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May 2008

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More on transport: ‘petrol stations’ of the future

May 23, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Transport

Thanks to Chris Blount – whose views on “petrol stations” of the future I share.

With our wind powered car we’re throwing down the gauntlet to the big car companies, who aren’t doing nearly enough. They bleat about needing decades and £billions to perfect fuel cell technology – and with that comes the need for big new infrastructure – hydrogen infrastructure - that’ll take decades too.

You know what I think – they’re hooked on burning things, hooked on the internal combustion engine – it’s what they know and what they’ve built their business around. They don’t want to move to cars without engines. Continue reading “More on transport: ‘petrol stations’ of the future”

20 Comments

Part two of Feed In Tariffs – Do they work at Home?

May 21, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy

This is a follow-on post from my ‘What’s Wrong With Feed-in Tariffs’ posting earlier.

It’s not un-common to hear people say ‘We need Feed in Tariffs in the UK, like they have in Germany – they’ve got umpteen Gigawatts of renewables from it’. And fair enough they do. It’s important not to confuse large scale FITs with micro though.

The problem for onshore wind (large scale) in the UK is planning not financial and therefore FITs just can’t help. We need German planning laws to emulate German success, in large scale wind.

But what about micro generation; Are feed in tariffs the answer to better deliver this? Continue reading “Part two of Feed In Tariffs – Do they work at Home?”

24 Comments

Another Tesla? – preferably not.

May 16, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Transport, Wind Car

Thanks to Peter and Simon for their posts last week.

Has Tesla really killed of the myth of rubbish electric cars as Simon says? And are we just trying to make another Tesla as Peter says? Continue reading “Another Tesla? – preferably not.”

23 Comments

Does ‘Good Energy’ cause new generation to be built?

May 12, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy

This post was inspired by a couple of comment posters who got in a discussion about Good Energy. Andre - in my opinion the claims (you refer to) of Good Energy don’t stack up. The idea that by selling existing green electricity to someone you can encourage someone else to build a wind farm is tenuous at best Continue reading “Does ‘Good Energy’ cause new generation to be built?”

15 Comments

Onshore wind: Planning or Building, which one is the real problem?

May 12, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy

This was inspired by some stats that Stuart put in a comment on my blog post about Shell pulling out of offshore. Stuart, on the question of what the real problem for onshore wind is – you threw me for a day or so with your statistics from the BWEA, good source, hard to argue with. But on closer examination I think you’ve perhaps not read them quite right. Continue reading “Onshore wind: Planning or Building, which one is the real problem?”

12 Comments

I’m no Jeremy… Part 2

May 8, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Transport, Wind Car

I was in Norfolk yesterday meeting the team that are building the car for us. We’ve reached the end of the feasibility phase (the donor car is in absolute pieces). We shot some more film on the day and now have enough to make a short promo to tout to the TV companies, to see if any of them want to follow the project from here - the building and testing of the car. Here’s a short clip to give an idea of where we’re coming from. See this other blog post for more info on the project.

4 Comments

Offshore wind - The façade begins to crumble?

May 2, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy

Big news yesterday. Shell have pulled out of the London Array – the world’s largest offshore windfarm proposal. Bit of a shock to the well-spun world of offshore wind. As is the reason - that it doesn’t stack up financially. Shell, bless em, with record first quarter profits of £3.9 billion - you’d think they could afford a few windmills. Actually what they’re saying is they can’t make enough money out of it. Profit before planet of course. Continue reading “Offshore wind - The façade begins to crumble?”

13 Comments

Zero Carbonista

Dale Vince This blog is about answers to the big questions - how will we keep the lights on, what kind of cars will we drive (will we drive?) and how will we feed ourselves - in a post oil world, and a world where we can't afford to keep burning things and throwing things away. Energy, Transport and Food are the three big issues.

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