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 !
Here is my latest reflection on Cleantechies : ” The more I delve into energy and climate issues, the more this seems completely evident : we should prefer energy efficiency and sobriety over renewables.“
” Making efficiency a priority – whereas renewables are the priority nowadays – will without a doubt benefit the consumer, the society as a whole and our common environment. This would be a win-win-win move.”
As always, to read the full article, please check out Cleantechies. All comments and shares on social networks are welcome.
You would think that the inventor of the iPod would rest and enjoy the money he made afterwards. Well, he isn’t and this is great news for all of us as Tony Fadell invented a smart thermostat, the Nest Learning Thermostat.
Knowing that we adjust thermostats up to 1,500 per year and that over 10 million thermostats are sold each year in the U.S. alone, he started a new company which is now selling these great, design appliances.
Cleantechies notes that these thermostats sell for $249 and save up to $173 per year. It thus have a return on investment of less than a year and a half ! Continue »
To the AFP : ” Harmful carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels made their biggest ever annual jump in 2010, according to the US Department of Energy’s latest world data released this week. “
Global greenhouse gases emissions rose by SIX percent compared to 2009. This represents no less than 564 million more tons of carbon. Out of this, China is responsible for almost half of it alone. US emissions kept rising too…
Such an increase – when we have to stabilize our emissions and even slash them by a factor three by 2050 – is a really bad omen for our common future… Continue »
I reported at the very beginning of this year that 2011 could be the year of energy efficiency. It seems to be the case as I have been witnessing an increasing interest for conservation and efficiency.
These are good news as efficiency is the panacea to our energy and climate problems as “73% of global energy use could be saved through energy efficiency improvements.”
As I browsed the selection of my September tweets, I found several articles on how efficiency is getting more and more popular. Continue »
As GreenTech Media notes : ” President Obama and leaders from major automakers today heralded an agreement to raise the average fuel economy for light trucks and cars to 54.5 miles per gallon.” (Today they are at 28.3 MPG.)
-$1.7 trillion. (around 1,200 billion euros) That’s the estimated amount of money that Americans will save from 2011 through 2025 on gas because of the new rules, the White House estimates. “
I believe this is a good thing but I am still not satisfied. Indeed, American cars consume to date much more than their European and Japanese counterparts. Continue »
Further to the Fukushima catastrophe in March, Japan has been decreasing in a massive way its electricity consumption. Indeed, only 17 nuclear reactors are bringing power to the grids out of the 54 existing ones. As the New York Times notes :
” Preliminary figures indicate that regions under conservation mandates have been able to meet reduction targets and even exceed them, providing a possible model of conservation’s potential when concerns about global warming are mounting. “
” In the Tokyo area, the government is pushing to cut electricity use by 15 percent between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays to prevent blackouts – and on Thursday, that target was met compared with last year.” Continue »
You may perhaps remember it, the International Energy Agency is banking a lot on carbon capture and storage (CCS). Indeed, the IEA believes that it could account for 15 % of greenhouse gases emissions reductions.
However, CleanTechnica got an interesting article on how this solution fails to deliver. One of the main reasons is that ” globally there are now fewer than half a dozen full-scale CCS projects in operation around the world. ”
I believe we should stop banking on this technology. I previously wrote that it won’t solve the climate change problem as it is is too risky, too expansive, too little and… too late. Continue »
During my daily hours of commute I have been reading for the past two weeks Crossing the Energy Divide by Robert and Edward Ayres. The thesis defended by the authors is simple :
Between the world of today with an economy relying on fossil fuels and the world of tomorrow relying only on clean and low carbon energy sources, massive investments in energy efficiency are required.
These investments will be able to bridge the gap, the chasm, between these two worlds. This book brings many more ideas and figures. Continue »
Late last year GreenTech Media published an article stating that this year will be the one dedicated to energy efficiency. As you know the potential of energy savings is quite huge. As the author notes there :
” I believe that this is the year that we will really see cleantech companies which are focused on energy efficiency take off. We’re already seeing the groundwork being laid for this development. “
Fully addressing the challenge of doing more with much less will require all the ingeniosity Humans are capable of. This is an exciting – and vital – challenge as fossil fuels are peaking. Continue »
While browsing CleanTechnica I found an interesting article on peak oil. According to a leaked military report from the German Bundeswehr, peak oil will occur this year and the consequences will be dramatic.
Among them are market failures and tremendous risks for democracy itself. As Cleantechnica notes “ it is unlikely that any nation would be unaffected by such crises. “ This is not exactly encouraging news.
Meanwhile, the US Army is also thinking about the risks of peak oil and may stop completely using this energy source by 2040. Continue »
