PhD Cambridge Univ. - Scientist turned artist / Climate educator. Fellow of The Schumacher Institute. Now on BlueSky.
Jun 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Fed up of having to send complaints to the #BBC on its negative coverage on heat pumps to individual programmes, I have written to the Director General, Tim Davie. I haven't pulled my punches. #heatpumps#retrofit#heating#falsebalance
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Apr 19, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Silicon Valley UK?
The UK Chancellor has declared that he wants the UK to become the next Silicon Valley.
Hermann Hauser, when asked on @BBCNewsnight about the chances of this happening, replied “zero”.
(BBC Newsnight, 18th April 2023).
#Nexperia#semiconductors
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He should know, being the Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, and writing a book on technology sovereignty.
He said Government efforts to reverse Nexperia’s takeover of Newport Wafer Fab would achieve exactly the opposite of what is desired: technology independence. 2/
Apr 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The aims of the toolkit are:
- To be a companion, not a blueprint, for a community group
- Provide practices and tools that are practical and accessible
- Enable a community group to form, think through local situation and identify actions …
...
- Helps ensure a diversity of views and approaches – technology, history, the arts, culture
- Recognises value in personal and community action and links this to wider systemic change ...
Nov 4, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The EPC tool produced by Elmhurst @consultancy_elm and others makes no provision for larger properties using cascade heat pumps for larger properties. In fact, it only allows for very basic system specn.(such Air to Water, Air to Air, etc.). @BRE_Group 1/
Contrasting with gas boilers, where it allows the surveyor to specify the precise model being used on the SAP database.
It results in ludicrously high bill estimates for larger properties, because they are still assuming you are only using one heat pump that can’t cope. 2/
Nov 3, 2021 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
What are retrofit options for someone with 90-100m² ‘hard to treat’ home, concerned about rising gas prices and the planet? Installing a heat pump is single largest measure for lowering the carbon footprint, but how soon to fit one on retrofit journey? #retrofit#heatpumps 1/
Doing nothing on fabric or gas means bills will escalate
and there is a serious risk that such a home will have lower resale value in the future. By starting to think about retrofit, home owners might do things they have put off for years, like clearing the loft. /2
Jul 14, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Soil carbon is important but it is staggering that both Minette Batters and Prince Charles have made unchallenged statements on @BBCr4today : That some farms are already carbon neutral and that soils could take up 70% of the world's emissions 1/
This is all in an effort to promote sustainable livestock farming. Like Graham Harvey in his book ‘Grass-Fed Nation’ they have been seduced by the claims of Allan Savory; but these have been thoroughly debunked by the Food Climate Research Network oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/repo… 2/
Aug 6, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
@mskathleenquinn I have never made it there and maybe never will, but nuclear weapons changed my life in different way. In 1981, Professor Mike Pentz, who led the formation of the OU science department, founded Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA). I was at Bristol Uni. doing a Post Doc. 1/@mskathleenquinn I went to hear him speak. What an amazing speaker he was; I signed up on the spot. Within a months it seemed I was on the National Coordinating Committee. It kind of killed my passion for science, something I'd been in love with since a young boy. I left research 2/
1728 - Newton’s Principia published in English (discrete mechanics) 1/@pmbbiggsy@RHarrabin@James_BG@ECIU_UK@CraigBennett3@tom_burke_47@CarbonBrief@hmtreasury 1738 - Daniel Bernoulli publishes “Hydrodynamics” (continuous mechanics)
1757 - Euler publishes partial differential equations that apply to fluids
1800 - Herschel discovers ‘radiant heat’ in spectrum
1827 - Fourier published paper proposing what we now call greenhouse effect 2/
Oct 15, 2019 • 4 tweets • 6 min read
@RHarrabin@GSmeeton@Policy_Connect Roger, did you really imply today on @BBCNewsbbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0… that heat pumps "were not very well developed"? The sadly departed Prof. David Mackay wrote in 2009 "heat pumps are already widely used in continental Europe, but strangely rare in Britain.” … I wonder why? 1/@RHarrabin@GSmeeton@Policy_Connect@BBCNews He continued to explain that if you took the gas used in a home boiler, sent it to a gas fired power station then used the electricity to run a heat pump, the heat pump would be more efficient and hence lower in carbon foot print, p. 151:- 2/
Sep 25, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
@James_BG Why do you not mention Heat Pumps Kames. This is crazy. HPs worked during beast from east if sized properly. Are we really going to have a H2 n/w (by 2030?!) to deal with treble beast from east? It's very simple: rollout HPs NOW, and aggressively decarbonise electricity. 1/@James_BG It is troubling that the ignorance about Heat Pumps is so widespread, extending to BBC. It is tech. available now, and Prof. Mackay deserves a re-read for those who don't understand them. Here's an essay on myths re. Solar PV and Heat Pumps. essaysconcerning.com/2019/09/07/ren… 2/
Apr 4, 2019 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
@BBCScienceNews@MattMcGrathBBC As @Peters_Glen points out in kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-… the first priority is emissions reductions. DAC (Direct Air Capture) powered by renewables has potential but the framing by Carbon Engineering / BBC on capturing carbon to create fuel is problematic on several levels. 1/n@BBCScienceNews@MattMcGrathBBC@Peters_Glen Firstly, Road, Rail & Shipping even, being electrified making fuel redundant; and in a competing hydrogen economy with fuel, it would be non-carbon based one. Leaving Aviation: 13% of transport and just 3% of all sector global emissions. DAC focused on that no silver bullet. 2/n
