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Amber Rudd to be question in public on 21st of this month, giving (amongst other things) "Plans to meet long term renewables and decarbonisation targets".

That should tell us whether or not this government has really come to its senses ^.^

Jul 16, 2015 at 10:09 AM | Registered CommenterDung

The Subversion of Science by Green-Left Politics

About the author: I have a PhD in Upper Atmosphere Physics from the University of Tasmania. I have worked for the Australian Antarctic Division and CSIRO in auroral physics, ocean waves and fluid dynamic modelling. I am a scientist – I discover things. I discovered cosmic noise absorption pulsations and I discovered the physics underlying the frequency down-shifting of surface gravity waves. I am presently working on a method for distinguishing between cyclical behaviour and random walk excursions in natural time series.

Jul 16, 2015 at 9:45 AM | Registered CommenterLord Beaverbrook

The churnalists just copied the Policy Exchange press release saying "DECC has already run out of money"
but didn't cut and paste the other Poliy Exchange quote
"Scrap the 2020 Renewable Energy Target and resist calls for a 2030 power sector decarbonisation target.
Focus decarbonisation efforts on mature, low cost technologies which have the potential to be zero subsidy by 2020 or shortly thereafter." that decarbonisation means tech like hydro, nuclear
as @Philip says the journalist mangled the message cos they said more "renewable" like "onshore wind"

Jul 16, 2015 at 9:29 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

Funny that Guardian article which quotes "report released on Thursday by the right-leaning thinktank Policy Exchange"
cos a few hours earlier this appeared in the Indy subheaded Exclusive : "Senior Whitehall source" "Government faces multi-billion pound black hole in budget to pay for clean energy supplies - which could mean your electricity bill rises"
- This Indy article written seemingly by a school child has a couple of big mistakes in it , but is actually realistic overall and not green propaganda.
- interesting that LEFT WING IPPR is quoted
\\Joss Garman, Associate director for energy at the IPPR think-tank, added: “Ministers need to rethink the funding model for clean energy and focus on the cheapest green technologies like solar power. Just hiking up green taxes on bills is not fair or sustainable ways to pay for low carbon transition.”//
What gibberish taxes are not going up, but the overall electric cost burden is increasing cos solar is so NOT cheap it costs 3 to 10 times perKWh as coal does.
- Ed Davey's fantasy always was that fossil fuels would rocket up in cost so renewables would look cheap. But what has happened is that fossil fuels have fallen in cost whilst renewables are locked in to expensive FIT prices so the each time the percent of renewables goes up..the average price of unit of electricity goes up.
- Its the consumer's BURDEN (churnalists just copied the Policy Exchange press release saying "DECC has already run out of money")
..but the governments FAULT cos they should not have locked us into high renewable prices.

BTW Re the Norwegian connector it's £1bn is £14each but offset over 20 years not just 1

Jul 16, 2015 at 9:08 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

I don't normally look at the Grauniad, but yet again it is confusing clean energy with renewable energy (or targets for reducing GHG emissions with renewable energy targets). UK running out of money to pay for clean energy
Of course the article is completely wrong in claiming that the Government is struggling to pay for renewable technologies, because it is the consumer who pays for them. The problem is that the civil servants are not monitoring the subsidies properly and are not ensuring that the Levy Control Framework limits are being met.

Jul 16, 2015 at 8:27 AM | Registered CommenterPhillip Bratby

Scoop!

Bio fuelled car uses 3D printed cow stomach

What comes out of the exhaust pipe I wonder ?

Jul 16, 2015 at 12:52 AM | Registered Commentertomo

Its worse than we thought:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3162027/How-global-warming-delaying-flights-Planes-air-longer-battle-extreme-winds-caused-climate-change-say-scientists.html

Jul 15, 2015 at 10:48 PM | Unregistered CommenterSpillinger

M Courtney

possibly a bigger achievement is idiots at the Guardian (et al) deluding themselves that they will be flying to their Tuscan boltholes on/in plug-in electric aircraft sometime in their lives.

As a poster boy for renewables they've gotten considerable sponsorship and the product development has been interesting but it's more akin to mountain climbing than an effective means of transport. Not even particularly useful as a satellite replacement drone when one compares the performance numbers to say Airbus' Zephyr.

Jul 15, 2015 at 9:23 PM | Registered Commentertomo

That longest flight is quite an achievement.

"Longest" is a confusing word.

It implies "furthest distance".
But in this case it actually means "slowest".

Jul 15, 2015 at 8:45 PM | Registered CommenterM Courtney

HaroldW

That longest flight is quite an achievement.

The thermal safety margins for Li-po are strict - it isn't a forgiving chemistry. I note that they don't elaborate where they actually got to ... The failure analysis will probably involve the manufacturers - some non-trivial design changes in there possibly to the packs, the management system and as is volunteered - heat transfer control around the cell packs.

My understanding is that they "flap + glide" (PDF-p3) - so one has to wonder how that climb power distribution was managed since if they had too much power that could usefully be turned into airspeed since they spec 1 motor to be able to be driven from 2 cell packs in case of a single motor failure (inferred - motor power dissipation not specced fully in public). We probably won't hear the gory details of how close they came to "lighting up" any of the 4 x 150kg Li-po packs for a while.

Fragile on a number of levels.

Jul 15, 2015 at 6:27 PM | Registered Commentertomo

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