Clean Air Power Limited are converting UU’s diesel trucks at Davyhulme the sewage treatment works serving the large Northern City of Manchester, famous for its football teams, to run on dual fuel diesel-biomethane. The basic idea has been around for years, essentially methane is fed into the inlet of an ordinary diesel engine, where the […]
Read MoreNuclear energy can only make small impact by 2050 according to New Scientist report
Reporting on a communique from the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, published on 16 October New Scientist reports that nuclear power output could be quadrupled by 2050 rising to 1400 gigawatts from present 370 GW and supply roughly 12.5% of total world power use. This high projection assumes that renewables and CCS don’t […]
Read MoreNASA's Hansen urges Obama to abandon "inefectual" cap and trade
Reported in the Guardian, Friday 2 January 2009, by James Randerson, science correspondent, Professor James Hansen who heads Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world’s top climate scientists has written to Obama: calling for a tax on carbon which is fed back to tax payers, meaning no net burden on taxpayers he […]
Read More"Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B' " – The Independent Survey
According the Independent newspaper – Steve Connor, Science Editor and Chris Green. Friday, 2 January 2009 “An emergency “Plan B” using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists” carried out by The Independent. This is due to the collective international failure to […]
Read MorePromoters overstate the environmental benefit of wind farms
According to the Daily Telegraph, Dec 21, The British Wind Energy Association, (BWEA ) the wind farm industry lobby group, has been “forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed”. This is because it used a carbon emission figure […]
Read MoreNew fusion approach at Lawrence Livermore – "artificial star"
“Scientists plan to ignite tiny man-made star. It is science’s star experiment: an attempt to create an artificial sun on earth — and provide an answer to the world’s impending energy shortage”……..
….drools the headline of Telegraph Science Correspondent, Richard Gray’s article article – 27 Dec 2008
A cynic would say this is part of the ongoing “distraction robbery” being carried out by the energy and motor industry – “don’t worry – we’ll sort out the energy problem (we’ve got various wheezes up our sleeves – fusion, fuel cells, hydrogen just around the corner) meantime keep shelling out on far more of the stuff than you would need if the governments and / or us, the energy utilities funded the already existing and far more cost effective energy conservation schemes, or invested in already available and proven renewable energy schemes such as wind energy along with further grid interconnections, and more high efficiency local CHP/DH schemes.
Read MoreProfessor Roger Falconer FREng will talk about the Severn Barrage, Cardiff 12th Jan.
Professor Roger Falconer FREng, Halcrow Professor of Water Management, Cardiff University, Monday, 12th January 2009, 19:00 (Refreshments at 18:30)
University of Bristol, Merchant Venturers’ Building, Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UB
The presentation will review the current main Severn Barrage proposals, as originally promoted by the Severn Tidal Power Group, together with giving a brief overview of alternative options such as the Shoots Barrage and Offshore Tidal Impoundments.
Read More"CO2 (equivalent) saving from short-rotation willow coppice (SRC) is ZERO" – official
DEFRA and ADAS (the UK agricultural agency) are now circulating a study comparing net GHG impacts of different bio-feedstocks which concludes that the net CO2 (equivalent) saving from short-rotation willow coppice (SRC) is ZERO because of the direct and indirect GHG emission from the fertilisers used, whereas there is near 100% CO2 (equiv) saving from Miscanthus (“elephant grass”) because it doesn’t need fertilisers. Some of the wood wastes show up to 600% CO2-equivalent net saving because of the methane emissions in the “base case” where they are put to landfill (I presume this applies to most natural forest-floor debris and dead trees). …….Chris Hodrien
Read More"US government should fund massive public works projects" – Dennis Kucinich – Congress
On the Today programme this morning (Wednesday 18th Dec) there was an interview with Dennis Kucinich, chair of a US congressional committee (who stood for the Democrats presidential candidate in 2004), and he proposed that the US government should take over creating money from the banks, to fund massive public works projects, rather than borrow […]
Read MoreParsons Brinckerhoff "has made huge miscalculations on Severn Estuary tidal lagoons’ costs"
December 14, 2008
The famous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig_(Boston,_Massachusetts))) American engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff (“PB”) has submitted cost numbers on power from tidal lagoons (25p) that are roughly 800% higher than all the previous studies of Tidal Electric Limited’s tidal lagoon power conducted by UK engineering giant WS Atkins (3.1p) and corroborated by AEA Technology, OFGEM, Rothschild Bank, Montgomery Watson Harza, and several private energy companies. PB has arrived at their extraordinarily high numbers by ignoring the technology developer’s design parameters and introducing their own design and therein making four costly design errors:
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