Alasdair's Comments

I'm still reeling from go_undergrounds info that per capita energy consumption in the US is 150 GJ/yr.... unless I am mistaken that is about 41,600 kWh per year... about five times the per capita energy consumption in the UK - which is just over 8000 kWh (see below).... Really puts US energy consumption into context....

If US energy consumption was reduced to European levels, and the conversion efficieny of PV went up to nearer 20% (not far off the best systems today) then the 10m2 of roof space could provide about a third of the average energy consumption...

Although that would still leave plenty of room for utility scale renewable energy and storage systems...

Best!

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Statistics/publications/ecuk/269-ecuk-domestic-2010.xls

Hi Jackie.... while I am a big fan of renewables, and indeed the feed-in tariff (having solar myself), I am not too keen on large-ground mounted PV in places like the UK, for environmental reasons.

Land is very scare here (one of the most densely populated countries on the planet) and rural and undeveloped land is at a premium, from a recreational, wildlife and ecosystem services perspective ... these sorts of schemes run the risk of producing a major backlash against solar, and will produce relatively little energy..

The real advantage of solar in countries like the UK is to produce decentralised power in crowded, land-poor areas, not to subsidize major investors...

Still, no need to get too hysterical just yet, a few solar farms does not a problem make, and I suspect they will have fun and games with the planning...

Fair point - I am not sure if the Bahrain Towers count as building integrated wind, since the turbines are just mounted in the middle, but it certainly is a tower with wind turbines, so I have changed it!

Hi guys, thanks for feedback. Hands up on the price of uranium, there was a lb/kg mix up... as for the available stock of thorium, I got that from the paper I was reading.... so if it is wrong or inaccurate fair enough. THe rest of the figures come from the IAEA...... I have changed a couple of bits to make this clearer

Memory stick?

My online typing gets worse and worse....

Hi Gerladilhite - very good. I thought perhaps I had addressed this in the next sentence when I made it clear that those who propose that it is humans who are changing the climate at under attack...

You have raised an interesting point though. I think that one of the reasons for this particular verbal confusion is that - as I recall - climate change (in this context) used to implicitly mean human induced climate change, and many in the anti AGW camp used to simply protest that the climate was not changing. When it became apparent that this was a lost argument, a switch was made to arguing that this climate change was caused by natural cyles, and undoubtedly some of it is... this switch though that has helped to politicise the 'climate change' or 'man-made climate change' phrase...

Stop press! Insurance company says reasons to buy insurance are increasing!!

:)

Good stuff. Just one comment - Britain is not quite at the end of the Europe's gas pipelines... it is nearer the beginning! Until 2009 the UK was a net exporter of gas, and its current imports all come from Norway... it is the second largest gas producer in the EU....

Your point still stands though!

Anonymous - you are quite right, and I have asked for this to be changed. I have no excuse, having lived in Edinburgh for 7 years. I think my brain just confused Pentland Hills (which are near Edinburgh) with Pentland Firth. Sorry!

A carbon tax would effectively be like VAT on goods, and as such is an inherently consumption-linked tax.. An increased carbon tax could be offset by a reduced income tax or national insurance for all.. this would then be an added incentive to consume less, as that would increase one's overall wealth by maximising the amount of the income tax reduction you got to keep... (thinking of the UK here, I don't now too much about US taxes)..

I think it important though that the money raised be ring-fenced for clean energy and energy related infrastructure though.. to aid public acceptablitilty.

As an EU citizen, I can see the point that the author is trying to make, but simply bashing the US is slightly missing the point. Aside from a few countries (UK, Netherlands, France etc.), most of the EU has extremely limited defence capabilities. While on the one hand this is great as it allows money to be spent on other things, this situation have only developed because of American military spending, and has left the EU dependent on American internvention (Bosnia, Kosovo).

While we may justly complain about some of the attitudes and stupidities of US policy, EU policy contains many contradictions and embarrassments too (France in Africa 1960 - ?). I think we could both learn a little from each other.

120,000 MW of renewables by 2020 is good! Almost as much as the dirty coal power China installed in 2006 alone! There will need to be a serious change of pace fo renewables to have a really meaningful place in China's immediate future.

I could be wrong but as far as I know, tidal devices in estuaries etc simply remove energy from the water that would otherwise cause waves/erosion etc. One of the main side-effects is the increased deposition of silt...

I would be interested to know if anyone has calculated how much energy would be needed to significantly slow theearths rotation (as I understand it the moons rate of rotating around the earth is not constant in any case)...

More info please..

I very much fear that these sort of biofuels will cause an environmental disaster of their own, leading to land clearance, biodiversity loss and intensive farming, all in the name of dubious GHG reductions (15% per litre compared with gasoline, on average). Incidentally, why turn over vast tracks of farmland to ethanol when you could drive a 1.5 litre car instead of a 6 litre car?