The UK broke new ground on Friday 21 April 2017 seeing the first continuous 24-hour period since the industrial revolution when coal made no contribution to the power sector. The country which led the way in the introduction of coal for electricity generation with the opening of Thomas Edison’s Holborn Viaduct power station in London in…
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Following on from my previous post on energy efficiency, I was very interested to read about a recent study by the University of Bath which shows a significant gap between the forecast energy efficiency of new buildings and their actual performance once in use. “A correlation analysis indicated little correlation between which variables were thought…
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Peak oil has been in the news again over the last week, but this time in relation to the theory of peak oil demand. This recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute, explores a number of potential long-term themes that it believes will be driven by technological change, including the notion that by 2035, we…
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Today my blog on energy innovation, Watt-Logic is one year old! It’s been an interesting and unexpected year. A year of surprises… A year ago Brexit was still seen as a somewhat unlikely prospect, as was President Trump, yet a year on, not only are we on the way out of the EU, but…
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I have highlighted in recent posts some areas of regulatory reform that are needed in order to deliver the energy transition at the lowest possible cost. This is a complex challenge, so it is interesting to consider the work going on in the State of New York, where there a serious attempt to fully re-design…
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13 April 1892 saw the birth of Robert Watson-Watt, the inventor of radar, and descendant of Scottish inventor James Watt after whom the unit of power was named. Also on this day in 1960 the first satellite navigation system was launched and a decade later in 1970, the oxygen tanks on Apollo 13 exploded leading…
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I’ve recently written about the work of the Energy Policy group at Exeter University, however another team at Exeter is exploring a novel way of transport which has significant benefits in terms of speed and efficiency, while also having very low carbon emissions. Geophysicist, Dr Katy Sheen of the University’s geography department has been studying…
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The energy sector is undergoing a period of significant change with the rapid emergence and adoption of renewable technologies, notably solar PV and wind. Developments in storage promise significant disruptions in the medium term, alongside smart grids, and by the mid 2020s we could see new generation nuclear technologies and tidal power adding to…
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It’s now been a week since the momentous decision by the British electorate to turn its back on EU membership, and the markets have responded with predictable volatility. The questions we are all asking, alongside the obvious ones about what form our exit will take, is how long will market volatility last, what…
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This week saw the launch of the Igniting Change 2 report commissioned by Powerful Women, an organisation committed to improved gender balance within the energy industry. The study, undertaken by PwC, found that of the 89 top UK-headquartered energy companies, almost two-thirds (62%) have no women on their boards and only 9% of board seats…
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