iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

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...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

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

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

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

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

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 :(

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

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

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

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

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

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...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

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!

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

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!

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

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...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

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...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

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.

BBC news saying food price rise because of heatwaves and drought

World weather attribution study for the June 2025 heatwave

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

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 💡🔌

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

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...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

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...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

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?🔌💡

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

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

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

@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...)

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

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

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

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).

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

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.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

You'll see lots of "news" about the closing of Vauxhall's Luton plant, associated with the UK's ZEV mandate. EG the Mail below. This is PR to disguise an unpopular closure, not an EV thing. In fact, Stellantis (Vauxhall's owner) is consolidating everywhere so it can compete with Chinese EV brands.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 14/10/2024

I've now read the UK's new industrial strategy, and am disappointed to not find references to the 'Medici model' as a solution for the UK's regional productivity gap - seems that Labour has ditched Michael Gove's inimitable style (for those who had forgotten: www.thearticle.com/michael-gove...)

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 26/09/2024

This doesn't sound like GB Energy is speeding up SMRs - 4 companies on the short list, down from a longlist of 5. EDF pulled out last month, and Nuscale - the only company that didn't make it - has been on life support since its Utah contract got cancelled...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 12/09/2024

Chris Stark's first public speech since he became head of Mission Control

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

Our most recent work shows that anything - pumped hydro, compressed air storage, H2 power stations, CCS, even using car batteries to firm the grid for more than 10h at a time - would be cheaper than unabated gas. green-alliance.org.uk/wp-content/u... Why choose expensive and dirty?

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

We've known since 2011 that there was real risk of gas lock in. We didn't anticipate the invasion of Ukraine, or that this would double your energy bills. Seems mad to double down on the technology that made for the highest energy bills in a generation.

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

The UK wants to build more gas power stations. It's an admission of gov't failure: we've known since 2016 that the capacity market wasn't building clean, flexible power (and demand response/reduction). At an 80% emissions cut, large new gas power didn't make sense: (1/n)

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 13/02/2024

Scrapping Labour's £28bn pledge raises a big question about how it (or frankly any other party) would boost UK growth: www.businessgreen.com/news-analysi...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 07/02/2024

Some criticism of Labour's building upgrade plan today. Govt's assumed a 'fabric first' approach to retrofit. That's expensive. I expect Lab would instead retrofit heat pumps with less insulation, which is ~45% cheaper than fabric first, and 6-13x cheaper per tCO2 abated. t.co/sN6wEyWzIX 🔌💡

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

@niesrorg.bsky.social's take on today's UK inflation feels right to me www.niesr.ac.uk/publications...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 03/01/2024

Some 2 years after the EU, the UK has finally approved 3-NOP/Bovaer, a methane-suppressing feed additive. www.farminguk.com/news/uk-auth... Time to start blending it into dairy feed, to cut the carbon footprint of cows! green-alliance.org.uk/wp-content/u...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 11/12/2023

This is the UN's FAO's global pathway for greenhouse gases. www.fao.org/interactive/... Things to note: - a linear track from fossil fuelled ag to BECCS - little happens to methane until 2040, when it ~halves in 5 years. Would *love* to see the underlying modelling assumptions on these...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 22/11/2023

If you care about restoring nature and a good food system, you should care a lot about England's ELM - Europe's most progressive rural payments programme for nature. Here's a pretty stark warning from @rspb.bsky.social about how far off track it's got: greenallianceblog.org.uk/2023/11/22/t...

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 21/11/2023

Of course the record profits in the north sea oil and gas industry leave them too poor to clean up their mess. /s

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 27/10/2023

Join me, Dhanush Dinesh from Clim-Eat, & Nancy Aburto from FAO at a Table Debates hosted #COP28 discussion of the role governments should play in shifting to more sustainable diets. 14 Nov at 5pm GMT. Register here: tabledebates.org/cop28-nanny-st

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Dustin Benton @dbenton.bsky.social · 27/10/2023

Pity the Kentish Plover, named for Kent and not set to be reintroduced back to the UK by the current government :( www.independent.co.uk/climate-chan...

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