Friends, I have recently been going on (and on …) about different modes of temperature control for heat pumps. And I have emphasised the utility of a thermostat – the most basic tempera…

Friends, when switching from a gas boiler to heating with a heat pump, householders are commonly obliged to get used to the idea of weather compensation (WC). Instead of the familiar act of setting…

Friends, last Sunday I had the chance to sing three songs in a ‘floor spot’ at the local folk club (TwickFolk). And inevitably, I sang some songs about Climate Change. A floor spot at a…

Friends, this week I been mainly pointing the spectrometer I bought at various sources of light and taking a look at their spectra. Please join me on a romp through my results. Warning. I love this…

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Friends, in an unprecedented media blitz, this article is being co-published with newspaper publishing giant, The Maidenhead Advertiser. =============================== Who am I to talk about Net Z…

Friends, recently I have been continuing to avoid thinking about EPCs. I have instead been thinking about washing my dirty laundry in public. Or more precisely, drying my laundry in public. Unless …

Friends, when my now wife and I first moved in together, we bought a cook book as a symbol of our domestic focus. It was a book by Delia Smith and we were attracted by the fact that the cover showe…

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Friends, at one point on my recent EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) adventure, I was a speaker on Radio 4’s You and Yours along with Stuart Fairlie, the Group CEO of Elmhurst Energy. Elmh…

Friends, the unit of energy used for most domestic energy purposes is the kilowatt hour (kWh): it’s the unit in which we are billed for energy use, and in terms of domestic energy consumption…

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Friends, as you may know, my house has very low running costs. In 2024, total costs amounted to just £161 including standing charges and this year the cumulative charges up to the end of July are n…

Friends, a regular reader wrote to me the other day to enquire about progress in solid-state heat pumps. I explained that solid-state heat pumps weren’t very efficient, mentioned the last inn…

Friends, as you may be aware, I love heat pumps. And so a few weeks ago, I was delighted and surprised to be invited to visit the offices of a UK company developing a new domestic heat pump: ICAX. …

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Friends, my wife and I have just returned from a few days holiday in Kent. Here a few photographs: On returning home we were shocked and saddened to find that in our absence, our apple tree had fal…

Friends, I ventured north last week to the beautiful city of Birmingham. What drew me away from my home & garden was the possibility to attend the third annual unconference: Towards the first o…

Friends, our meteorological measurements show unequivocally that the Earth is warming at rate of slightly more than 0.2 °C per decade. This estimate is arrived at by collating data from thousands o…

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The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – wh...

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Friends, back in 2014 my eldest son, X, headed off to university and I took a look at how “Student Loans’ worked (1 , 2). I concluded that they made no sense whatsoever. X? Yes, both my…

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Friends, the other day I came across an interesting article by Daan Walter: Renewables allow us to pay less, not twice. What Kemi Badenoch, and many others, get wrong about renewables. The article …

Friends, the other day I found myself at a book launch. In Islington! I am beginning to wonder if I have unknowingly become a member of the metropolitan elite. The book in question was Scientists o…

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Friends, two years ago at this time of year I wrote: “March 2023 has been dull. Really. Really. Dull. I long for sunshine.” My depression did not just arise from …

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2 March 2025 Friends, back in September 2024, I wrote about my increasing scepticism of the feasibility of projects seeking to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere. I had been paying one such c…

Friends, I will be giving some more talks about retrofit and heat pumps in the coming months. Please do spread the word! Hampton Hub: 13th March 2025 At Hampton Hub on the evening of Thursday 13th …

15 February 2025  Friends, I received my January electricity bill from Octopus Energy the other day: It amounted to £91.92 for the period 12th January to 11th February 2025. Unless the latter part …

Friends, “Retrofitting” refers to the process of insulating buildings; installing renewable heating such as heat pumps; and installing renewable energy technologies such as solar panels and batteri…

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10th January 2025 Friends, the capacity of my Tesla Powerwall 2 is declining by around 0.4 kWh per year i.e. about 3% of its nominal 13.5 kWh capacity. Measuring the decline in capacity The capacit…

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