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Utility Week 7th March

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UtILItY WEEK | 7th - 13th March 2014 | 31 Community Disconnector Editor: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; Energy editor: Megan Darby, t: 01342 332087, e: megan.darby@fav-house.com; Features editor: Karma Ockenden, t: 01342 332086, e: karma.ockenden@fav-house. com; Reporter: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Reporter: Conor McGlone, t: 01342 332083, e: conor.mcglone@fav-house.com; Production editor: Paul Newton, t: 01342 332085; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Sales executive: Nicky Shaw, t: 01342 332070, e: nicky.shaw@fav-house.com; Publisher: amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Subscriptions: UK £577 per year, Overseas £689 per year, t: 01342 332011. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6aE. Published by: Faversham house Ltd, Windsor court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex rh19 1UZ Changing of the guard These are strange and confusing times, ponders Disconnector. And no, the great man isn't refer- ring to Vladimir Putin sending thousands of soldiers into the Crimea because he's sore that Russia lost the ice hockey. It's even weirder than that. Patrick Moore has been testifying to a US Senate com- mittee that climate change is not caused by humans and there is "no scientific proof " to support climate change alarmism. No, not that Patrick Moore (that would be miraculous – he's dead). We're talking about the co-founder of Greenpeace. The Canadian ecologist told the high-level committee: "There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth's atmos- phere over the past 100 years." He also claimed there is "little correlation" to support a "direct causal relationship" between CO2 emissions and ris- ing global temperatures. In a withering attack on his former colleagues, Moore said Greenpeace had veered to the le and was more interested in politics than science. He le the group in 1986. Moore also told the senators the Intergovernmental Com- mittee on Climate Change had pretty much made up the data to suit its "expert judgements". Finally, he declared that even if the Earth did warm up, we Disconnector might find it more to our liking. He said: "It is extremely likely that a warmer temperature than today's would be far better than a cooler one." So there. In the interests of balance, Disconnector feels the need to point out that Patrick Moore must be nuts. Smells like a winner Good news on the climate change front was flowing thick and fast last week. Not only did we learn that climate change alarmism was fraudulent, but scientists in Scandinavia discovered that the odours given off by pine trees transform into "natural aerosols" as they float up into the atmosphere, meta- morphosing into particles that reflect the sun's rays out to space and creating a cooling effect on the Earth that works against the warming effects of higher levels of carbon dioxide. One of the authors of the research, Dr Mikael Ehn, now based at the University of Helsinki, said that in a warmer world, photosynthesis would become faster with rising CO2 levels, which would lead to "more vegetation and more emissions of these vapours" from pine forests. "This should produce more cloud droplets and this should then have a cooling impact; it should be a damping effect," he is quoted as saying. It seems like a heady claim for a Christmas tree, but as Disconnector has noted before, it's a strange world. Circuitous thinking It was with much jubilation that the country's media greeted the news that Formula One could be heading for Lon- don. Notwithstanding the local difficulty facing the sport's supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, in Germany (he's up before the beak there charged with bribery), the government has backed his proposal to turn London into the "jewel in the crown" of F1 by staging a 14-corner circuit in the city. It would cost around £35 million to stage and numer- ous practical and logistical obstacles would have to be overcome, but the government is attempting to remove the most basic one by giving local authorities the right to suspend speed limits for the staging of road races. Currently it would require an act of Parliament. There is a certain irony that the government is paving the way for an event that glorifies speed and non-sustainability (the cars barely last for one race), while trying to persuade the rest of us that we need the exact opposite. Officials at Decc will find it difficult to ignore the contra- dictions, or indeed the race. The proposed circuit runs virtually past their offices in Whitehall Place. 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2012 Subscriptions: UK £577 per year, Overseas £689 per year fhcustomerservices@ abacusemedia.com Steve Hawkes @steve_hawkes Ofgem does good shock! It orders Big Six to return £400m from "closed" accounts, ex-customers that overpaid Will Hawker @will_hawker *High fives @ofgem* Martyn Allison @grobykid So OFGEM strike again. Teeth being shown!! Howard NOT the duck @Buckethandle Dear @ofgem, why didn't you tell the big6 to return the £406m when it was only £1m? You can't keep an eye on the kids when you're in the pub Megan Darby @UW_Megan …Captain Clean Energy reckon their #ccs project can compete with offshore wind on price, with no capital grant Jim Watson @watsonjim2 @UW_Megan A bold claim, but we'll need to wait and see whether such optimism warranted. It was a good meeting – more optimism than last yr! RoythornesAgriTeam @Roythornes_Ag Nothing stands still with renewables incen- tives! DECC review RHI biomethane injection tariff for large plants Sam Macrory @sammacrory Lord Stern, former gov adviser on climate change, attacks bickering between Treasury & DECC and calls for gov to 'recommit' Alex Marshall @alexends Disappointed I'm yet to receive a press release calling for green levies to be cut given likely gas price rise due to Ukraine crisis CCC @theCCCuk This week is #ClimateWeek, an annual celebration of those contributing to reducing emissions and tackling #ClimateChange Richard Hall @richonlyinname RWE results refer to consumers using less energy being a "burden" on its UK supply busi- ness. Gee thanks, you say the nicest things Top Tweets

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