A petition to British energy retailers to breakdown the beneficiaries of domestic consumers' electricity standing charge payments (circa £200 every year) on their energy bills. Currently, these are mysterious unexplained opaque fixed charges that they must bear - www.jonathantracey.com/openletter

They can do this because the Wikipedia content is under the Creative Commons License. The Russian government did the same thing with Wikipedia a few years ago, when they blocked Wikipedia (for "editorial" reasons).

Graph showing the past 24 hours or UK grid electricity mix - with Gas making up 1.37GW at 08:30 am, and always below 3.5GW. Wind dominates at 22.7 GW with greater than 20 GW of generation for the entire 24 hour period. Source: https://grid.iamkate.com/

Gas providing <4% (1.37 GW) of GB electricity grid generation just now. I haven't been keeping track, but this might be a new record low? The remaining gas is only there for grid stability reasons, and grid-scale battery storage is gradually eating up this market for gas generators too.

😬UK gas prices just hit highest level since 2022😬

At current prices…

* New wind & solar from latest "AR7" auction would cut the bill for UK gas imports by £5.5bn/y
* A single (1) home heat pump would cut bill for gas imports by more than £600/y

www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why...

A ban may be introduced this summer, but it won't come into effect for around three years.

There is a "voluntary" ban on the use of lead shot. I believe it is now the largest cause of lead pollution in wetland areas.

They still use lead shot as well.

He'll probably glue himself to the magic money tree or something.

From the gang that couldn't spell strait:

A recent position paper from the Passivhaus Trust, our UK affiliate, highlights the real risks of applying only some of the 8 #PassiveHouse principles of approach, from underperformance to costly remediation.

👇Read the summary and full paper here: https://ow.ly/RrPV50YvPSO

Q&A: Why does gas set the price of electricity – and is there an alternative? - Carbon Brief A surge in gas prices triggered by the Iran war has caused a knock-on spike...

This @carbonbrief.org article is more focussed on the UK - and is also a good read (and a bit shorter! :o). www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-does-...

Decoupled: how Spain cut the link between gas and power prices using renewables | Ember Spain has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, largely owing to the country’s strong solar and wind growth which reduced the influence of expensive coal and gas power on the elec...

Also relevant is this analysis from Ember about decoupling electricity prices from gas wholesale prices - it's lengthy but a very good read! ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

Batteries vs gas: who wins on price in Great Britain? YouTube video by Modo Energy

Sometimes the gas plants are only running to provide grid stability services now. Fortunately grid scale batteries are gradually eating that market. They are also undercutting the gas plants on peak price bids, giving hope prices will start to fall before too long: youtube.com/shorts/uNGcg...

Front cover of this weeks' Private Eye magazine. Also check out their podcast if you haven't already!

About ten spaces left if anyone else would like to head along on the evening of this coming Wed (18th Mar), 6:30 at the Friends' Meeting House, Brighton, UK to learn about three locals' experiences eco-renovating their homes bsky.app/profile/butt... #passivhaus #retrofit

“Iran is a huge country with a huge population. If this goes wrong, we could see tens of millions of refugees on the move.”
- Rory Stewart
(The Rest is Politics)

Moving Home with an Electric Van How my daughter and her boyfrind arrived in their new home

I've just written a review of the 100% electric Citroen e-Dispatch. It might be moving in more ways than one.
llewellyn.substack.com/p/moving-hom...

Hired my first electric van last week. A long wheelbase Ford Transit. A pleasure to drive and the hire firm (Choice Vehicle Rentals in Brighton) include the first 50 miles of electricity free of charge (they don't do that with their fossil Transits).

Free to attend but spaces limited - please book via the link above.

Thinking about retrofitting your home? We are sharing real experiences. Join us for a free, informal evening in Brighton where local householders share their real-life retrofit experiences.

Come and see three people talk about how they made their homes more comfortable and healthier to live in whilst dramatically reducing their energy bills in #Brighton on the evening of Wednesday 18th March 2026 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/thinking-a... See you there! #passivhaus #greenbuilding #greensky

...PHPP was developed to simplify the modelling process for designers, but was based on the earlier modelling. It was first released in 1998. Some details here: passipedia.org/examples/res...

The modelling was initially done manually (e.g. "Feist, Wolfgang. Passive houses in Central Europe: theoretical investigations of simulation models for the thermal behaviour of buildings and application to the design of construction details of passive houses." 1992)...

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…

Living in some less interesting times would be nice for a while...
theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

Govt and Drax have now finalised this contract, with a slightly lower price of £110/MWh in 2012 prices (£153/MWh)

Key points remain as below

www.drax.com/press_releas...

Tidal?

Comic. [2x2 chart. Top left quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of dinosaurs stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, and long-neck dinosaur. Top right quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, and pteranodon. Bottom left quadrant: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of penguin, egret, ostrich, pigeon, falcon. Bottom right: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of squirrel, stapler, plant, person, and bicycle.]

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

xkcd.com/3204/

Just read about the forthcoming gold Trump sculpture and thought of this piece I created for GQ back in the spring of 2016, before he was even elected, speculating on what a Trump White House might look like. It’s amazing how predictable he is.

25yrs of personal (direct) carbon accounting

25yrs of household (direct) carbon accounting

25yrs of household energy tracking

Main components of our household carbon emissions for 2025. It shows how even a small number of short haul flights has a significant carbon footprint

Personal and household CO2 emissions data for 2025 shows our 3rd full year without gas use. Overall very small changes from last year. Direct emissions from the house/car etc were down slightly (again).
Total household CO2 exc flights = 843kg, inc flights 1388kg,
personal share of total = 559kg.

Time series of global temperature anomalies from 1980 to present with predictions for 2025 (made in Dec 2024), and 2026, along with the YTD estimate for the 2025 (with only one month to go).

Scientists are supposed to be happy when their predictions are skillful, right?

Why do I not feel happy?

What's the real story with Australian rooftop solar? Saul Griffith joins me to debunk the myths surrounding Australia's massive influx of solar energy.

Today on Volts: you've probably heard that Australia has cheap rooftop solar power. You've probably also heard some rumors & myths about it. (Is it destabilizing the grid?) I called my favorite Australian energy expert to clear it all up. This is a fun one!
www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-...