BBD

Would you bet the future on connectors between the UK and the Sahara? It also needs an energy storage system due to the intermittency of the sun, unless it is generated right around the earth.

My bet's on thorium MSRs, but we need reality-based politicians, some with a bit of knowledge of science and engineering. If ther'e money to throw away on useless wind turbines, there must be money to put in MSRs.

In the meantime, get a generator and a large oil tank.

Ross H:

Thanks, but whatever they had done (I didn't bother looking at the source of the page) totally failed to suppress the right-click menu on my somewhat hacked Firefox 4. I was thus able to add the page to my archive of idiocy without having to resort to screen grabs (much less convenient when you want to use text search to recover the idiocy in the future).

Michael Buerk (ex-BBC newsreader) echoes the sentiments of Peter Sissons

Michael Buerk has launched a withering assault on the BBC’s ‘creed of political correctness’.

The veteran presenter accuses staff at the Corporation of an inbuilt ‘institutional bias’ and warns that they read the left-wing Guardian newspaper as if it is ‘their Bible’.

Reviewing a memoir by his former colleague Peter Sissons, Buerk endorses his view that the BBC is warped by the prejudices of its staff.

He says fellow reporters have ‘contempt’ for business and the countryside – and that a left-wing culture means the national broadcaster has been cast ‘adrift of the overriding national sentiment’ on issues such as climate change.

Buerk also accuses BBC reporters of an ‘uncritical love affair with environmentalism’.

@ Jane Coles

alt + Print Screen works well for such occasions, as long as you have a decent image editor (naming no names).

http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-environment/eu-officials-limit-travel-drive-cut-co2-costs-news-503683?utm_source=EurActiv+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c6e745c170-my_google_analytics_key&utm_medium=email

I think this is one of the better articles in the media today.

In view of the today's date, I recommend a visit here.

Try right-clicking on the page -- yes, this mush is not only copyright but it is owned by a firm of solicitors and they want to make sure you don't use a right click to do something evil like saving a copy of the page.

Words rarely fail me, but ..

Philip

Looks like its back to nuclear for baseload, gas for load-following, and windmills for scrap. Equatorial/desert mega-solar might be a runner one day, if we can sort out the geopolitics and long-distance HVDC transmission. With physical security of the interconnectors assured.

And wind speeds are falling across the NH, which is not good news for projected load factors:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19602-green-machine-trees-may-spell-trouble-for-wind-power.html

Also, wind turbines are killing many thousands of bats contributing to a population decline that may be costing farmers millions of pounds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8419796/Wind-turbines-hit-bat-populations.html

Interesting article in NS stating that

Wind and wave energies are not renewable after all. Build enough wind farms to replace fossil fuels and we could do as much damage to the climate as greenhouse global warming