Posts

Electricity and gas costs in the UK

The relationship between the cost of electricity and that of gas in the UK is a subject of current debate. Domestic prices have been quoted recently as 26.32 pence per kWh for electricity and 7.97 pence per kWh for gas (CSE, 2026). Some of the reasons for the wide difference in the cost of energy from these two sources will be explored in this post, but first an example will be given of the effect that this price difference can have on the adoption of modern technology. In the UK many homes use gas boilers as their main source of heating, while only about one home in 25 has a heat pump installed. The performance of installed heat pumps listed in a UK guide indicated that owners can normally expect at least 3 kWh of heat for each kWh of electrical energy supplied to the pump (HHPG, 2026). While resistance to new technology and the capital cost of installation can partly explain the low take up of heat pumps, a comparison of running costs using the above figures shows that there is lit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Common ground in climate change

 An article entitled Finding common ground amid climate controversy explored polarisation of opinion but noted that “climate change also offers tantalizing opportunities for finding common ground” (Kirk, 2018). The author cited the need for energy efficiency as “something few argue against” along with the general notions of stewardship of the planet. This post examines two areas of common ground underlying debates between those who believe that human activity is the main cause of climate change and those who believe that the cause is largely natural. The first area is scientific evidence and the second is uncertainty. The same evidence and the same measures of uncertainty can be used differently on opposite sides of the debate. As an example, evidence of the past climate of Earth provided by the science of paleoclimatology can be used to support both sides of the argument. There is scientific evidence that earth’s climate showed large temperature changes in the past, but also th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Global climate models

Introduction A popular book on climate science published in 2021 pointed to the limitations of computer simulations of the Earth’s climate and suggested that the faster computers needed to give satisfactory results in reasonable run times would not be available for two or three decades. This post outlines some recent advances in climate modelling, preceded by notes on earlier work. Early simulations of climate Although climate models using computers existed in the 1950s, the period from 1970 to 2007 described by Hausfather et al. (2019) makes a useful introduction. The authors analysed the projections of change in global mean surface temperature (GMST) made by several generations of past models. Simple energy balance models were made in the early 1970s, based mainly on CO2 concentrations. They have been “gradually sidelined” in favour of general circulation models first published in the late 1980s. The two main factors which influence long-term performance are the accuracy of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Climate Change Denial

Three aspects of climate change denial will be discussed: the psychology of denial, the beliefs of political elites, and climate misinformation. The section on psychology cites a 2020 paper about motivated denial – knowing the facts but denying them – and briefly refers to information processing and the links between emotion and cognition in two later papers. The section on political elites is based on a 2026 survey of elected officials, staffers, regulators, lobbyists, and policy professionals in the United States. The final section cites two recent papers, one on the spread and persistence of climate misinformation, the other predicting its future development. Psychology of denial “Action on climate change is currently minimal, and woefully inadequate for steering away from the worst trajectories and impacts.” These were the opening words of a 2020 paper entitled Understanding and Countering the Motivated Roots of Climate Change Denial . By motivated denial, the authors meant “kn...
Post a Comment
Location: 9CRVM2M8+QQ
Read more

Climate positives

Some positive views on progress in combatting climate change will be considered in this post. They concern what has been achieved so far; public support for climate action; our understanding of climate change; new technology; global action; and individual rewards. Achievements In a 2014 report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set out four scenarios for future warming based on different levels of emissions. The recent removal of the worst case, highest emissions scenario from the group of four has attracted considerable media comment. This scenario, known as RPC8.5 assumed continuing emissions with increased use of fossil fuels, resulting in a temperature rise of 4.5°C by 2100. (The notation refers to a level of radiative forcing of 8.5 watts per square metre). An article in The Conversation (2026) notes that climate change predictions must be revised in the light of new information and that RPC8.5 was removed because “climate action is starting to work”. Positi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Climate impacts and the co-benefits of action

Three different approaches to the impacts of climate change are briefly described in this post. The first focussed on public views about five climate issues of wide interest in the UK. The second presented to a UK audience the views of a panel of experts on a wider range of climate issues, with the aim of stimulating interest and action. The third concentrated on the ways in which the benefits from climate mitigation tend to be overlooked in the European context, and how this might be remedied. Citizens’ Panel A recent publication by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) described the work of a Citizens’ Panel on climate adaptation in the UK. The aim of the project was to understand public views on the subject, and so to guide the CCC’s future advice to the UK Government (CCC, 2026). There were two key questions: “Which of the impacts of climate change are you most concerned about and why?” and “What do you think should be done to adapt to these impacts?” The panel worked on five aspe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Locality, community and the energy transition

This post will draw on three papers published this year which are all concerned with the role of locally based energy projects in the transition towards net zero. The first discusses the situation in the UK; the second addresses the wider European picture; and the third concentrates on community energy in Portugal. Each paper covers a range of issues, but here the focus will be on the importance of community engagement and how to promote and evaluate it. UK energy projects Gupta, Zahiri and Gregg (2026) consider three kinds of project in the UK: community energy, local energy, and smart local energy systems; their study suggests ways in which the effectiveness of such projects can be improved. The differences between projects described by the terms community energy, local energy, and smart local energy systems can be loosely summed up as follows. Community energy projects are typically owned and controlled by members of a local community and aim to benefit the community. They oft...
Post a Comment
Read more