by Zak Gainey
With the global focus on reducing carbon emissions, nuclear energy has seen a resurgence in recent years. However, 2024 might be remembered as a landmark year for this controversial energy source; the year which saw big tech companies advance their own private nuclear initiatives.
Throughout the summer of 2024, CEE Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Cornelia Helmcke travelled the Scottish Islands, hosting ‘townhalls’ on Orkney, Lewis, South Uist, Skye and Mull. Local community groups, energy experts and residents were invited to collectively brainstorm constraints to the national electricity grid as perceived on the islands and how to overcome these. In this blog post, Cornelia reflects on her experiences and what she has learned from those who live ‘at the end of the line’.
by Sean Field
The electrification of heat and transportation is vital to the UK achieving Net Zero. In this short piece, Sean explores how a weighted average wholesale electricity price could reduce electricity prices for consumers and substantially delink wholesale natural gas and electricity prices. This promises not just to insulate UK consumers from global natural gas price volatility, but also facilitate the electrification of heat and transport by making electricity cheaper, which is essential for meeting the UK’s net zero targets.
by Riyoko Shibe and Energy Cafe – The Unjust Transition at Grangemouth Oil Refinery: Workers’ Perspectives
Scotland has a proud – and extensive – energy history. For much of the 20th century, the refinery at Grangemouth was a major hub around which a community not only formed but flourished. However, this was not to last. After decades of stagnation, the refinery is set to close in 2025. What lessons can we learn from Grangemouth’s history? Can this Scottish town help inform the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels?
I don’t drive. Having lived in cities with robust public transportation systems and extensive bike lane networks, this was never an issue. However, my choice not to get behind the wheel was to be tested from December 2022 when I took a job in Austin, Texas.
Reflections following the first two parts of Looking North – a series of conversations between the worlds of art, literature, natural science and ecological conservation.
by James Crooks
Outrage discourses have become increasingly commonplace in all forms of media. Recently, proposed regulations in New York City regarding wood- and coal-burning cook stoves – dubbed by some ‘New York’s War on Pizza’ – have been the focus. What can we learn from this and how can this episode inform our own communications strategies when promoting complex or nuanced climate or energy-related actions?
by Sean Field
In Part 2 of this series, Dr Field explains how the UK’s energy crisis is a dual predicament: an energy price crisis, and an energy supply crisis. The UK’s electrical grid is balanced on the wholesale market for natural gas; as wholesale prices rise, people are pushed into energy poverty. Building on Part 1, he demonstrates how natural gas dependency and insufficient UK natural gas storage capacities are threatening electricity blackouts this winter (as well as a crisis of heating), concluding that this crisis was foreseeable and avoidable.
The energy trilemma describes the difficulty in achieving a coherent balance of clean, affordable, and secure energy. Improvements in one factor in the triangle distorts the other components. In this blog post, I explore how ‘smart technologies’, connected by the internet and powered by new ambient energy harvesting devices, can be vital to overcoming the energy trilemma and to achieving energy sustainability.
by Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood and Rukonge Sospeter Muhongo
Climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives have driven up demand for rare minerals. Over 3 billion tons of rare minerals will be needed to achieve the global goal of reducing emissions to net-zero. A key site of extraction of these minerals is Sub-Saharan Africa. Will these regions acquire a share in this mineral boom or will the historical exploitation of these communities continue under the guise of supporting the ‘Green Transition’?