David MacKay interview

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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Turbine revolution

This article is published in the Ecologist, Sustainable Business, and the April edition of Energy World. When Thanet wind farm off the Kent coast opened to great fanfare last September, it was no surprise that Energy Secretary Chris Huhne was there to cut the ribbon. (more…)...
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Coping with wind

This article was published in Ecologist on 27 April 2010, and in the June edition of Energy World. Texas is full of surprises. In the historic home of the oil industry, the electricity supply is going green. A landscape that for over a century has been carpeted with ‘nodding donkey’ oil wells is now sprouting wind turbines. (more…)...
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The great biogas bungle

First published in The Ecologist on 4 August 2009, and Sustainable Business, October 2009. When David and Ruth of The Archers decided to set up an anaerobic digester to make biogas from farm waste, they quickly ran into trouble. Intended to produce electricity for the national grid and heat for their poly-tunnels, the project was defeated by boardroom bust-ups and NIMBY protests led by local battle-axe Linda Snell. (more…)...
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