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 !
To Cleantechies : ” Renewable energy investments in India increased by more than 52 percent in 2011, the fastest growth among major global economies, according to a new report.”
“More than $10.3 billion was invested in renewable energy projects in India last year, with about $4.6 billion targeting wind energy projects and another $4.2 billion going toward solar projects. “
This could be just the beginning as the New Scientist gives many reasons why renewable energy sources – and especially solar – are due to keep growing and growing. Continue »
Here are some more interesting findings on how we could consume much less energy. To the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the United States could consume 60 percent less energy by 2050.
The advocated measures would also create two million jobs and save $400 billion (315 billion euros) per year, or the equivalent of $2600 (2000 euros) per household annually.
Evidence keeps on piling : energy efficiency is the best way to solve our triple crisis. To read out more, I strongly invite you to read the article on Climate Progress as well as the report on the ACEEE website.
To GreenTech Media : “ Germany installed more than 2 gigawatts of solar in the month of December alone. (…) Installations for the full year will be nearly 7 gigawatts according to the German Solar Industry Association (BSW).”
The article goes further : “ According to the BSW, solar power contributes approximately three percent of the German electricity supply, with a goal of 10 percent by 2020. “
The European leader in renewables installed in a single month more solar photovoltaic capacity than the whole United States of America installed in a whole year ! Continue »
Here are some great news for climate and quite bad news for America and Europe : China unveiled last week massive wind energy plans. The People’s Republic is willing to seriously expand the renewable energy industry.
Indeed from the current 40 GW of capacity, it is planning to reach ” 200 GW, 400 GW and 1,000 GW by 2020, 2030 and 2050, respectively, making wind one of the five major sources of electricity across the country.. “ as Reuters notes.
Then this low carbon energy source would account for 17 percent of the energy demand. The cleantech arms race is on and China is determined to win.
I blogged two years ago that CCS won’t solve the climate change problem as it is too risky, too expansive, too little and… too late. Joe Romm, the main contributor behind Climate Progress recently noted :
” There are simply too many unanswered questions for anyone to say today that we could rely on large-scale deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage in the 2030s as a major climate solution. “
Since we need to slash our emissions NOW – and certainly not by 2030 – we can see how useless CCS is. We should work on real solutions instead : energy efficiency, sobriety, renewables and nuclear.
We already saw that solar PV is due to compete in terms of costs with fossil fuels by around 2017 as this energy source is gaining momentum so fast that the Holy Grail – grid parity – might soon be within reach. These are sure great news…
But there is more as to Bloomberg New Energy Finance : ” The cost of electricity from onshore wind turbines will drop 12% in the next five years thanks to a mix of lower-cost equipment and gains in output efficiency. “
” The best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators; the average wind farm will be fully competitive by 2016 “
Just as Grist is asking if Germany did the right move on nuclear – here is as a reminder my opinion piece on Cleantechies – several bad news for the industry of this energy source got my attention this week.
First and foremost, the reactor number 2 of Fukushima ” had probably experienced “spontaneous” fission “ according to an official quoted by the Agence France Presse.
Furthermore, it has been estimated that fully decommissioning Fukushima could take no less than 30 years. All this could have terrible consequences for the whole industry. Continue »
To Business Week : ” Sun-drenched Kuwait, a desert nation with no solar-power plants and electricity demand that’s growing about 8 percent a year, has set the most ambitious target for using renewable energy in the Gulf region.”
The country plans to have ten percent of renewables in its electricity mix by 2020. This exceeds by three points the goals of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates. This is a huge goal as the local energy demand doubled in ten years.
Fully understanding that they won’t be able to rely on oil indefinitely, many Middle East countries are diversifying their economies and energy supplies.
The Economist noted as early as 2002 that coal is the environmental enemy number one. Yet, it is still used a lot to generate electricity at cheap prices. But this doesn’t even make economic sense.
To Grist : ” Electricity from coal imposes more damages on the U.S. economy than the electricity is worth. That’s right: Coal-fired power is a net value-subtracting industry.”
As a matter of facts, coal costs the US economy $53 billion per year in gross external damages (GED). How much does it cost globally ? That would be interesting to know !
Currently, the world is relying massively on coal to generate electricity as it is cheap, awfully cheap – if you don’t take into account the negative externalities as it is polluting our air, our soil and is one of the main factors to climate change.
But what if solar became even cheaper than coal ? What if if became the cheapest solution ? We would then have a renewable, clean and cheap alternative to produce gigawatts of electricity.
Kees van der Leun – A Dutchman who has been dedicating himself to renewables for the past 25 years – wrote on Grist an excellent post on that very topic. Continue »
