Preface


What’s this book about?

I’m concerned about cutting UK emissions of twaddle – twaddle about
sustainable energy. Everyone says getting off fossil fuels is important, and
we’re all encouraged to “make a difference,” but many of the things that
allegedly make a difference don’t add up.

Twaddle emissions are high at the moment because people get emotional
(for example about wind farms or nuclear power) and no-one talks
about numbers. Or if they do mention numbers, they select them to sound
big, to make an impression, and to score points in arguments, rather than
to aid thoughtful discussion.

This is a straight-talking book about the numbers. The aim is to guide
the reader around the claptrap to actions that really make a difference and
to policies that add up.

This is a free book

I didn’t write this book to make money. I wrote it because sustainable en-
ergy is important. If you would like to have the book for free for your own
use, please help yourself: it’s on the internet at www.withouthotair.com.

This is a free book in a second sense: you are free to use all the material
in this book, except for the cartoons and the photos with a named photog-
rapher, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-
Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence. (The cartoons and photos are
excepted because the authors have generally given me permission only to
include their work, not to share it under a Creative Commons license.) You
are especially welcome to use my materials for educational purposes. My
website includes separate high-quality files for each of the figures in the
book.