Tag Archives: energy

UK electricity import and export

The UK doesn’t have enough elec­tri­city. The amount of elec­tri­city that the UK produces (from various sources) is not enough to meet demand, and the UK relies heavily* on imports from France and the Neth­er­lands in order to meet its … Continue reading

Tagged , | Leave a comment |

Why 80mph is not a good idea

The UK gov­ern­ment has announced that it is begin­ning a con­sulta­tion on raising the speed limit on UK motor­ways from 70 mph to 80 mph. I don’t think this is a very good idea, and my reasons are listed below. Time Saving … Continue reading

Tagged , | 2 Comments |

UK Energy Mix

A lot of people get confused between the elec­tri­city they use and the energy they use. It’s easy to forget that the majority of people use natural gas for heating (e.g. a gas-fired central heating system) and cooking and petrol for … Continue reading

Tagged , , | 2 Comments |

Electricity consumption in the production of aluminium

Alu­minium is a very useful metal; it is the most widely used non-ferrous* metal in the world. It has a very low elec­trical res­ist­ance and a very good strength-to-weight ratio and has there­fore found many applic­a­tions: from pack­aging in drinks … Continue reading

Tagged , , | Leave a comment |

Fuel Mix and CO2

Since 2005 UK elec­tri­city sup­pliers have been legally obliged by Ofgem to provide inform­a­tion about the fuel mix they use to generate elec­tri­city and the carbon dioxide they produce in the process. The UK average fuel mix; heavy on gas and coal. … Continue reading

Tagged , , | Leave a comment |

Estimating energy usage and savings

There’s a fas­cin­ating paper in this week’s Pro­ceed­ings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) journal about people’s per­cep­tions of the energy used and saved by various devices and methods. The researchers’ con­clu­sions are not … Continue reading

Tagged , | Leave a comment |

The problem with the bulb ban

You might not have noticed, but the sale of standard filament light­bulbs has been banned since last September.* Current pro­posals are to replace standard incan­des­cent bulbs with more effi­cient compact fluor­es­cent bulbs. Fluor­es­cent lights work by passing a current through a … Continue reading

Tagged , , | Leave a comment |

Kinetic hydropower

Wind is moving around the world all the time, and we use that for gen­er­ating elec­tri­city. But water is moving around the world all the time too  –  can’t we use that to generate elec­tri­city? A wind turbine is a device that … Continue reading

Tagged , , | Leave a comment |

Sustainable Energy — without the hot air

READ. THISBOOK.

Tagged , | Leave a comment |