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My friend Jeremy Leggett caused a bit of a stir recently by predicting that one of the big oil majors would, before the end of the year, ‘do an E.ON’, imitating what E.ON did by splitting itself into ‘LegacyOilCo’ – with a portfolio of gradually wasting hydrocarbon assets – and ‘BeyondOilCo’ – with…

Summon into your mind, for a moment, the image of a deeply perplexed Ed Davey, late at night, deep in thought, sitting there behind his Secretary of State’s desk in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, staring down at a single large number in a memo from his Permanent Secretary. Strictly…

It’s nearly a month since the EU Commission approved the UK Government’s financial arrangements with EdF to build two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point. There was always a rather banal inevitability about this decision; despite the fact that the Commission’s initial response had been extremely…

One of the very first big pieces of research that Forum for the Future conducted was for BP in the late 1990s, looking at the prospects for the growth of solar PV in the UK; BP had its own solar business in those days. Prospects were good, we argued, just depending on the speed with which costs in…

I’m always rather heartened by the fact that the Prime Minister takes his holidays in Cornwall – for the simple reason that at least once a year he gets to see wind turbines in action, happily churning around (as they do most of the time in Cornwall) without so much as UKIP zealot to be seen for…

Every year, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report reminds me why those in the Green movement who think nuclear has a major role to play in securing a low-carbon world are completely, dangerously off their collective trollies. The Status Report is not an anti-nuclear polemic. Over the years, its…