Skip to main content

Posts

What future for AI - and Renewables?

 It is pretty clear that big new AI data centres are not popular locally given their invasiveness and their use of local power and water resources. That became even more clear after the US mid-term votes: fears about data centres and AI more generally were arguably one of the (admittedly many) reasons why Trump supporters did badly almost everywhere. As a result, data-centre stocks have fallen quite dramatically, while, interestingly, clean-energy shares have it seems rallied , although not everyone saw it quite like that -  climate issues did not figure very much in the various local elections. But with the Trump regime at least dented, there may be more hope for renewables to get a fairer hearing. And, overall, on climate issues too, maybe the US is seeing sense again . The US public are also it seems increasingly worried about what Big Tech Bros are up to, with support for regulation of AI, so far mostly being resisted in the US, likely to be much stronger now.   As we...
1 comment
Read more
Recent posts

Onshore versus offshore wind - UK needs both, plus solar

 Not everyone likes on shore wind farms, given that they can have a strong visual impact on treasured views and a range of other local environmental impacts and issues. In the past, in the USA in particular, there have been claims about local health effects, but they seem to have be effectively rebutted . More recently however, some anti-wind farm campaign groups, for example in Wales , say that off shore wind would be preferable and it is certainly true that, depending on location, offshore siting would reduce visual impact from the land – some off shore wind farms are 100 miles or more offshore. The UK potential for offshore wind farms is very large, so it is a key option and it is being developed quite rapidly- the UK now has over 16 GW installed, the same amount as onshore wind.  And both are expanding- now that the Labour government has removed the Tory block on local siting.  But some objections to on land wind still persist. So is offshore a better option?  Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Labour bites the bullet on energy: a new course?

 The UK Labour government has finally started to come to terms with how to deal with energy, but it hasn’t all always been pretty. Against strong green opposition, it has decided to press ahead with the Jackdaw fossil gas project, to ‘protect hundreds of jobs and help keep millions of homes warm this winter’ as Andy Burnham put it. Though the actual figures were not that impressive- it would only supply under 3% of overall UK gas needs and create 27 new jobs, although ‘safeguarding 273’.  But, when burnt, gas from Jackdaw could release between 23.6m and 35.8m tonnes of CO2 equivalent over its 11-year operational lifespan. Not good news for slowing climate change.  The Green Party called it climate vandalism.  The fact that, although it wouldn’t help to reduce bills, Jackdaw would add to UK gas supplies (over 6% at peak ) was however evidently a key issue and given that the Rosebank  oil project would not, and would just add to exports, it seems that it may not ...
1 comment
Read more

Gap between renewables and nuclear widens

Renewables outpace and overtake nuclear    For the first time ever, in 2025 solar photovoltaics provided more electricity in the world than nuclear reactors. Adding wind turbines, these two renewable energy technologies generated more than twice as many kilowatt-hours than nuclear plants. And with solar and wind still expanding, solar in particular, and nuclear more or less static globally, the gap between nuclear and the main new renewable energy technologies is growing.    These are some of the findings of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2026 , with Mycle Schneider, WNISR Coordinator and Publisher, saying: ‘It is remarkable to what extent public perception of the status of the nuclear sector fundamentally differs from industrial reality’. For example, he notes that China was ‘really the only country significantly expanding its nuclear program’, but it had actually added ‘120 times more solar megawatts than nuclear capacity in the past year.’ It also has a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Green Party goes nuclear

 The Green Party of England and Wales has abandoned it long standing opposition to nuclear power. A bit of a shock. However, its briefing paper on ‘Ending the Green Party’s Blanket Opposition to Nuclear Fission’, produced evidently by the ‘greens for nuclear’ group, says the proposed new policy, now accepted by the Party, ‘does not commit the green party to being a pro-nuclear party in any way beyond committing the party to following contemporary scientific research. We contend this is what the motion is really about: evidence’. OK so let’s look at its marshalling of the evidence. First it points to an ‘Our World in Data’ chart which it says shows that ‘nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint and the second lowest death rate of any energy source.’  It’s hard to know where to start with these much debated and controversial topics.  It is true that nuclear plants do not generate carbon dioxide when running, but producing the fuel for them does. That’s not the case for...
1 comment
Read more

Fusion - the endless dream

UK Minister for Energy Michael Shanks reportedly said that ‘Fusion has the potential to provide virtually limitless clean energy’. That’s a dream that some now see as getting a bit more real.  The UK has form in this area. It was a pioneer in nuclear fusion, with the ZETA device built at Harwell in the late 1950s getting, briefly, a very good press: there was front-page newspaper coverage saying it was a breakthrough towards unlimited energy. Sadly, and embarrassingly, it turned out not to be the case .   However, the UK persevered with fusion over the years, for example playing host to JET, the Joint European Torus test unit at UKAEA Culham. And now the UK government has committed more than £2.5 billion over five years to new nuclear fusion , including £1.3 billion for UK Fusion Energy to deliver the STEP programme (a spin-off from Culham)  in partnership with industry. A further £740 million is earmarked for research and development infrastructure and facilities....
1 comment
Read more

Climate change, AI and renewables

 The future may look bit uncertain, with technologically-heightened challenges proliferating: for example, there’s the growing impacts of climate change, but also of AI, that now being portrayed as a new existential threat, with calls for a halt or delay in its development- even from the Pope!  Quite apart from the local impact of AI/data centres, there are certainly some big issues .  Just as there are with climate change. We are struggling to deal with the later- mainly by pushing for renewables. But not everyone agrees.  And it’s the same for AI. For example, in September, addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, US president Donald Trump said we should not to block AI, which he called ‘superintelligence’, adding that the people who warn that it is going to ‘kill us’ are the same ones who warned about global warming. Which evidently, unlike AI, he does not believe in. That is why he is so against renewables and so pro coal. It is good to have it all laid o...
Post a Comment
Read more