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Solar is not the wrong tech for, for example, Spain, which is well within HVDC distance for the UK. And claiming that in the entire UK there's no suitable land for the relatively small amount of area required for pumped hydro is just plain silly. And, FYI, it's already started.

What a load of nonsense. The only "health problem" I'm aware of related to wind turbines is Shadow Flicker, which has been refuted by studies. That hasn't stopped turbine producers like (Danish) Vestas from creating solutions that reduce or prevent shadow flicker by using sun position angle (and proximity of residences) to slow or stop the turbine blades if they would cause shadow flicker.

I'm with you; I'd rather see hydrocarbons used as lubricants/raw materials for manufacture than burned as energy. Which makes my job at Halliburton somewhat ironic, but life's funny that way.

The good news is that energy companies (and energy service companies) are eying the alternative energy market as an exit strategy from oil-as-energy. Halliburton does geothermal well cementing, and is trying to advance the art so the wells and plants can be more productive. Challenges include seismic instability, high permeability of the rock layers (you pick places where there are lots of natural fractures), and balancing the need for insulation/strength/durability of the cement. None of these problems are insurmountable, but making geothermal cost competitive with oil is challenging.

I'm personally surprised that we don't see closed-loop geothermal power systems. It seems like they're all farcture-and-collect style systems. Admittedly, fracture-and-collect exposes the water to more surface area of rock, and the wells are cheaper to drill. On the other hand, the operator wouldn't have to deal with produced sand/salt/corrosives that will invariably result from mingling water with rocks downhole, and there wouldn't be any issue with water losses.* If I had to take a guess, though, no-one does it for the same reason that oil/gas operators in the Rockies don't buy downhole sand control solutions - it's an upfront cost that they have to justify to a beancounter rather than an operating cost they can balance against ongoing profits (cost of doing business and all that...).

*Seriously, who approves these lossy geothermal systems in deserts? When there are crops to irrigate and drinking water needed for houses (not to mention sensitive ecosystems) I have trouble seeing how the water use of (big pdf warning!) nearly a gallon per kWh is practical.

Yeah, things are not all peaches and butterfly farts. Do you know what they do to get hydro electrical power sometimes? They flood entire valleys, destroys rivers and grounds, they destroys forests.

Do you know what kind of nonsense the solar is? The poisons that are created by the manufacturing process are not better than any other industrial waste, it's at least as bad as most other manufacturing processes out there.

Gas and oil are the simplest forms of fuels to store. We figured out the way to store them that are the simples, safest forms of storage developed compared to ANY other types of fuels. Your assertion has no value here, no electrical battery is better than a gas tank.

They are the simplest to handle, they are liquids basically, they are the easiest to refill into a container, they are the most convenient, obviously there are no nuclear rods and there are no dams.

There is NOTHING that people do that does not produce SOME FORM of pollution. It's physically impossible to produce no pollution of any kind at all while storing/using/generating energy.

Even electrical transmission lines can be called 'polluting' or 'hurting' the environment in some other ways.

Do you know why that is? It's because it's energy. We need energy to do stuff and if we don't have energy, we die. We die from hunger, from dirty water, from lack of sanitation, from cold, whatever. We MUST modify our environment and that's how we will survive and we MUST use the cheapest ways of producing energy that are available at any point in time so we can concentrate our attention on the pressing things that we DO with that energy, which probably lead to our continuous survival not only on this globe, that is now supporting 7billion people and will support probably 1000 times as many people in 1000 years, but also off this planet. There is nothing that we do that can be considered 'clean' by everybody, but we do what we must.

so the shopping centre can say "look at what we're doing for the environment"... completely ignoring the energy and pollution costs of making these tiles... we have one of those energy recovery plates in the entrance drive to Sainsbury's in Gloucester... they claim the energy from the cars goes into powering the checkouts.. pure greenwash to make the customers feel slightly happier about the fact they've driven to the store... and effectively they're stealing the energy from the customers as the cars are slowed by the plate... they'd have far more effect on the environment by making it harder to drive to the store and easier to use public transport and bicycles etc. to do the shopping with... PS. the one in Gloucester is positioned in a bad place where people are actually accelerating OUT of a corner into a straight... to be friendly to the customers, it should have been positioned just before a bend to reduce the braking needed

The question is whether they stick to the road map.

They won't. Energy poverty isn't politically viable. The UK will be missing its ambitious targets. Read the actual report here, Chapter 1 - Overview pp. 44. Read the political reality here. Green claims of wind energy successes in the UK are not panning out.

Putting voters is the dark while MPs debate more energy cuts inside well lit and comfortably heated government buildings will not work. It won't work in the UK and it wont work in Germany.

The targets are a political fiction.

Toyota makes more money off the Greenwashing effect of selling the Prius.

Doubtful. Considering the Prius is now the best selling car in Japan, I think they're making plenty of profit on it.

Polluting of the environment, genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs all constitute mortal sins, according to Girotti.