Prompted by a conversation over on Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog I happened to glance at the Department of Energy and Climate Change's shiny new web site this morning, and discovered evidence strongly suggesting that Ed Davey is suffering from selective schizophrenia.

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According to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change:c

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker will both be attending the second week of the COP18 negotiations in Doha, commencing on 3rd December

The second week of the "18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" starts tomorrow at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar.

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Professor David MacKay used to work in the Physics department of Cambridge University. Now he's the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change.  Here's a video in which he explains how he halved his own personal energy consumption, and how you can too:

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After a lot of prevarication the Department of Energy and Climate Change web site now proudly proclaims that:

Consultation on the Renewables Obligation Banding Review is now closed.

In a press release yesterday the Secretary of State, Ed Davey, said that:

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Fresh from arguing about energy policy with the Treasury up in Westminster, Ed Davey has popped down here to South West England to help launch Cornwall Together, which according to their web site:

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Earlier this month Irish based GT Energy announced that they had:

Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with E.ON UK, one of the UK’s leading power and gas companies, to develop five new deep-geothermal heat and distribution systems. Under the terms of the partnership, the two companies will collaborate on five projects to tap into the heat that occurs naturally only a few kilometres underground, providing a reliable source of clean energy for homes and businesses.

However they didn't reveal the location of those five plants. Now they have taken the next step, and they announced today that they have:

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Amongst a plethora of TL(and longer)As it is our sad duty to report today that the Renewable Energy Association are very disappointed by the (in)actions of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.  The REA recently published the Summer 2012 edition of their "REA News" magazine. Here it is:

As you can see, in her introduction Gaynor Hartnell, REA Chief Executive, expressed the view that:

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The minutes of the meeting of the Teignbridge District Council planning committee have now been published, including the debate about a proposed 40 acre solar farm at Gold's Cross Hill near Tedburn St. Mary that I contributed to last Monday.

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I attended the Teignbridge District Council planning committee meeting at Forde House in Newton Abbot earlier today. I was there objecting to the proposed Tedburn St. Mary solar PV farm, and the members ultimately voted to refuse the application with a ratio of 3:1. Over coffee after the vote my local district councillor pointed out to me that a request for a screening opinion had been received for a 23.3 hectare solar PV park near Starcross.

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The COP17 climate change conference in Durban finally finished on Sunday a day and a half late. According to the final press release it:

Delivered a breakthrough on the future of the international community's response to climate change, whilst recognizing the urgent need to raise their collective level of ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep the average global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius.

The press release itemises the "breakthrough" decisions as follows:

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