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Topic 1) emphasises the urgency of energy transition.

Topic 2) is the main focus of the document, with the paper by Sgouridis et al, 2016.
This identifies the relationship between the remaining fossil fuel emissions cap, the transition time, and the required investment in Renewable Energy (RE) supply plant.

Topics 3) and 4) refer to the initial conditions prior to the energy transition.

Topic 5) compares the Energy Return on Investments (EROIs) of Renewable Energy (solar and wind power) supply measures with the weighted average value of 20 assumed by Sgouridis et al.
Topic 6 is concerned with the global limits of renewable power sources.
Where Topics 3) and 4) deal in UK quantities, Topic 6) deals in Global quantities. However, the UK must expect to use only a proportionate share - e.g. equal per capita.

Topics 7) and 8) consider energy demand measures as complements of the supply measures assumed by Sgouridis et al. They refer to two papers by Cullen and Allwood et al, 2010 and 2010.
Including energy demand measures will greatly ease an energy transition within the constraints, such as 2 C global warming.

Nuclear fusion power on earth poses extreme technical challenges.
One is the attainment of at least 100 million degrees C for long enough to produce net energy.
Another is that any power plant fuelled with Deuterium and Tritium must 'breed' enough Tritium to sustain itself.

Yet fusion power is futile because it cannot be deployed at a meaningful scale before 2050.
This is the target date for Zero Carbon - hopefully limiting Global Warming to less than 2 C.
So by this date all energy must be supplied from proven renewable sources such as Solar Photovoltaics, Wind Power, Hydro Power, sustainable Biomass and Solar and Deep Geothermal Heat.

Gordon Taylor & Richard Pearson

I met Dr Richard Pearson when I attended a talk he gave on biofuels and synthetic liquid fuels for road transport. In this he mentioned with approval the paper 'The Future of the Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak?'. I therefore proposed that we collaborate - to which he agreed.

The on-site generation of electricity and heat from renewables – often called microgeneration - has been proposed in the U.K. for saving carbon – reducing carbon emissions – in the buildings sector.

We’re getting there, aren’t we? We’re making the transition towards an all-electric future. We can now leave fossil fuels in the ground and thwart climate breakdown. Or so you might imagine, if you follow the technology news.

So how come oil production, for the first time in history, is about to hit 100m barrels a day? How come the oil industry expects demand to climb until the 2030s? How is it that in Germany, whose energy transition (Energiewende) was supposed to be a model for the world, protesters are being beaten up by police as they try to defend the 12,000-year-old Hambacher forest from an opencast mine extracting lignite – the dirtiest form of coal? Why have investments in Canadian tar sands – the dirtiest source of oil – doubled in a year?

The answer is, growth. There may be more electric vehicles on the world’s roads, but there are also more internal combustion engines. There be more bicycles, but there are also more planes. It doesn’t matter how many good things we do: preventing climate breakdown means ceasing to do bad things. Given that economic growth, in nations that are already rich enough to meet the needs of all, requires an increase in pointless consumption, it is hard to see how it can ever be decoupled from the assault on the living planet.

The Fukushima disaster was aggravated by the personnel being responsible for multiple reactors under emergency conditions.

There had been no testing or drills of Station Blackouts and Loss of Cooling Accidents in the 40 years since the reactors were built.

Once reactor meltdowns and radioactive releases had occurred, they had no means of mapping the fallout to guide evacuation.

The later Abe government coerced ‘voluntary’ evacuees to return by stopping their housing subsidies after only six years. Many still resist returning, despite the hardships.

The Abe government also sought to restart the 39 remaining operable nuclear power plants, but succeeded with only a few. Nuclear power is still strongly resisted by most Japanese.