Welcome ! As a young French Marketing professional with a Master's in International Management I have been selecting since January 2007 the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change, cleantech and the world energy sector. Sounds great ? Don't hesitate to subscribe now !
Remember my post on how a trillion had been invested in cleantech ? Well, the trend is accelerating as $260 billion (approx. 200 billion euros) were invested in 2011 alone as Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported.
So, everything wasn’t so bad last year and especially not for the United States, which reclaimed their leadership from China in this sector. This was a first since 2008. What would happen if the US Governement was backing cleantech ?
America invested $56 billion and China $47 billion. Global investments in solar grew by 36 percent to reach $137 billion in 2011. Continue »
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a trillion dollars – that’s a thousand billion, or 748 billion euros – has been invested in renewable energies, energy efficiency and smart energy technologies since 2004.
As stated in the article : ” Annual clean energy investment has risen nearly five-fold, from $52bn (39 billion euros) in 2004 to $243bn (181 billion euros) last year, a compound annual growth rate of 29%. “
Bloomberg believes that world leaders in Durban should focus on how to keep this momentum rather than trying to find a deal on emissions. I blogged recently on how we could do just that…
I have been committed since January 2007 to bring you each month a selection of the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change and the world energy sector.
However, I don’t blog as much as I would like to and generally write around 25 posts per month. But many more news are worth reading. This is why I use Twitter to share dozens of news that are worth your time.
I believe it offers a good complement to this website. So if you are on Twitter and like this selection, don’t hesitate to start following me. Continue »
These are great news, just in time for the current climate talks taking place in Durban as to a new report from Bloomberg, global investments in renewables are surpassing for the first time ever the amounts invested in fossil fuels.
With economies of scale and scope, both solar energy and wind power are getting cheaper and cheaper, making them already seriously compete with much dirtier energy sources.
As a result, last year over $187 billion (141 billion euros) were invested in renewables and only $157 billion (118 billion euros) in fossil fuels. This is only the beginning. Continue »
According to the IEA’s annual report, the situation is getting bleaker and bleaker. Confirming that we have five years to start decreasing our global emissions – cf. my previous post on that very matter – it is also providing several other findings.
As you can sure imagine, several websites published lengthy articles on the very matter. In today’s article we will review the main findings and the most essential parts of the World Energy Outlook 2011.
World leaders will meet again very soon in Durban, South Africa, to discuss about the future of the Kyoto Protocol. It’s time they, we, step up and heed the calls for serious actions. Continue »
A post from TreeHugger got me thinking : why wouldn’t I give some of my computer time to help advancing research ? I had written about this almost three years ago, and being looking for a job, I often have a computer running.
So, a month ago, on August 2nd, I started gathering information on The World Community Grid, how it works and how I can help. One of the thing that got me considered this was that IBM is sponsoring the project.
My two-year old computer (based on an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400) is now running calculations that will help finding better solar panels, better water filtration systems and fight cancers and AIDS. Continue »
If you think the economic downturn is plaguing every sector, think again. To the UNEP : total global investments in clean energy grew by 32 percent in 2010 to $211 billion (146 billion euros). However, there is a catch :
To Grist : ” For the first time ever, developing countries lead yearly investment in clean energy — representing about $72 billion (50 billion euros) in spending in 2010, versus $70 billion in rich countries.
“China, with U.S. $48.9 billion in financial new investment in renewables (up 28%), was the world leader in 2010.” I am just wondering when the European Union as a whole will have some leadership… Continue »
According to the BBC quoting Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister : “As a nation, we need to put a price on carbon and create a clean energy future… Australians want to do the right thing by the environment.”
As they note : ” The Australian government has unveiled plans to impose a tax on carbon emissions for the worst polluters. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said carbon dioxide emissions would be taxed at A$23 ($25; £15, 17€) per tonne from 2012. “
These are good news as ” Australia is one of the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases per head of population. The country relies on coal for 80% of its electricity generation.” Continue »
This week the New York Times ran another great article on energy, this time on why natural gas may be worse than coal, regarding climate change. Until now, this energy source was said to be emitting half less than coal.
The implications of such a fact could be huge as the world wouldn’t be able to count on natural gas to be a bridging energy source. Indeed, even environmentalists were until recently advocating natural gas…
But is it really the case about natural gas in general or just specific types ? It turns that, like for oil, unconventional gas is more polluting that the traditional one. Continue »
… but fossil fuels are progressing even faster. This is in a nutshell the message from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA, the OECD energy office) latest report, the Clean Energy Progress Report. As GreenTechMedia noted :
” Renewable energy generation has grown, on average, by 2.7 percent a year since 1990. Electricity generation, however, has grown by 3 percent, meaning that the steps forward have been eclipsed by the overall market.”
Indeed, coal, despite being dozens of times dirtier than renewables, has fulfilled 47 percent of the new electricity demand in the past decade. Continue »
