Last week 22 people lost their jobs when a solar firm with offices in London and South Wales went under. It is not the first and it won’t be the last, and the blame is being laid firmly at the feet of the British Government. The demise of Southern Solar won’t make front page news,…

Almost one year to the day that OPEC chose to face off the US shale revolution by maintaining production levels, it seems they’ve all but done that. The reason? It’s easy. He who produces cheapest lasts longest, and with crude oil fetching less than half of what it did a year ago, that was never…

For the first-time wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce both in the UK and in Germany, even without government subsidies. Some say this latest information (from Bloomberg New Energy Finance) is a landmark moment for the UK government but it means it now faces a considerable challenge.  In recent months it has been accused…

Wind is being tipped for the top in the drive to deliver more renewable power in Britain, with the country now capable of producing over 5 gigawatts of offshore power, which equates to supporting more than 3.5m homes and saving 6.3m tonnes of carbon emissions a year. A recent Greenpeace study confidently predicted that by…

The energy giant has decided to pull the plug on oil exploration in offshore Alaska “for the foreseeable future”, saying it had not found sufficient levels of oil and gas in the Burger J well to warrant further efforts. It is an astonishing development for the company which has spent $7bn on the project and…

Meanwhile in Germany so much electricity is generated from renewables that the solar superpower is finding it hard to handle the levels of output.  This emphasizes the need to focus investments on smarter ways of storing as well as using the energy that’s being produced. The UK broke a record in the first quarter of…

The end of the year looks set to be a busy time for Iran and those keen to establish new business links with its oil industry. The country’s oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh circled the end of November for a lifting of international sanctions, declared that within a week of that, oil production will increase…

Something very strange has happened in the North Sea. “It’s still early days,” says Oil & Gas UK Chief Executive Deirdre Michie, “But initial indications suggest production could increase this year for the first time in 15 years.” Cue Bryan Cranston and his mic. It was something no-one predicted. After several years of costs going…

Morgan Stanley’s a bit of a doom monger isn’t it? For the last six months it’s been saying this oil crash is as bad as the one in 1986 when oil prices fell 45%. But in a surprise move, it announced it no longer thinks this. No. It now says things could get really bad.…