None of the various technofixes on offer alter the fact that humanity has to learn to stop living on the last drops of cheap energy, and to start living within its means
… up to natural limits, or face a 1970s-style energy crisis Paul Mobbs | 19th January 2010 Comment Energy Climate Change Oil Gas 3globes.jpg None … to stop living on the last drops of cheap energy, and to start living within its means …
Our lives are now so dependent on oil that it is impossible to conceive of a world without it. Before long, however, we will have no choice. The sooner we start planning for that reality, and changing the way we live, the better our chance of survival.
… | 1st October 2005 News Oil Petrol Fuel Cars Energy Future Oil Fuel International … Global Warming Ozone Layer Cars Green Living Energy Society CONSEQUENCESOIL_OCT05_MAIN.jpg … currently enjoy is entirely the gift of cheap energy. Cheap energy enables companies to …
A wholesale corruption of science underlies the UK Government's insistence that gas from fracking offers a 'low carbon', low cost route to energy abundance, writes Paul Mobbs. On the contrary: it's expensive, over-hyped - and just as bad for climate change as coal.
… exposed Paul Mobbs | 30th May 2014 News Energy Fossil Fuels Fracking UK Climate Change … offers a 'low carbon', low cost route to energy abundance, writes Paul Mobbs. On the … small'? In December 2012 the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) commissioned …
The 'death of peak oil' has been much exaggerated, writes Paul Mobbs. Take out high-cost 'unconventional' oil and production peaked ten years ago, and even North America's fracking and tar sands boom has failed to open up new resources both big enough to make good the shortfall, and cheap enough to reward investors. We really do need to be thinking 'beyond petroleum'.
… of peak oil Paul Mobbs | 5th May 2015 News Energy Oil Economics syncrude-cut.jpg The … in the USA - though few heard them. The US Energy Information Agency (USEIA) had issued … have to go all out to realise the 'US shale energy revolution' . It has been sold to the …
Tackling climate change will have lots of knock-on benefits, but one we probably haven't considered is what it will do to car-related injuries. Dan Box meets a man who has...
… Box | 20th July 2009 Comment Climate Change Energy Travel Transport Cars danboxcomment.jpg … 'I thought, "My god, this is just a kinetic energy disease".' Cars, as Ian sees them, turn chemical energy (from petrol) into kinetic energy (from …
Fracking is just another step on the fossil fuel treadmill, according to 'Snake Oil' by Richard Heinberg. High costs, diminishing returns and growing pollution will ultimately nail its future. Paul Mobbs urges readers - give a copy to your MP before it's too late!
… Heinberg began to look at the issue of energy and the environment in the early 2000s, … known as 'peak oil' and 'peak gas' - the energy industry has looked to other 'unconventional' energy sources to keep their business models …
Political support for fracking is not just about energy, writes Paul Mobbs. It reflects the greater ecological and resource crisis at the root of our current economic woes - and only postpones the essential shift to a new kind of economy.
… support for fracking is not just about energy, writes Paul Mobbs. It reflects the … to tour those areas next in line for extreme energy developments - South Wales , The … biased towards the business interests of the energy service and investment industries …
In the cut-throat world of clean energy investment, is it more important that things are done for the right reason, or that the right thing gets done? We may not like the answer...
… And Economics Tidal Reef Severn Renewable EnergyEnergy danboxcomment.jpg In the cut-throat world of clean energy investment, is it more important that …
The Environmental Audit Committee today calls for shale fracking in the UK to be 'put on hold', writes Paul Mobbs. But the EAC is missing an even more dangerous technology that the Infrastructure Bill would support - underground coal gasification.
… Mobbs | 26th January 2015 Comment Fracking Energy Oil Gas UK Politics ugc-cut.jpg The … generation. Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force , a local ' astroturf ' … ongoing debate about a ban , fuelled by Dart Energy's proposed coalbed methane (CBM) …
Building offshore wind farms is great. Inaccurately quoting or massaging the figures that support them is not
… nonsense Dan Box | 18th January 2010 Comment Energy Politics And Economics Wind Renewable Energy danboxcomment.jpg Building offshore … 2. 70,000 jobs Again, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, told me to read the …
After over a century of coal ash and colliery waste dumping, the Tyne and Wear coastline is no stranger to industrial pollution. But soon a horrific new technology - underground coal gasification (UCG) - will endanger human health and the environment, backed by unflinching Government support and generous lashings of taxpayers' money.
… Sea Paul Mobbs | 3rd April 2015 News Oceans Energy Gas Fracking Fossil Fuels UK Finance … or it could be supplied to large industrial energy users. Don't confuse this process with … for the pollution they have created. Linc Energy have also allegedly exposed workers to …
The new feed-in tariffs are nothing if not controversial, but they also run the risk of conflicting with other, international, climate change policies
… of time Dan Box | 12th March 2010 Comment Energy Politicsandeconomics Feed-in Tariffs EU … champion Ed Miliband calls it a ' local energy revolution '; the Independent ' a real … a report on which published in the journal Energy Policy says feed-in tariffs 'do not …
The UK's insistence on opening up the UK to fracking is symptomatic of a deeper malaise, writes Paul Mobbs. Of course we need a change of government, but more than that, we need a deeper, enduring change of the nation's governance if we are ever to effect the transition to sustainable policies on energy and environment. It's time for the UK to become truly democratic.
… Mobbs | 21st December 2015 News UK Politics Energy Fracking Regulation Farming Natural … the transition to sustainable policies on energy and environment. It's time for the UK … circuitous consultations, the Department of Energy and Climate Change's 14th Landward …
A company bidding to undertake 'underground coal gasification (UGC) - a notoriously hazardous and polluting process - in the UK has threatened a Scottish clean energy campaigner: shut up or get sued. Paul Mobbs reports ...
… - in the UK has threatened a Scottish clean energy campaigner: shut up or get sued. Paul … Mobbs reports ... Lawyers for Five Quarter Energy Holdings have sent a 'cease and desist' … In the early 2000s three companies - Cougar Energy at Kingaroy, Linc Energy at Chincilla …
The UK government claim that fracking is a 'clean' energy source rests on the conclusions of a single scientific paper, writes Paul Mobbs. And now that paper has been conclusively invalidated: it uses misleading figures that understate the methane emissions from fracking, and subsequent findings have left it totally discredited. Yet the paper is still being quoted to justify fracking, and the fool the public on its climate change impacts.
… government claim that fracking is a 'clean' energy source rests on the conclusions of a … a realistic result. Fracking and Whitehall's energy policy The Government in Whitehall … means to meet climate change obligations. As Energy Secretary Ed Davey claimed in 2013 , …
21st century nuclear power needs a 21st century subsidy... no blank cheques this time - just an apparently green tweak to the emissions trading system, and voila!
… nuclear power Dan Box | 24th May 2010 Comment Energy Politics And Economics Nuclear Carbon … corrupts? Well, certainly people change. Take energy secretary Chris Huhne, who from … Vincent de Rivaz, chief exec of the UK arm of energy giant EDF, which plans to build …
Medact, the organization of health professionals for a safer, fairer and better world, has called for a five year moratorium on fracking due to its serious hazards to public health, writes Paul Mobbs. Their new report is a powerful challenge to government policy that cannot be ignored.
… | 31st March 2015 Comment Health Fracking Energy Politics murphy-oil-la-cut.jpg Medact, … might aid the transition towards a low carbon energy system. The conclusion of the report, … 2014 report for the Nova Scotia Department of Energy by the Independent Panel on Hydraulic …
The launch of the massive economic ecosystem assessment, TEEB, will help force the natural world onto the corporate balance sheet. It's a step forward. But how will protesters react to the ground shifting under their feet?
… the means. The hidden debt The Department of Energy and Climate Change published its quarterly Energy Trends last week. This showed Britain’s … fell over the past year, with only nuclear energy generation picking up any of the slack, …
The Government is struggling to spin its policy to fast track fracking, writes Paul Mobbs. So as it cuts the public out of the regulatory process, exempts exploratory wells from controls, and forces the Environment Agency to issue permits with 1-2 weeks, its spin machine has resorted to outright lies and misinformation to conceal the scale of the attack on our environmental rights.
… Paul Mobbs | 15th June 2015 News Fracling Energy Fossil Fuels UK Politics Law Regulation … our environmental rights. The Department of Energy and Climate Change - DECC - and the … play a key role in securing Britain's future energy supplies." We may have 'resources, but …
While BP is facing billion-dollar lawsuits in the US, another British company, Cairn Energy, is beginning drilling off the coast of Greenland
… Dan Box | 24th June 2010 Comment Bp Cairn Energy Oil Energy Natural World danboxcomment.jpg While … in the US, another British company, Cairn Energy, is beginning drilling off the coast of …
A new financial crisis is threatening to dwarf the 'subprime' mortgage debacle, writes Paul Mobbs. Cheap money from central banks has fuelled some $1.3 trillion of risky investments in high-cost 'unconventional' oil and gas. Now, with oil sinking below $60, all that paper is turning to junk - and that's putting the entire economic system at risk.
… was seen as the new 'revolution' in America's energy system, and a new, politically approved path to energy independence . When that funding stream … as one carried out by the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies in early 2014, reckoned that …
The West has an image of China as a coal-burning monstrosity standing in the way of a clean future. But the truth is very different
… Comment Politics And Economics Climate Change Energy China Copenhagen danboxcomment.jpg The … their industry, measured in reduction of the energy, and thus pollution, required to … 1980. No one else comes close. Renewable energy target? 20 per cent by 2020. Same as …
Three years after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe hit our TV screens, Paul Mobbs examines the still unfolding global disaster - and the motives of politicians whose love of nuclear power is stronger, than it is wise.
… News Japan USA UK Nuclear Power Radiation Energy fukushima-water-sampling.png Three … discussion never really focused on the real energy issues - which I also set out in The … never mind that it will cost UK taxpayers and energy users untold billions in subsidies, and …
Environmentalists have long been suspicious of the free market, but a new generation of campaigners are using capitalism to change the world.
… of CO² a company can emit or on the amount of energy it can buy from non-renewable sources … their pollution or generating renewable energy. That’s the carrot. And once you … and later working for Scottish and Southern Energy, a company that in her campaigning days …