analysis
The European Environment Agency has just published a
landmark report on the state of environmental pollutants in the EU, ‘Late
Lessons from Early Warnings: Science, Precaution, Innovation’ - and part of the
report deals with a broad range of nuclear issues, including radiation releases
and health effects from Chernobyl and Fukushima, costs of nuclear reactors,
accident liability, risk assessment, and the impact of Fukushima on proposed
new nuclear build.
The Economist has declared that Europe is in the midst of a ‘coal renaissance’ – an odd term to use to describe something so unwelcome.
But is it really a fundamental shift in Europe’s energy landscape or is it actually the last gasps of an industry that remains on the decline?
One of the more remarkable aspects of the UK media’s shambolic reporting last week of the Met Office’s latest short-term global temperature forecasts is the way in which many journalists based their stories on inaccurate and misleading spin from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, without mentioning that the lobby group for climate change ‘sceptics’ still has not revealed its secret source of more than £1 million in funding.
Graham Thompson takes a quizzical glance at Delingpole's conversion to Met Office science
In the US everything is about to change - again. And it could have a big impact on efforts to tackle climate change.
In debate around the UK’s energy bill and gas strategy one could be mistaken for believing that the only policies which deliver on the government’s green agenda are those which establish new structures for energy infrastructure - under the remit of the Department of Energy and Climate change. But in reality environmental policies don’t need an environmental or energy label.
New work reported in Nature is suggesting that leakage from gas extraction via fracking is even higher than previously reported, throwing further doubt on any climate benefits of gas from this source – at least under the exploitation rules in USA - but the research is yet to be published and peer reviewed.
She made her list and checked it twice, and finally decided who was naughty or nice. European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard played Santa just before Christmas, awarding €1.2bn of funding for 23 innovative renewables projects across Europe. But frozen out of this funding round were projects aiming to demonstrate carbon capture and storage (CCS) at commercial scale.
After six years of planning to drill in the Alaskan Arctic, Shell finally moved into the region to try to begin drilling for oil this summer.
