15 July: Debate with Energy Minister Lord Hunt re proposed UK feed-in tariff rates on BBC’s The World Tonight (from 19.00 minutes in). The UK Renewables Consultation, out today, proposes rates that are too low to attract serious investment in solar, I argue. Hermann Scheer, father of the German feed-in tariff agrees. Lord Hunt argues not, but emphasises that this is a consultation, and decisions will come later - prior to the April 2010 introduction of the tariff. Also discussed: are nuclear advocates in the Civil Service on a renewables go-slow? I fear so, Lord Hunt says not.

The drama unfolding: top ten recent developments from my Triple Crunch log (2006-present)

• 9 May 2009:  Economics correspondent makes 7% annual return on his PV panels . The Guardian’s Ashley Seager generates more than 90% of his own electricity, a powerful hedge against energy-price inflation, while saving well over a tonne of carbon dioxide each year.
• 19 May 2009: Leaking nuclear reprocessing plant faces mothballs for four years. The Thorp plant at Sellafield was supposed to provide much of the £70billion + needed to decommission the existing set of aged British reactors. Who will pay for that now, I wonder. The same people that bailed out the banks?
• 14 May 2009: BP CEO says solar PV won’t ever compete with traditional energy without a breakthrough in technology. Whereas Solarcentury, Sharp and others say it will compete even in cloudy Britain by 2013. Some difference of opinion, and we will find out who is right soon.
• 15 June 2009: UK MPs make Commons solar power motion the most supported in Parliament. At least some of these, we must presume, prefer to believe Solarcentury on PV economics than BP.
• 21 June 2009: Relying on renewables is a pipedream, Saudi oil boss says. Well, lets see. We believed what the investment banking industry said about its assets, and look what happened. Is it possible that the oil industry has its asset assessment systemically wrong too? If it has, won’t we be needing to deliver the pipedream rather fast?
• 26 June 2009:  Tally of UK nuclear leaks and other safety events in the last 5 years: 1,750. And in France? This industry has had half a century to get its dangerous and expensive technology at least to stop leaking. It has failed. This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the problems, as a scan of the Triple Crunch log on this website shows.
• 29 June 2009: Is the French nuclear industry hijacking new renewables agency? EDF, owned by the French government, is telling the UK government they have to choose between new nuclear and a major share for renewables in the UK energy mix. And now a French government official will run IRENA, the new international renewables agency.
• 7 July 2009: Ecotricity takes EDF to the High Court for stealing their idea in greenwash ads. EDF, who argue against even 20% renewables in the UK energy mix, are driving vans around the UK, painted with the Union Jack, coloured completely green. They call it a “Greening Britain” campaign. What a load of bull merde.
• 30 June 2009: RBS faces High Court action to force socially responsible investment. NGOs have launched legal action insisting bailout funds must be spent consistently with progressive government policy on, for example, climate change. The courts are likely to have a big say in how the climate-change drama plays out. Pension fund investors, for example, have what is called “fiduciary responsibility” to pension holders. If maximising profits in the short term fuels global warming in the longer term to such an extent that when the pension holder retires, she does not have a viable society to retire into because of the ravages of climate change, can that be called fiduciary responsibility?
• UK Government publishes consultation on execution of plan for a low-carbon Britain. This would include the Department of Climate Change and Energy (DECC) seizing control of the grid so as to favour connection of renewables. En route to 34% greenhouse-gas reductions on 1990 levels by 2020 (18% on 2008 levels), 40% of UK electricity would come from renewables and nuclear, more than 30% from renewables (up from 5.5%), 29% from large-scale generation (wind and tidal), and just 2% from all renewable microgeneration.
• See the thematic pages on this site  (oil, coal, solar, nuclear, CSR, investing) for more detail and further comment, and the Triple Crunch Log for many more developments, from 1 January 2006 to the present day, spanning all subjects relevant to the climate-, financial-, and energy crises.

Latest writing in the Guardian

My blogs on the website of a British national daily, including occasional op-eds, span the triple crunch: the financial-, climate-, and energy crises (2006 – present).

• 13 July 2009: E.On and EDF have drawn the battle lines between renewables and nuclear

Latest column in Sublime magazine

My columns from the first sustainable lifestyle magazine span the triple crunch, with the re-engineering of “dysfunctional 2007 capitalism” as a recurrent theme (2008 – present).

• 1 May 2009: Starting over

Latest writing in other media

• 13 July 2009: International Herald Tribune, with Paul Hohnen: Getting serious about climate change

Latest at Solarcentury

The company I founded, and am chairman of, aspires to be a big player in construction-integrated solar energy - designing, manufacturing and installing our own products to turn buildings into power stations - and to do it for a purpose: making as big a difference as we can in the fight to abate climate change.

• 15 May 2009: Staff see off round-the-world cyclists raising money for SolarAid.

Latest at SolarAid

The charity Solarcentury founded with the first 5% of our profits (in 2006) hopes to play a major role in replacing every kerosene lantern in Africa with solar lanterns and other lighting devices assembled and sold by young African entrepreneurs, who we train. We now have fast-growing operations in four African countries. Our patrons include Cate Blanchett.

• 7 July 2009: SolarAid and Solarcentury win Best Business and Small Charity Award

“An incredibly inspiring read …a compelling, exciting and inspiring case for solar as a central thrust of a renewable energy future.”
www.Treehugger.com

Press contacts
Ruth Killick, Profile Books 90207 841 6307 / ruth.killick@profilebooks.co.uk) or Charlotte Webster 0207 803 0148/ 07990 583307 (charlotte.Webster@solarcentury.com)

Amazon.com: readers’ reviews and ordering

Read an extract from The Solar Century - Chapter 4 - ‘Solar Tech’, how cutting edge solar technologies work and are manufactured.

Download The Solar Century cover image

Amazon.com: readers’ reviews and ordering

“Vastly broadens our understanding. For the unscientific, this account of events from the International Panel on Climate Change set up by the United Nations in 1988, to the summit in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, is a revelation. Suddenly the apparently contradictory nature of so much we have heard and read falls into place.”
Glasgow Herald

“a page-turning story in racy prose” …“the final chapter is not only nail biting, but moves the reader to tears.”
Daily Mail

“The best book yet about the politics of global warming …essential reading.”
Sunday Times

“Racy… a powerful and highly readable book. Those who want a crash course on the nature of today’s environmental movement and the politics of the climate negotiations can be assured of an excellent, reliable read”
New Scientist

“The Carbon War is a must for anyone interested in observing how a few global oil corporations hijacked governments over the climate negotiations.”
Guardian

“provides ample evidence, much of it drawn from the author’s first-hand experience, to support its assertions. Mr Leggett knows both sides of the street.”
Economist

My account (1997 – 2005) of the peak oil threat: how the global oil industry is overblowing both its reserves and resources assessment and its ability to deliver oil to market in a timely manner, how the growing numbers of whistleblowers in an around the oil industry are faring with their warnings about the great global energy crisis that looms as a consequence, and how peak oil conflates with climate change.

Video: Meet the author

Amazon.com: readers’ reviews and ordering 

Portobello: publisher’s website

“Oil depletion is now meeting global warming …it’s scary….a mix of a textbook and a call to arms ….Few people could make the transition from geologist to oil consultant to chief scientist for Greenpeace and then to boss of Britain’s largest solar energy company ….his personal insights are fascinating ….the writing is always clear and conveys complicated but important technicalities in very accessible terms.”
Daily Mail

“Jeremy Leggett, former oil geologist and a fine writer, spells out the reality in Half Gone - and very different it is from the official blandishments from on high, in which the incompetence seems beyond belief and deception is a way of life.”
Guardian

“Leggett knows what he is talking about. ….The resulting book is a fast-moving, easily readable polemic whose unashamed populism doesn’t obscure the weight of it arguments.”
Sunday Times

“His arguments are so powerfully and persuasively drawn that his statements begin to seem obvious. ….a compelling must-read for politicians, pundits and punters alike.”
Independent

“Really excellent. Personal and passionate, but strong on the science and eminently reasonable. Certainly the best account of the Peak Oil debate that I have come across so far, and I really hope that it is having the impact on key people that it deserves.”
Jonathon Porritt, Commission on Sustainable Development

“Among the shelf full of books on the oil situation that have been published in the last year or so, (this) is far and away the best.”
Lester Brown, President, Earth Policy Institute

“What makes Half Gone important is that it goes beyond the conventional clarion call about “peak oil” to consider also the other great fossil-fuel-related crisis we face - global warming. ….Despite its gloomy topic, (it) is an impressive and jaunty read and should be mandatory for politicians and planners ….a detailed, finely poised, buoyantly optimistic and ultimately plausible vision of how increased energy efficiency and renewable energy sources can lead to an ecologically viable and soft, rather than hard, landing.”
Sydney Morning Herald

“Leggett’s case is equally convincing and frightening. ….gives a fresh, keen understanding of the imminent need to alleviate our economic dependency on oil.”
Internationalist: Journal of Culture and Currents, Winter 2005 (US)

“Leggett summarizes data…. that convincingly indicate that world oil production is in irreversible decline.”
Gilbert Taylor, Booklist (US)

Book of the year: Ian Irvine, Independent-on-Sunday

Bookseller magazine votes Half Gone one of the top 50 environmental books ever (November 2009).