Recently, China has been working hard to reverse their image as the world’s most polluted country and the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. A recent study revealed that they are now the world’s leader in clean energy efforts, leaving other more-developed countries far behind.
On Feb. 14, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama made a proposal to Congress to raise 2012 budget funds for renewable energy research. He proposed paying for this budget increase by cutting subsidies for fossil fuels including gas and oil.
This budget increase comes at a rather sensitive time for the White House.
I just had a very interesting conversation on one of my favorite topics: solar thermal, or concentrated solar power (CSP). I came across Ahura Energy of Campbell, CA on the fantastic online resource OnGreen.com, and spoke with Dr. Fareed Sfard, the company’s CEO, who boasts over 20 years experience in the Solar industry.
Those of us who have seen the film documentary “Crude” were heartened yesterday as a court in Ecuador ordered the oil giant Chevron to pay $8.6 billion for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into Ecuador’s rain forest. The judgment is one of the largest ever imposed for environmental contamination in any court.
Recently many states have chosen to deregulate their energy markets. This means that homeowners and consumers can choose who generates the power that they use. This is done in part to lower utility prices and to let competition drive the more or less monopolized market. At the moment there are 28 states that have deregulated either electricity, natural gas or both. In a
I’m glad to see so much coverage of electric transportation in the mainstream press. You know you’re making headway when msn.com is running “The Five Things You Should Know About Electric Vehicles” among its up-to-the-minute coverage of Brittany Spears, Charlie Sheen and hot guacamole recipes for Super Sunday.
However, with that much exposure –
Will electric vehicles be as popular as the iPhone? That’s what Henrik Fisker says, the man behind the 4-door luxury Fisker Karma. The Karma will start production in March and is slated to show up in U.S. showrooms in April. The MSRP is $95,000, but Fisker points out that the starting price on new technology is always high, but descends quickly as manufacturing processes scale
We hear a great deal about partisan bickering in Washington, but according to a webinar I attended yesterday on power transmission, the governors of each state on the eastern seaboard of the US from Maine to Virginia are all in complete accord on the imperative to develop offshore wind. “There are a couple of extremely
Two pieces on sustainability for your consideration:
1) I don’t know anyone who doesn’t admire the insight — not to mention the popularity — of best-selling business author and NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. Here’s a good article he wrote in 2009 on the importance of sustainability.
I think we’re all a bit curious about the ultimate disposition of the energy industry – both here in the US and around the globe. In the States, 49% of our electricity comes from coal, and the penetration of renewables is under 2%. Worldwide, about 80% of energy for all purposes comes from burning hydrocarbons. So if that’s where we are, where are we going?
It’s a frustrating time for those of us who follow the international energy news and try to get the big picture on the slow migration to renewables. The biggest single problem, of course, is that we live on a planet with almost 200 sovereign countries each with autonomy to create of its own energy policy — or simply avoid the issue entirely, like we’ve done here in the US. And often,
“There is no energy crisis, just a crisis of ignorance,” the great Buckminster Fuller once wrote. I’ve been Googling this, learning more about it, and challenging myself to figure out what it truly means in our world today.
Check out the video below from non-profit education/research organization GENI.org, featuring some of Fuller’s ideas — among them
I believe everyone should have a decent level of familiarity with this Wikipedia listing on the world energy scene, which provides a bit of top-level math. As a civilization, we consume energy at the rate of 15 terawatts (15,000,000,000,000,000)– an estimated 80% – 90% of which comes from fossil fuels. Thus, when we talk about a gigawatt solution — certainly nothing to sneeze at —
The results of political compromise — maybe by definition — are seldom satisfactory to anyone. But hasn’t this whole process recently gotten worse than ever before? The ultimate version of the healthcare reform that the Obama administration put through was the product of a hammer and tongs fight from the