PowerSwitch

My key criticism of electric vehicles is that we should be moving our static, grid connected energy consumption to renewables before we seriously address transport. That's where there's a huge about (several decades worth) of low hanging fruit. Once the only fossil fuel use left is in cars, planes ...

I'm luke-warm on electric cars at best. For example the Tesla might do 356 Wh/mi. That's 1.3 megajoules of energy per mile. A litre of diesel has ~32 MJ and will get you some 11 miles, so 2.9 MJ per mile. Makes the electric look efficient? However, remember that to generate the 1.3 MJ of electricit...

Meanwhile:

Goldman Sachs says oil could fall to $20 a barrel

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... s-a-barrel

Not that we trust economists!

Almost 100,000 homes without power in Ireland.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environm ... -1.1688660

According to BBC News, it's a quarter of a million homes without power in Ireland!

UE - back off - you are being offensive. Stop posting until you can do so without being gratuitously abusive.

Not sure if this has been posted already but if you have a minute or two and feel inclined (as I suspect many PowerSwitchers are), you could sign this petition: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/bbc-give-scientists-proper-representation-on-question-time?share_id=chSxhoFDLW&utm_campaign=signa...

True

I wonder whether, rather than Oklahomans building ultra-reinforced buildings, they instead always build basements and build any above-ground floors to be of lightweight timber (suitably insulated) that can be re-built more cheaply. Roofs could be lightweight - maybe lots of green roofs.

I was at Ecobuild too and would echo Ken's comments. There is good stuff there but thinly spread. Re mould, I got asked that question on Saturday when a group of architects and interested individuals from Holland visited us in our retrofitted Certified Passivhaus. We have zero problems with mould no...

I imagine this book will be of interest to many of you. Sorry if people have already posted about this. Energy supplies are tightening. Persistent pollutants are accumulating. Food security is declining. There is no going back to the days of reckless consumption, but there is a possibility—already b...

Good article in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/23/iran-oil-embargo-mean-war The decision to impose an EU oil embargo on Iran, agreed on Monday by European foreign ministers, sets a potential bomb ticking, timed to detonate on 1 July. On that day, according to the package ...

Apologies if this has already been posted. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/06/just-in-time-business-model-disaster-risk The UK could stand "at most a week" of disruption if a natural or man-made disaster struck before severe problems, economic and social, that would bring chaos to...

This book looks interesting. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/01/tali-sharot-optimism-bias-interview?INTCMP=SRCH What exactly is the optimism bias? Expecting the future to be slightly better than it ends up being. People tend to overestimate positive events – having a long-lasting relationsh...

One of the comment pieces in today's Observer makes the point that Cameron doesn't have sufficient emotional intelligence to forge trusting relationships with his counterparts amongst our neighbours. He is compared unfavourably with John Major who built a rapport with Kohl that helped to get him the...

Is this the same technology? http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/07/bill-gates-china-nuclear-reactor Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates confirmed on Wednesday he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new kind of nuclear reactor. "The idea is to be very low-cost, very safe an...