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The external costs of electricity generation

June 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

The ExternE project has done the sums on the external costs of electricity generation. Wind has the lowest external costs, coal has the highest.
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→ Leave a CommentCategories: energy economics · energy policy
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Simon Singh battles England’s amboguous libel laws

June 7, 2009 · 2 Comments

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.
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→ 2 CommentsCategories: boffins · legal chill
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David MacKay, energy star: “How many light bulbs?”

May 13, 2009 · 12 Comments

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.

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→ 12 CommentsCategories: boffins · energy policy
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The capacity credit of wind power

March 12, 2009 · 11 Comments

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”.
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→ 11 CommentsCategories: energy policy · wind
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Rooftop solar power in the UK – real world data

March 10, 2009 · 2 Comments

Twelve building-integrated PV (BIPV) projects in Britain were monitored under a UK government contract. Here are the cost and performance data.
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→ 2 CommentsCategories: energy policy · solar photovoltaic
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A second look at solar power on roofspace

March 9, 2009 · 8 Comments

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.
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→ 8 CommentsCategories: energy policy · solar photovoltaic
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How much solar power will fit on Britain’s roofs?

February 25, 2009 · 17 Comments

As the cost of solar photovoltaics falls, solar panels may well become ubiquitous on all domestic roofspace. How much energy would that give us?
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→ 17 CommentsCategories: energy policy · solar photovoltaic
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Cow-sized UFO prangs wind turbine

January 9, 2009 · 1 Comment

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

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→ 1 CommentCategories: funny-peculiar · wind
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Steven Chu is new U.S. Secretary of Energy

December 16, 2008 · 2 Comments

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.

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→ 2 CommentsCategories: energy policy · people
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“Stephen’s Logical Fallacies” on Lightbucket

December 14, 2008 · 1 Comment

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.
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→ 1 CommentCategories: logical fallacies
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Tobacco, part 3: “…smearing and belittling”

December 14, 2008 · Leave a Comment

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.
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→ Leave a CommentCategories: tobacco
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