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EdF: Living with its ZOMBIE REACTORS!

You seriously wouldn’t want to be a Director of EdF at the moment. The agenda for an average Board Meeting must be seriously gloomy on each and every occasion. Here’s how I imagine the key agenda items for their last meeting on 16th February – helpfully summarised by EdF’s Company Secretary. Item…

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‘FiT for the 21st Century?’ – Not by a Long Chalk!

Ten days ago, I highlighted the degree to which the UK is now so profoundly out of kilter with the post-Paris agenda. I really don’t suppose you need any further confirmation of that analysis (as a, no doubt, devoted reader of this blog!), but one has come immediately to hand in the last couple of…

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Seeking all (young!) energy entrepreneurs!

Ever since I finished The World We Made (more than three years ago now), I’ve been obsessed with the sheer speed of change regarding solar and other renewable energy technologies. It’s almost impossible to keep up with each new development/breakthrough/innovation – and I was indeed like the…

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The post-Paris scene, part 3: Renewables industry: in festive mood

As you can imagine, there was still quite a lot of post-Paris pixie-dust being sprinkled around in Abu Dhabi. At the first World Future Energy Summit, nine years ago, conventional oil-drenched thinking about renewables was still dominant: it would remain a slow-growing, uncompetitive niche player…

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The post-Paris scene, part 4: Oil and gas: still hanging in

So where does all that upbeat, excitable buzz around renewables leave the oil and gas companies? Well, they’re still hanging in there, with exhibition stands as bullish and brazen as ever, continuing to take the line that their mainstream market positions remain unchallengeable. And, to be honest,…

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The post-Paris scene, part 5: Same old dreams, same old lies

So much for the fossil fuel lobbies. What of our dearly beloved friends in the nuclear industry? The industry has had a constant presence at the World Future Energy Summit since the start ten years ago, but this year (with the interesting exception of the South Koreans), I felt they weren’t really…

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