Home » Posts tagged 'tim watkins' (Page 4)
Tag Archives: tim watkins
A far from perfect storm
A far from perfect storm Global warming may yet prove to be the one thing which saves us from our largely misguided attempts to respond to global warming. This is because, while the crisis is real enough, the solution that we have bought into is an absolute stinker. While a great deal of corporate profit […]
Who determines prices?
Who determines prices? One of the consequences of the response to the pandemic and the disruption from Brexit is that labour shortages are appearing across the low-paid sectors of the economy. So much so that even the metropolitan liberal Guardian has begun to wonder whether the benefits of higher wages for the low-paid might outweigh the cost […]
A problem shared is a problem doubled
A problem shared is a problem doubled At seven minutes to five on the afternoon of 9 August 2019, a lightening strike caused the loss of 150MW of distributed power (i.e., a large number of small wind, diesel and solar generators) from the National Grid. This sudden loss triggered the safety system on the giant Hornsea […]
This isn’t going to work
This isn’t going to work If an energy policy sounds too good to be true, that is usually because it is. Take, for example, just one of the jigsaw pieces in current policy for reaching net zero by 2050: electric car batteries. Jillian Ambrose – who should know better – at the Guardian reports this weekend that: […]
Exergy-driven crisis
Exergy-driven crisis Media has little in the way of memory and the rest of us struggle to remember much of what happened more than a week ago. And so, the narratives we use in an attempt to make sense of the rapidly changing world we are living in, tend to revolve around short-term tribal talking […]
A rising tide sinks all boats… eventually
A rising tide sinks all boats… eventually Have you heard that ice cream causes murder or that global warming has led to an increase in piracy? Apparently in Maine, consuming more margarine leads to more divorces, while increased US spending on science, space and technology results in increases in suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation. Actually, these are […]
The only thing worse than an energy collapse
The only thing worse than an energy collapse We learned recently that one of the last coal power stations in the UK is bidding to become the first commercial nuclear fusion plant on Earth. The news should be taken with a large pinch of salt… nuclear fusion has been 25 years in the future since before I […]
Crisis hiding in plain sight
Crisis hiding in plain sight Putting a positive gloss on the news is especially important as we attempt to recover from a pandemic. And if that positive gloss is green in colour, so much the better. And so yesterday we were treated to the news that: “More electric vehicles were registered than diesel cars for the second […]
The only thing worse than an energy collapse
The only thing worse than an energy collapse We learned recently that one of the last coal power stations in the UK is bidding to become the first commercial nuclear fusion plant on Earth. The news should be taken with a large pinch of salt… nuclear fusion has been 25 years in the future since before I […]
The everything death spiral
The everything death spiral Inflation is back in the establishment media headlines, as prices are rising across the economy. But rather like generals fighting the last war, business and economic journalists are dusting off models of inflation last used in the early 1980s. The idea, for example, that “inflation is always a monetary phenomenon” worked well […]
