energy – Alex Mabbs

Abundance versus Excess

By the people, for the people

Yesterday these three men were jailed for protesting against fracking in Lancashire. They had climbed onto trucks carrying drilling equipment and so prevented them from moving. The men were charged with causing a public nuisance. Simon Roscoe Blevins and Richard Roberts were jailed for 16 months, Richard Loizou for 15, and a fourth man, JulianContinue reading “By the people, for the people”

Earthship

Today I went on a fascinating tour of Brighton’s Earthship. In the words of pioneer Michael Reynolds, Earthships are “Buildings that sail on the seas of tomorrow.” In more mundane language, an Earthship is a building made of a mixture of waste, recycled and natural materials that is autonomous in terms of heating, cooling, power,Continue reading “Earthship”

The Good, The Bad and The Complicated

I have been in an email discussion this week about the rights and wrongs of generating electricity by burning biomass. In the UK, biomass is counted as a renewable source of energy, and if you simply think about burning well-seasoned wood, say in a domestic wood-burning stove, that’s almost true. In a well-managed woodland, whereContinue reading “The Good, The Bad and The Complicated”

Together We Can

A conversation over breakfast at a church weekend turned to electric vehicles. I made the point that I do these days, that if we simply replace current vehicle use with electric vehicles, we’ll have to burn a lot of fossil fuels to provide that much electricity and so electric vehicles may not make much differenceContinue reading “Together We Can”

The future’s not what it used to be

Back in the early 1970s, when I was quite young, I entered a competition to design the car of the future. I drew some sleek rocket-powered thing that hovered above the ground – very space-age. And it was the space-age. We were still sending men to the moon. The future was going to be amazing.Continue reading “The future’s not what it used to be”

Multiplication

Light-bulbs are boring. Carbon emissions are boring. Reducing your footprint is a worthy aspiration, but it’s reductive, it closes down and diminishes. It’s putting the cart before the horse. Carts are boring. You can jazz them up, but it’s still a cart. The interesting bit is the horse at the front – that living beingContinue reading “Multiplication”

Why don’t I get out into the countryside more often?

On Monday, it was my day off. My older son (just back from university for Easter) and I set out on our bikes. We went down to the sea-front, along the eastern arm of Shoreham Harbour and crossed at the lock gates. At Shoreham, we turned up the old railway line, now a trackway, andContinue reading “Why don’t I get out into the countryside more often?”

Time to re-think energy

Yesterday’s referral of the U.K.’s six biggest energy companies to the Competition and Markets Authority gives us a choice between a bad situation and a good situation. The enquiry could take as long as two years. Already, investment in our energy supply is behind where it should be if we are (to use the over-wornContinue reading “Time to re-think energy”

Burn, baby, burn

The second biggest energy company in the UK, SSE, has announced a price freeze on domestic gas and electricity until 2016. Good news for customers for the next two years, then. That’s the limit of the good news in this announcement. Because of the expectation that this will hit the firm’s profits, they have alsoContinue reading “Burn, baby, burn”