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Rosebank oilfield would not breach UK emission targets, say government insiders
Emissions from exported oil would not count against carbon budget, insiders say – reasoning likely to draw dismay from climate campaigners
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » This site
Dealing with Climate Change & Justice
(2719 posts)-
Posted 4 days ago #
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Homes across UK to get low- or no-interest loans to fund solar panels and heat pumps
Government-backed Warm Home Loans scheme to help households cut energy bills by hundreds of pounds
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Posted 4 days ago # -
- Finlay McCutcheon, managing director of SSE Thermal, said: “We welcome the Scottish Government’s decision to grant consent for Peterhead Carbon Capture Power Station.
“This is an important milestone for a project which has the potential to provide the flexible, low-carbon electricity needed to support a renewables-led energy system while creating and sustaining good jobs in the north-east of Scotland.”
He added that the power station was also “an important anchor project” for the wider Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage Cluster – adding that “further progress at Peterhead” was “contingent on delivery of the cluster”.
Just like small modular nuclear reactors 'carbon capture ' doesn't exist.
What does exist is the fact SSE get paid to switch off some of their wind turbines when the grid can't cope and then get paid to generate the 'missing' electricity by gas.
This is a bizarre announcement but reaction seems muted so far.
Posted 4 days ago # -
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The government’s plan to fund a multibillion-pound nuclear plant at the Sizewell site in Suffolk represents a “terrible deal” for the UK taxpayer over the rest of the century, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) have warned the government that the cost of the Sizewell C nuclear reactor could spiral to almost £48bn, leaving bill payers on the hook to provide an extra £9.8bn to construct the plant before 2040 and a further £12bn over its 60-year operating life.
Taxpayers and consumers face a “high level of risk”, according to PAC, after the government agreed to take a near-45% stake in the nuclear plant, which is considered a successor project to the heavily delayed Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset.
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Posted 3 days ago # -
Nuclear is a dead duck, just stop it already and clean up the mess.
I can't help feeling the only reasons the government want to continue with it are:
a) it's much easier to store the waste next to existing operating plants, than it is to ever deal with it permanently*
b) keeps Sellafield going so avoids having to spend £100s of billions on cleaning it up
c) fear of losing the nuclear skills to build and maintain nuclear weapons and materials
*for millennia, if that is even possible!
Posted 3 days ago # -
Both the above are about the ‘political desire’ for ‘growth to solve all our problems! (in every postcode…)
To do this (apparently) requires ‘cheap energy’. To some extent true - or at least ‘as cheap as everyone else’s’
Which of course is a big part of the problem - other countries have/use more coal/shale oil etc and care little (or not enough) about ‘climate’ - for the ‘usual reasons’ hoax/China&India use coal/jobs/and growth)
There are those who somehow believe ‘growth’, in the conventional economic sense, can go on for ever. Presumably by the time we run out of fossil fuels there will be abundant fusion energy (cheap of course). OR everyone will have moved to Mars…
The UK has special problems
The North Sea boom is well passed and there’s no Sovereign wealth fund, but nostalgia or desperation is still trying to squeeze out the last drop
Objections to this are increasing sidelined for “pragmatic” reasons. Politicians aren’t willing to confront/understand the alternatives - because ’the economy’, ‘jobs’, ‘the voters’, ‘the Markets’
Wind and solar are doing not bad, but stuck without a suitable grid to get the electricity to ‘where it’s needed’
Now there is new great white hope - AI or (perhaps more relevant) the ‘need to build masses of massive data centres’ - with planning rules suspended to allow ‘inward investment’ and/or straightforward bribes
Of course it suits some to equate data centres with AI and react accordingly to both (for or against depending on knowledge, prejudice or hope)
It’s not (only) about AI. The data centres also hold all your emails and photos and bank details, web sites (inc shopping and social media) etc etc etc
As I type this, the 1s and 0s are speeding to a fluffy cloud somewhere. Whether “The Cloud” was invented to help the little people understand (or not understand…) is beyond my understanding.
I suppose it’s akin to Heaven. Everyone ‘knows’ and to some extent accepts - even if they don’t believe it!
What ‘balance’ there is between ‘normal’ data use and the wonders of ChatGPT (and WAY beyond) - now and projected - may well be ‘unknown’ or ‘commercially confidential’ perhaps?
Similarly are there plans for ‘the future’ after one or more AI systems ‘succeed’ and the rest leave redundant sheds full of chips that taxpayers may well have paid for?!
Part of me doesn’t care about any of this, in the sense that there are so many variables it’s impossible to predict what will happen. At present there seem to be no obvious good answers that that those with ‘the/any power to make things happen’ will choose
An unknown is whether anyone (Musk etc) actually know what they are doing or if they care about real world consequences (unless they can see it’s not, personally, in their interest to continue)
Posted 3 days ago # -
"The Cloud" would be more appropriately named "the Mass" - the all-consuming, bloated mass
"cloud" implies something nebulous and light, when the truth is far from it - marketing wins out again...
Posted 3 days ago # -
A lot of the datacentre build out is also speculative - a digital "land grab" if you like
Take control of that digital space first, so no one else can get it
Posted 3 days ago # -
My bold
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Healey announces new deal for datacentres
Healey announces a new deal for datacentres.I’m setting out a new deal for datacentres in the UK. When the NHS uses AI to treat patients, we want that data here. When our armed forces unit use AI to keep us safe, we want that data here.
So here’s the deal.
I’m today launching a new British datacentre covenant with strict tests that datacentres must meet to invest in local communities, create local jobs and protect local water supplies.
In return, critical datacentres will get the grid connections they need and, where necessary, be allowed to build onsite generation while they wait.
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Posted 3 days ago # -
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Sir Tony Blair’s think tank has urged Chancellor John Healey to pivot Britain’s energy strategy away from net zero targets and focus instead on delivering cheaper supplies to consumers in the upcoming Budget.
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Chancellor seems to have ignored first bit and confirmed target
Posted 3 days ago # -
That datacentre "onsite generation" will almost certainly be gas-fired.
Blowing our carbon emissions out of the water
Posted 3 days ago # -
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MPs say they are alarmed at the cabinet splits that have emerged over the issue after sources told the Guardian that Miatta Fahnbulleh was minded to refuse environmental permission for the field.
Sources close to the chancellor, John Healey, have since made it clear he is in favour of the scheme, while some in government believe the prime minister, Andy Burnham, also wants it to go ahead.
Backbenchers worried about the environmental impact of the project are now urging their whips and Downing Street not to allow other ministers to intervene in Fahnbulleh’s decision.
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Posted 2 days ago # -
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Scotland’s flagship carbon capture project has been dealt a “hammer blow” after the UK government threw doubt over whether public funding would be used to finally get the facility up and running.
Andy Burnham’s Labour administration now faces accusations of “betrayal” of Scotland’s oil and gas sector after ignoring repeated demands to bring forward reforms to the energy profits levy in the Budget on Wednesday.
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https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-budget-north-sea-oil-and-gas-acorn-carbon-capture-9316299
Posted 2 days ago # -
@chdot - The yet to be invented carbon capture tech is meant to be the panacea to allow 'life as normal' for the fossil fuel lobby. If it worked then that would be amazing but I suspect it's unlikely.
SSE do like the idea with caveat that the 'carbon cluster' (Acorn?) was important to the new gas powered facility at Peterhead.
SSE Spokesperson from post above said:
"...the (new gas) power station was also 'an important anchor project' for the wider Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage Cluster – adding that 'further progress at Peterhead' was 'contingent on delivery of the cluster'.
Posted 2 days ago # -
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Climate academic Andreas Malm barred from entering UK“
Posted 1 day ago # -
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UK charity shop profits plummet amid shift in secondhand clothes market
British Heart Foundation describes ‘exceptionally challenging’ trading after Oxfam’s retail profit reportedly fell 23% amid rise of platforms such as Vinted
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Posted 7 hours ago # -
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Environmental campaigners have staged a Halloween themed demonstration outside the Scottish First Minister’s official residence over “scary” fossil fuels
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Posted 7 hours ago #
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