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Energy at the OU – the early days

Professor Peter Chapman and the Open University (OU) Energy Research Group (ERG) that he set up in the early 1970s, came up with some challenging ideas about how energy should be used. The key message, pioneered in Chapman’s seminal 1975 Penguin book ‘Fuels Paradise’, was that we wasted most of it in inefficient generation, transmission and utilisation systems. Instead they argued for a switch to hyper-efficient combined heat and power plants, feeding (otherwise wasted) heat and power to users who would consume it in well designed and insulated buildings and also maybe in gas fired heat pumps. It mostly sounds familiar nowadays, but then it was revolutionary, and the OU ERG team were often perceived as a wild men (and women) from the hills! But many of their ideas were good and have stood the test of time….  A new video focuses on the energy efficient housing issues in MK and tells the story of the pioneering work done by Chapman and architect and MKDC engineer John Doggart, in cre...
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Nuclear eve, solar dawn? Hybrid PV- SMR?

 According to REN21’s 2025 review, global renewable power capacity increased 18%, adding a record-breaking 741 GW in 2024.  Solar PV was the primary driver, contributing 602 GW and accounting for 81% of the total capacity increase, taking PV to 2,247GW in total.  Solar does look likely to be a winner in many parts of the world, along with wind.  But in an ecumenical mood, as maybe befits the season of good will, what about nuclear?  Some see it if not booming, then having a niche role in some locations. For example, on the basis of some conceptual modelling of a hybrid solar photovoltaics/Small Modular Reactors micro grid system, with hydrogen and Lithium-ion battery storage, some Chinese researchers have claimed that the system achieved an average operational cost reduction of approximately 18.7%, while reducing carbon emission intensity by nearly 37.1%, compared to a conventional fossil-dominated microgrid.  That’s not stunning, but it is quite good. But ...
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End of year gloom- or hope for the future?

 The end of the year is seeing some arguably gloomy prognosis emerge about the future- along with claims that we can go back to some of old tech for a better future! Thus the Times ran an editorial (24/11/25) complaining about ‘Ed Miliband's myopic focus on wind & solar power’, and calling instead for a ‘fleet of traditional gas-fired stations, allowing nuclear to catch up’ and backing more large Sizewell-type standard nuclear plants. Although also (to be modern!) up to ‘as many as 100 small modular reactors.’ Sounds like what Reform has in mind. But also the Tories. And indeed Labour, although with lots of renewables as well.  Though perhaps it’s only gloomy if you are a green and want even more renewables and energy saving- and also no nuclear. Certainly the Green’s new leader is keen of renewables and says the proposed Centrica/X-energy project at Hartlepool is based ‘technology from long ago’! Checking back, yes, the UK did try building something similar at Winfrith D...
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Use less energy : Demand-led policy scenarios show promise

Demand-side energy reduction has so far received less policy support than supply-side net-zero technologies, despite the fact that, as this interesting new Nature paper claims, ‘energy demand reductions of ~50% by 2050 compared with today are possible while maintaining essential services and improving quality of life’.  That would involve more than just improved technical efficiency of energy use and production, something that is already thankfully underway-  although still rather too slowly . It would also mean fundamental changes in how energy is used, with radical reductions in consumption due to new social/behavioural patterns.                          The paper notes that ‘policies explicitly targeting large energy demand reductions remain scarce, suggesting that they have so far been disregarded by policymakers owing to real or perceived lack of political feasibility. Instead, national energy strategies fra...
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Climate targets- will they be missed?

 The world is not on track to triple global installed renewables by 2030 as hoped. That’s according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency and the COP30 Brazilian Presidency, along with the Global Renewables Alliance. An unprecedented 582 GW of renewables was installed last year, but deployment still falls short of what is needed to achieve the COP28 UAE Consensus goal of tripling renewables to 11.2 TW by 2030. To stay on track, the report says the world would need to add around 1,122 GW of renewable capacity each year from 2025 onward—about 20 times what was achieved last year. The report also highlights slow progress on energy efficiency. Global energy intensity improved by just 1% in 2024, far below the 4% p.a. needed to keep the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C temperature target within reach.  In its annual Energy Transition Outlook   DNV says the roughly same. The energy transition it forecasts ‘remains too slow to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement ...
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Milband’s energy policies ‘flawed’

Oxford academic Prof. Sir Dieter Helm has attacked  Ed Milband’s new energy policy as flawed, in a prominent  article in the Times Comment section  (8th Nov p.34-35).  Far from being ‘nine times cheaper than gas’ as he says Miliband has claimed, Helm says that renewables are ‘intermittent, low-energy-density, small scale and geographically dispersed’, which means ‘lots of new transmission and distribution infrastructure, batteries and other long duration storage. And lots of back-up gas’.  For example, he says, ‘we now need roughly 120GW of installed generation capacity to meet the same demand that 60GW met pre-renewables- twice the transmission lines and pylons and all the back-up batteries and storage too. All of these are additional costs’. He also says that, by contrast, far from being costly and volatile, as Miliband claims, fossil gas in now getting cheaper- including LNG from the USA. It’s certainly true that fossil gas is not as expensive as it was at o...
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New UK energy plans is mostly good…

There may be political support problems ahead for UK green energy, as I noted in my last post. Reform UK and the Tories want to do away with the green subsides and the Net Zero policy.  The Tony Blair Institute also seems to have some similar ideas – and has been pushing nuclear and fossil gas CCS instead. So does the new ‘ Britain Remade ’ report. And Net Zero Watch has called for the expansion of renewables to be halted.  This is perhaps not surprising given that, over the past few years, the government has introduced quite a range of taxes, subsidies and surcharges aiming to promote renewables, most notably of late Feed in Tariffs, the Renewable Obligation and the CfD system. Some policies are more indirect, and are designed to increase the cost of using fossil fuels by setting a price for carbon emissions.  But not everyone is keen on carbon trading, or on some of the mechanisms that have been introduced to support it. For example, the Centre for British Progress r...
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