Many incorrect facts in Guardian. For example, meat eating is already falling in many countries (most marked in beef + lamb). Germany -c.15% since 2012. More strikingly, author overestimates climate impact of meat: cutting meat 10% cut emissions by c.2%, c.20% of the impact of petrol/diesel cars.
Reducing meat consumption by 10% might cut global emissions by a maximum of 2%. Converting all personal cars to EVs would reduce emissions by about 10-12%. One of several inaccurate statements in the article. One example: meat eating is falling in several countries, Germany being the prime example.
Does this correspond to what you are looking for?
www.neso.energy/document/369...
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/12.... Why have UK electricity bills risen? What about the next 5 years? I use data from electricitybills.uk to show that 1/3 of the rise from 2019 is due to higher wholesale costs and 1/3 due to net zero moves. To 2030/31, the rise is 100% from net zero. Painful.
The unrivalled David Roberts' team has used 4 of the stories in my latest newsletter for posts on Bluesky in the last two hours. Why wait for David's posts when you can subscribe at Substack for free and get the best unpublicised energy stories earlier in the day? carboncommentary.substack.com
Hello David, I think your team used 4 of the 12 stories from my Sunday newsletter and put them on BlueSky within the last couple of hours. Could I ask if they'd give me a credit, or suggest that readers sign up at Substack? It takes a huge amount of work to find stories that no-one else has covered!
In France, solar more likely to be given OK if combined with agriculture, and land is more productive than before. In our commune, an application has been made for long raised beds growing veg. between PV rows . Irrigation (v. important some years) from gutters suspended below PV and kept in tank.
By a coincidence, we were there as well today. Didn't know before that dahlias were an import from North America and didn't exist in Europe.
High winds and good sun in the four weeks from late August meant that the GB would have needed 8 TWh of storage (c.10 days national power use) with its target 2030 renewables capacity. Current battery capacity would meet just 0.1% of this.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/10...
Oxford Clarion: funny, accurate, incisive.
More renewable electricity supply lowers wholesale prices. I looked at the first 220 days of 2025 and showed that a day in which UK wind and solar supply 50% of total generation typically has a 'day-ahead' price 40% less than a day with 20% wind and solar.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/8/...
Andrew Neil wrote a wildly inaccurate article on offshore wind the Daily Mail last week. In the article below, I specified the 15 most obvious errors. Sad to see such an experienced journalist publishing work without carrying out even basic research.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/9/...
Really think that Tim Parrique's book on degrowth (Slow Down or Die) is worth reading, even if you disagree with it. Growth is no longer improving rich societies, he says. Short FT review commends its though-provoking content while expressing strong reservations. www.ft.com/content/e7d6...
Also worth looking at Boston Metal and Electra, which will both use direct electrolysis of ore. Electricity consumption per tonne of iron about the same as hydrogen DRI but big advantages include the ability to use low grade ore and to make the iron in much smaller facilities than a large DRI plant.
To be devil's advocate, because EPRs are absurdly over-complicated and it would be far cheaper to get a South Korean company to build nuclear in the UK at a third the price.
Perfectly possible to use Wylfa (Anglesey/Ynys Môn) which Great British Energy now owns. EdF has previously expressed interest in putting an EPR there but the decision as to which technology to proceed with appears not to have been made.
Will UK will meet its 2030 clean power targets? The topic is well covered but I tried a different approach, using 1/2hr generation data from last year to model the impact of more solar+wind in 2030. The exercise showed the targets are very unlikely to be met. www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/5/...
FT article on the large sums now flowing into Enhanced Rock Weathering as possibly a cheap carbon capture route.
www.ft.com/content/ffc2...
Surprisingly, no mention at all of the likely benefits in the form of better agricultural yields and reduced fertiliser use.
www.ncl.ac.uk/business-and...
The implications of last week's announcement from Canada about the first new SMRs to be ordered. Summary: on the basis of this deal not clear that SMRs are going to be any cheaper than full size nuclear reactors.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/5/...
My daughter Ursula is studying in Barcelona. A photograph from her yesterday of a large circle of people around a battery-powered radio listening to news about the power cut.
The human brain consumes about 20 watts of power. Today's numbers from the IEA suggest that AI in data centres will consume about 240 terawatt hours by 2030. That means at the end of this decade artificial intelligence will use more energy than human intelligence.
Yes, very much better diffusing the relatively low temperature heat. That's why new houses with heat pumps will have underfloor heating, at least on the ground floor.
Actually, I was wrong. There is one visible number. It suggests BP is expecting a 95% capture rate. (Percentage of CO2 emitted actually stored). If I am right may be worth pointing out that no power station carbon capture project has ever achieved a capture rate as high as this.
£22bn planned to be spent on UK carbon capture. First deals were signed 2 months ago. Just sent copy of 750 page contract. All vital numbers redacted. No way to work out how much BP is paid, or the cost per tonne of CO2. But most of the payment will go directly on elec. bills. How can this be right?
Does anybody have a rough estimate of how much cooling would result today from a 27GT reduction in CO2 in atmosphere? (I'm working on the value of cutting contrails and this is the approximate warming equivalent of the typical global coverage of contrails today).
This might work well
Not sure about this. The investment going on life sciences to the immediate west and north of Oxford looks impressive to me, even alongside Harwell and Didcot (or Milton Park actually).
About 3% of the value of the US housing stock. In other words, not a huge percentage.
The largest UK solar farm in planning (Botley West) uses 1,000ha for 840MW (1.19 ha/MW). Let's allow a generous 1.5 ha/MW. DESNZ target 45-47GW by 2030, of which 8GW are on roofs today. Max. 39GW will be needed on fields. At 1.5 ha/MW, this means 58,500ha, or 225 sq miles (22.5 miles by 10 miles).
That's the way the FT 'gifting' system works. As a subscriber that's the best I can do. Actually I think the FT has just made the article free to read anyway.
