Chief Scientist & Professor of Exploration Geoscience, Heriot-Watt University
Assistant Professor, Durham University
Chair of Urban & Regional Planning and Director of Canberra Urban & Regional Futures, University of Canberra, Visiting Professor, University of Warwick
Associate Professor in Biophysics, University of Pretoria
Production
US and Israel back Cypriot drilling
The US assistant secretary of state for Eurasian affairs, Wess Mitchell, has told Turkey not to obstruct drilling for gas in Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), according to Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper. Turkey says it will drill to the west of the island, despite protests from the Republic of Cyprus, which it does not recognise. Some […]
Transmission
1GW Belgium-UK link due for 2019 opening
A £600-million cable connecting the UK and Belgium national grids is about to be switched on, becoming the first of a new generation of interconnectors that will deepen the UK’s ties to continental Europe. It is due to enable up to 1 gigawatt of electricity to flow between countries, enough to power around a million […]
Storage
BMW and Porsche reveal fast-charging batteries
Electric vehicles (EV) may become quicker to charge as BMW and Porsche have demonstrated technologies to cut recharging times, in a move that could potentially overcome one of the main obstacles to persuading drivers to abandon their internal combustion engines. Test vehicles demonstrated to the media that most of a charge from a high-power cable […]
Consumption
Macron fuel tax sparks protests
Demonstrators from the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement have blocked France’s road network to oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s new fuel taxes. Diesel, the most commonly used fuel in French cars, currently costs around 23 cents more than a year ago, rising to about €1.51 per litre, reportedly the highest point since the early 2000s. World […]
Policy
COP24 agrees last-minute deal
The 195 countries represented at the Conference of Parties (COP24) overcame divisions on Saturday night to agree to rules for the enforcement of the 2015 Paris climate agreement on climate change. But activists say it is not ambitious enough to prevent global warming spiralling out of control. Disagreements over carbon markets almost derailed negotiations to […]
Environment
Poland praises its COP24 efforts
As the dust settles on the Katowice roadmap on how to enforce the 2015 Paris climate agreement, coal-dependent Poland is trying to gain credit for the last-minute deal. The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) adopted a final declaration after almost two weeks of debate and […]
Industry
Mixed response to COP24 deal
The UN climate talks in Poland have agreed rules on how nations can cut greenhouse gas emissions but environmentalists and countries calling for more ambitious climate goals remain frustrated. Negotiators also delayed decisions on two other climate issues until 2019 in an effort to get a deal. Michal Kurtyka, Poland’s president of the COP24 talks […]
Opinion
OPEC: Qatar’s prescient departure?
Qatar’s announcement earlier this month that it was quitting OPEC fueled speculation about the reason why Doha was leaving the influential cartel. While the Emirate has emphasized that it wants to increase liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and cement its reputation “as a reliable and trustworthy energy supplier across the globe,” some observers thought that […]
Duly Noted: the United States Sides With Russia and Saudi Arabia on Climate
At least the battle lines are no longer fuzzy. In advance of the 24th meeting of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, the United States joined three countries that desperately want to maintain oil’s dominance in the global energy mix – Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait – and […]