The external costs of electricity generation

The ExternE project has done the sums on the external costs of electricity generation. Wind has the lowest external costs, coal has the highest.

Simon Singh battles England’s amboguous libel laws

Justice Eady decides what “bogus” and “happily” mean in the BCA v Singh libel case, Simon Singh applies to appeal, the BCA faces a public relations catastrophe.

David MacKay, energy star: “How many light bulbs?”

Prof. David MacKay’s book, “Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air”, has been published, and it’s an instant success. Now there’s a video, a radio interview, a Guardian editorial singing his praises … and a bafflingly inscrutable criticism from the Sustainable Development Commission.

The capacity credit of wind power

What happens when the wind doesn’t blow? How much of a wind farm’s output can be relied on as “firm” capacity, and how much backup generating capacity is needed? The answer is in a measure called the “capacity credit”.

Rooftop solar power in the UK – real world data

Twelve building-integrated PV (BIPV) projects in Britain were monitored under a UK government contract. Here are the cost and performance data.

A second look at solar power on roofspace

How much solar power will fit on England’s roofs? Here’s a second try at the question, this time with better data for total roof area.

How much solar power will fit on Britain’s roofs?

As the cost of solar photovoltaics falls, solar panels may well become ubiquitous on all domestic roofspace. How much energy would that give us?

Cow-sized UFO prangs wind turbine

The “flying cow” is the new unit of UFO mass.

Steven Chu is new U.S. Secretary of Energy

U.S. President-Elect Obama has named Dr. Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate and Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to be Secretary of Energy.

“Stephen’s Logical Fallacies” on Lightbucket

I planned to put in a short list of logical fallacies as a blog post, but Stephen Downes has a much better list, and he allows it to be used elsewhere. I’ve pasted it in as a blog section.

Tobacco, part 3: “…smearing and belittling”

As the tobacco industry’s disinformation campaign ramps up, the PR agency ponders “smearing and belitting” the researchers who had established the smoking-cancer link.