Recently in Energy Category

Today is a great day for Scotland's environment and for those suffering in fuel poverty. By the substantial margin of 91 to 15 (i.e. with SNP & Labour support), Holyrood backed our energy efficiency pitch for this year's budget. 

UK Ministers have now, like the SNP, seen the light on aviation and shipping. I like to think it has something to do with the killer metaphors deployed against their previous position.

When both the Scottish and the UK climate change legislation proposals first appeared, aviation and shipping were mysteriously absent. The Nats have since pledged to remedy this oversight, incidentally.

Patrick Harvie and I went to Jedburgh on Monday night, where Patrick spoke in the Scotsman/BBC debate on renewables, as covered by Jenny Haworth for the Scotsman. The debate, chaired by the authoritative and engaging Lesley Riddoch, will also be broadcast on the BBC tomorrow at 2pm. 

Earlier this week, the European Parliament backed a carbon limit for power generation in the EU, setting a figure of 500 grams per kilowatt hour. As the Guardian reports, tougher limits were proposed, but were voted down. 

The BBC ran a story today about the "ethical failure" at the American Department of the Interior, entitled US oil officials in sex scandal. 

Hats off to Greenpeace - six of their activists just persuaded a jury to acquit them of criminal damage for the graffiti to the left, on the chimney of the coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. 

Apparently this is a good timescale to make the changes we need on climate change. It is, of course, better known as 100 months. I'm not convinced by arbitrary deadines, and am not sure what is so vital about January 2017. 

The SNP set out their programme for government today, including a Climate Change Bill. Their manifesto last time was clear:

Commentary on Darling's Guardian interview has largely (and rightly) focused on his view that the economic times faced are "arguably the worst they've been in 60 years". Faced, note: he's not talking about the current economic situation, he's talking about where it's going. The current difficulties don't look worse than the early 80s or the early 90s yet. But where is it going?

The news that a category 3 hurricane called Gustav could hit New Orleans this week is alarming local residents. 

If there's one thing that Salmond, Brown and Cameron all agree on, it's carbon capture and storage (CCS), which allows the filthiest fossil fuel around to be rebranded "clean coal".

The environment movement is still agitated about George Monbiot's article this week in the Guardian, in which he said:

So it turns out that all that stuff we buy from China does have carbon consequences. And that - shock horror - those aeroplanes do too. If you ignore those two awkward facts you can indeed claim emissions have fallen, as Labour would like to do. 

So Murdo MacLeod, Scotland on Sunday's longstanding political correspondent (and tech correspondent, and Gaelic correspondent, well you get the picture), had his leaving do last night.

Drinks were taken, more by some than others (I still want to hear what Mao's point was, Mark).

Murdo's away to work for a substantial oil company in Kazakhstan, and despite him being the bane of my life when I worked for the Parliament's first two Presiding Officers, I'll miss him.

When I say "bane of my life", what I most obviously mean is this article, which appeared ten days after I started work in Parliament.

It was factually correct, except for the species of oak, their colour, the number of them, the cost (massively less), their likely country of origin, the status of contract negotiations at the time. Oh, and the final price of the project, which sadly went a little higher than £280m while I was there.

Astroturf is what it's called. Fake grass roots. Corporate shills, masquerading as locals. This tactic evolved into misleading pseudo-research bodies, funded the same way; by the tobacco lobby, the oil industry, the nuclear lot, anyone utterly unpalatable.

So we're on the cusp of the post-oil age, as you know. 

When you understand the way the oil industry works, and the fact that the cheap oil era is over, it changes the way you read the news. 

Of the various Holyrood bloggers, three stand out for me.

Calum The Nat along the corridor, lover of motorways above all.
Scottish Tory Boy, whose site curiously shows him to be closest ideologically to Obama.
Kez Dugdale, who is far too consistent and principled to be in Labour much longer.

I don't know of any Liberals here who blog, but any tips on that front would be appreciated.

Anyway, this is about Kez. She came along to the Scotsman debate previously discussed here. In a post on oil earlier this week she not only compared Alex Salmond to JR Ewing, which I love, especially with the pic chosen, but also praised one of Patrick's contributions to that Scotsman debate - the idea that we should be independent from oil, not try to build independence on oil.

Indeed.

She also listed some sensible things the Nats could be doing, including investing properly in public transport. And then notes that instead Salmond's "actively opposing the Edinburgh trams whilst building roads, bypasses, motorways and blocking rail expansion."

So when you get back from your holidays, Kez, let's talk about which roads, bypasses and motorways we think Salmond should scrap. And you've been flagged as "future Green".

.. please make it this, to George Monbiot's open letter to the Saudi monarch. It's an excellent summary of how utterly disjointed, contradictory and cynical Government policy is on energy (and yes, Government here means SNP as well as Labour).