Zurich is one of the most important cities of Switzerland. Zurich has helped to make Switzerland one of the leaders on cleantech investment and energy efficiency around the globe. Due to the waste management programs, sustainable transportation projects, renewable energy advances, and green
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carbon emissions
Chevron Energy Solutions and the City of Brea today unveiled Orange County’s largest municipal solar installation. The effort is part of a comprehensive energy efficiency and solar project expected to generate an estimated $13 million in net savings over the 25-year
Europe has set a bold target for itself, reducing its total carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 against 1990 levels. It is an ambitious goal, no doubt, but one that is certainly attainable at the rate the continent is going. Just last year, statistics showed that Europe’s emissions had already fallen by 8 percent. Taken as
By now, we’re all familiar with the idea that our lives, from the food we eat to the cars we drive, have carbon footprints. Flying comes under special scrutiny both because jets pump carbon directly into the upper atmosphere and because it is often volitional — we fly for business instead of teleconferencing and jet to
In the summer of 2009, U.S. and Australian climate politics had a similar look and feel. The lower houses of legislature in each country had passed carbon trading schemes and were waiting on their respective senates to act. While the U.S. House’s wide-ranging cap-and-trade bill didn’t stand much of a chance in
The Australian government has unveiled a proposal to tax its heaviest carbon dioxide emitters as of July 2012, a plan that would make Australia the first nation to put a price on carbon.
The plan, which is expected to pass both houses of parliament before the end of the year, would require
Waste Management Inc., the largest hauler of waste in the U.S., next week a will add its 1,000th truck fueled by natural gas, a landmark that reflects a trend toward new trucking fleets powered by alternative energy sources.
About half of those trucks, including the newest, run
Today, with more and more discussions about global warming, the transportation industry has been under scrutiny, especially air transportation. The airlines industry has been majorly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. The International Air Transportation Industry has been launching a
While some refer to lottos as a “tax on the stupid” the Dutch Postcode Lottery are making “grants for the smart” to support cleantech stars through their Green Challenge.
“The world must embrace a new, greener lifestyle. One bright idea can make a big difference. To
At Connectivity Week in Santa Clara, recently, I took part in a series of panel discussions on data center energy efficiency. The discussions covered a wide range of issues from the practicalities of infrastructure optimization to the possible role of data centers in demand response schemes. There was a particular
Last week was a good one if you happen to own a natural gas well. Two reports on the outlook for natural gas, both in the U.S. and worldwide, gave a glowing assessment of the fuel’s future prospects. The International Energy Agency (IEA) cheekily titled its report, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” The
You may surely know it by now : Germany decided to phase out completely all its nuclear power plants by 2022. This is done for political reasons as the local Greens are gaining power.
Some people are cheering as they believe this is great news for the environment. I, however, believe this is utterly wrong for the reasons I will outline in today’s article.
Today’s major environmental problem is climate change (or global weirding if you prefer).
You might believe that given the importance of the Greens in Deutschland, electricity emits little carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases per kWh. This clearly isn’t the case as I have previously wrote about it in a previous article for my own blog.
According to the book Sustainable Energy – without hot air, a French kWh is responsible for around 80 grams of CO2 equivalent ; A US one, 613 grams and a German one, 601 grams.
As you can see, German electricity is around eight times dirtier than the French one. The reasons for such a fact is simple : one country chose nuclear over coal. (to be honest and fair, France didn’t have coal anymore, as contrary to Germany…)
I am not saying that Germany should push for more nuclear. This isn’t my argument…
The Germans are, to my humble point of view, taking the problem by the wrong end: They shouldn’t be thinking about phasing out nuclear as soon as possible, but to phase out coal, which still accounts for 40 percent of local electricity production.
Renewables are witnessing an exponential growth there, and these are great news. But replacing nuclear by solar and wind won’t cut emissions. On the other hand, replacing coal by those same energy sources would literally benefit everybody.
It is widely admitted that coal is by very far the dirtiest energy source. Indeed, The Economist dubbed it as early as 2002 ” the Environmental Enemy Number One “.
Nuclear might be a problem as safety rules and regulations aren’t as tight and as enforced as they should be. Its waste might still be a problem for a few decades (endeavors towards recycling it are progressing), but coal is a much bigger problem.
Did you know that it takes a ton of coal to produce as much electricity as a gram of Uranium ?
Germany is a model for all governments for their support to renewable energy sources. But what always puzzled me is their hate of nuclear.
Sure, it isn’t exactly the perfect solution as the recent catastrophe of Fukushima in Japan have shown. But as I stated on my blog: “ Nuclear isn’t the solution, but there is no solution without nuclear.”
As you might have understood, and to infer this post, I don’t see any antagonism between renewables and nuclear. As a matter of fact, I see an important complementarity between the two.
I look forward to reading your opinion.
The city of London, which has set a goal of becoming the “electric car capital” of Europe, has launched a new network of 150 charging stations, increasing the total number of stations citywide to more than 400.
Calling a lack of charging points the biggest hurdle to the wider adoption of electric vehicle technology,