If you were at all interested in Energy engineering, which most of you aren’t.

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Non-Science Pet Peeves Renewable Resource Social Change Vote Loser Wind of Fortune

Wind Turbines Give You Apoplexy

Reactions to the article “Wind Turbines Give You Spots” is encouraging, if contentious. Looks like we’ve mined a thick vein of dispute. Could a simple, happy, smiley Public Relations campaign to promote Wind Power counter this ? I think not !

Categories
Bad Science Big Picture Energy Revival Non-Science Pet Peeves Renewable Resource Wind of Fortune

Wind Turbines Give You Spots

I don’t know whether to laugh or shed tears in comic agony at this, which looks like the latest in a very long line of environmental “hoaxes”.

A person allegedly a paediatrician from New York claims to have diagnosed a new disorder, with a wide range of symptoms, relating to Wind Turbines.

Provisionally named “Wind Turbine Syndrome”, this “visceral vibratory vestibular disturbance” can be detected in folks unlucky enough to be living within the spinning shadow of new wind farms.

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Media Pet Peeves Social Change

Climate Camps Pitch Up

The Climate Camping season has begun in earnest today, 3rd August 2009.

Here’s a few of the links below. If you’r bored, curious or otherwise ungainfully unemployed, why not come and pitch your canvas alongside the radical Carbon-free thinkers and doers of the future ?

https://climatecampscotland.org.uk/

Categories
Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Carbon Army Climate Change Energy Revival Social Change Utter Futility

Energetic Fracas at the Propaganda Workface

A momentous report in from Dorset, which seems to be one of Britain’s most radioactive frontlines in the battle between Climate Change Denial and Renewables common sense.

Susan Chapman, Green Party candidate, a colleague from the small but highly informational Take Global Warming Seriously campaign, and an active member of Poole Agenda 21, writes about the tedious, unforgiving work of campaigning for a Carbon-free energy future.

https://www.tgws.org.uk/

https://www.pa21.org.uk/

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Pet Peeves

Shall We Go Nuclear ?

Shall We Go Nuclear ?

The way I see it, it’s not a simple straight choice between one energy production technology and any other. It’s quite a lot more complicated than that. There are issues of national energy policy, the method of financing and influential key players, practical details, economics, security and surety of supply, safety, security of installations, and also historical experience, when considering each option.