It is a sad state of affairs when Britain announces the closure of yet another keystone manufacturing business. Steel is part of our everyday lives but, from now on, we will need to buy most of it in from abroad. It’s such a change from the mid-Sixties when the UK was the fourth biggest steel […]

The UK’s Renewable Obligation and Feed-in Tariff have now, thankfully, closed. Unfortunately, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has announced an attempt to restore subsidies in a covert form, via the mysteriously named “Smart Export Guarantee” (SEG). On the 9th of June BEIS released documents relating to upcoming secondary legislation, The Smart Export […]

Oil is like manna from heaven for the individuals to whom it brings fabulous riches and the states that gain geopolitical and economic strength. It is only natural, then, that societies who have oil believe that they have been blessed from above. This ethos is laid plain in a fascinating new book about America’s connections […]

The May 2019 European elections marked the decline of the traditional centre-right and centre-left parties. The beneficiaries were the green parties, with their objective of ever-more forceful climate policies, and right-wing populists, concerned more about employment and income. This change was also underpinned by a generational shift: young voters are moving from the traditional left-wing […]

It is no wonder that the developing countries in Asia have little hesitation in supporting coal power generation as the quickest route to economic development and poverty alleviation. The reigning narrative of impending global environmental catastrophe dominates the airwaves and print media. Short of a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels, it is asserted, […]

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has poured cold water on the idea of rapid cost reductions for offshore wind farms. In recent weeks, some observers of the energy scene have been wondering if the long honeymoon of the renewables industry might finally have come to an end. EU renewables capacity additions have been falling […]

He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.” —Edgar Fiedler Predicting the future has always been a perilous and uncertain activity. For centuries, soothsayers foretold events by cutting up chickens and examining their entrails. Today, scientists, economists and others use sophisticated computer models to do the same thing, often with […]

Until they embrace nuclear energy as a key to reducing emissions, the party’s many presidential candidates will be hard to take seriously on climate change. Climate change is the No. 1 issue for Democrats, with a recent poll showing 82 percent of Democratic voters listed it as their top priority. To appeal to those voters, contenders for […]