Bad energy week for a new UK prime minister who (rightly) wants to cut electricity bills. If the conflict with Iran continues, mooted bill rises for the October-December price cap will be rather higher than hoped. Ofgem's observation window ends in mid August...

NB I assume St Johns isn't actually covered...

EU ETS pricing on aviation proposed to be extended to everywhere in blue - deftly this avoids a fight with China and the USA

The @foodfoundation.bsky.social's latest Broken Plate report launch: the cost of a healthy diet for the poorest 20% of the population would take up 80% of their disposable income, up from 70% last year. That's how bad food price inflation, partly driven by climate disruption, has become.

For the UK, the averages hide the effect of renewables: compare windy Sat night and sunny Sun where negative prices are predicted to windless Tues when gas is due to set the price.

Wild response to high fuel prices in Ireland. There's a scarcity of oil because the Strait of Hormuz is blocked so Irish hauliers and farmers are blocking an oil refinery in the hope that this somehow brings down prices.

The weekend is also looking very green. Could Sunday afternoon be the time when gas power stations get switched off for the first time? All but one of the UK's nuclear units will be online and the weather is looking good for it. Only rub is IFA broke again on the 21st :(

Lowest share of gas on the UK grid I have seen. Nice weather for renewables!

A good day to be inspired by Pakistan, which responded to the 2022 gas price spike by deploying ~50GW of solar, approx 18GW of which happened in 2024 alone.

ICYMI, the future is being made in California again: pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/02/c...

Lovely survey work by @chathamhouse.org on public attitudes to Chinese EVs. Something to keep in mind ahead of next week's EU EV announcements. www.chathamhouse.org/sites/defaul...

Whisky byproducts being turned into fish-free omega 3 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... < I did some work on circular economy opportunities in Scotland a LONG time ago and it's brilliant to see this finally coming off!

I see the EU's vast CBAM carbon intensity default values spreadsheet is out. A shame that it classifies UK power sector carbon intensity as 430gCO2/kWh. In 2025, UK power has actually had a carbon intensity of around 130gCO2/kWh - over 3x lower!

Pleased to be talking about the future of UK wind power in light of the loss of political consensus on climate - alongside Andrew Bowie, Conservative energy minister.

Nice bit of journalism here on a potential 5x rise in the farming inheritance tax threshold. I tend to agree that it buys no goodwill: news.sky.com/story/damage...

I'm looking forward to tea production stats from English tea growers (shout out to www.dartmoorestatetea.com, tregothnan.co.uk, and peterstontea.com) that look like this chart...

Why are food prices still on the up? Come on BBC - it’s global heating. Those droughts and heatwaves that raise food prices are 10x to 100x more likely because of the carbon emissions we’re putting into the atmosphere.

A 'don't invest in Britain' message from Reform. Two problems: 1. Nearly 1m people now work in the UK's green economy. This promises them unemployment. 2. AR7 allocates contracts. Reform won't honour contract law, which underpins private property. If you thought Liz Truss was bad, just wait 💡🔌

The OBR report you should be reading- excellent from @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org. Mitigation costs are down to ~0.5% of GDP and are *way* cheaper than avoidable damage costs. Plus, damage costs will rise - economics is a long way behind climate science. www.carbonbrief.org/obr-net-zero...

Uh these are most definitely not idiosycratic drivers of inflation for the 21st century, Mr Bailey. Climate risks are the inflation megatrend of this century. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

This is a problem for EV uptake in Europe: high electricity prices mean EVs are no longer always cheaper to run than petrol. Time-of-use pricing avoids this problem, but it's near impossible to find public chargers in the UK that are the same price as petrol.

The UK grid looks v clean for the next 48h. There's enough power to switch all fossil fuel generation off, but is there enough inertia? 4.9GW of nuclear, interconnectors, batteries and synchronous condensers are are due to be ready this year. But will NESO dare, given the recent Iberian blackouts?🔌💡

And in aviation, the CCC has been clever in linking demand growth with the growth of SAF and carbon removals. It's polluter pays and totally sensible. Airbus ditching H2 engines and SAF moving slowly is a bit of a problem though, but it's good to frame this as an industry problem to solve.

Peek under the surface though and the numbers show a lot of change. Eg in land use, the sharp turn after 2040 is due to planting lots of trees this decade. This can definitely raise rural incomes, and be beautiful- by 2040 the UK would still have a lot less woodland than France. But it's different.

Not sure 'ripping up the rules' is the right frame for nuclear power...

Kudos to Defra for producing (and releasing) lovely maps to accompany the land use framework consultation. I'll do a digested read before long, but this one jumped out - loads of opportunities for habitat creation in the unprofitable uplands are a real economic opportunity for rural England.

@henrymance.bsky.social well worth reading if you are at all interested in AMOC collapse. You should be: www.ft.com/content/7711... If you're interested in AMOC's little brother, the north Atlantic Subpolar Gyre (SPG), I coauthored a paper on it late last year (here: bsky.app/profile/dben...)

It's an unorthodox approach to zonal pricing...

Of course, on the disinformation machine that is X/Twitter, this is a Bill Gates conspiracy to give you eye irritation. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS (like lower carbon cows).

Here's why - EVs have eaten all the demand growth in fossil cars, globally, since the pandemic (HT @colinmckerracher.bsky.social). Yes, European carmakers risk being out-competed by Chinese EV makers, who now have a price and tech lead. The ZEV mandate isn't the problem.