European supergrid ‘decades away’

By David StrahanNo Comments
First published in Windpower Monthly, September 2011. Plans to build a European supergrid to distribute wind power from the northwest of the continent and solar from the south are decades away from realisation, according to Tim Yeo, chairman of the UK parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, which is investigating the potential benefits of such a scheme. (more…)...
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Coal and gas to plug German nuclear gap

By David Strahan4 Comments
First published in the New Scientist, 7 July 2011. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government claimed to be "ushering in the age of renewables" as German MPs passed legislation this week to phase out nuclear power by 2022 – but the basic arithmetic of the energy-switch policy suggests the country will struggle to fill the hole left by nuclear power – and emissions may rise in the interim. (more…)...
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David MacKay interview

By David Strahan8 Comments
First published in Sustainable Business, 4 June 2011. My interview with David MacKay has the feel of a university tutorial. Perhaps it’s not surprising, since the chief scientific advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change is a professor of physics at Cambridge. But the impression is reinforced in his cramped office on the sixth floor of DECC, where I negotiate piles of paperwork and shuffle furniture so we both can see his computer screen. (more…)...
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How BP got into another fine mess

By David StrahanNo Comments
The immediate cause of BP’s latest Russian crisis is the ruling last month of an arbitration panel in Switzerland. But its roots spread all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and as far back as the company’s last but one chief executive. And it all reflects the company’s floundering attempts to secure production growth in a world of dwindling oil resources. (more…)...
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