Sustainable Energy – Without The Hot Air

I’m concerned about cutting UK emissions of twaddle – twaddle about sustainable energy. Everyone says getting off fossil fuels is important, and we’re all encouraged to ‘make a difference,’ but many of the things that allegedly make a difference don’t add up. Twaddle emissions are high at the moment because people get emotional (for example about wind farms or nuclear power) and no-one talks about numbers. Or if they do mention numbers, they select them to sound big, to make an impression, and to score points in arguments, rather than to aid thoughtful discussion.

This is a straight-talking book about the numbers on Sustainable Energy. The aim is to guide the reader around the claptrap to actions that really make a difference and to policies that add up.

At the end of each chapter are further notes and pointers to sources and references. I find footnote marks distracting if they litter the main text of the book, so the book has no footnote marks. If you love footnote marks, you can usefully add them – almost every substantive assertion in the text will have an associated note at the end of its chapter giving sources or further information. The text also contains pointers to web resources. When a web-pointer is monstrously long, I’ve used the TinyURL service.