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 !
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 »
Here is another post I wrote on Cleantechies : ” While I was visiting my family in the Region of Lorraine – North Eastern France – I came across two distinct news illustrating the possible future of the region, and in a way, of the whole country. ”
” The first one is about dirty polluting fossil energy as to Elixir Petroleum, an Australian company, there would be massive quantities of shale oil and gas in Lorraine’s soil. ”
As always with guest posts, to keep reading, please check out their website. I look forward to reading your comments and thoughts there.
What if the answer to all the economic and financial woes Greece is witnessing came from solar ? This is the bet the local government is willing to place as more than 16 percent of the population is unemployed. To Ecogeek :
” Greece has laid out a plan to get out of a recession and to spread renewables through the country and the EU. The plan would see the country expanding its solar capacity to 10 GW by 2050 through financing by international investors.”
Ten gigawatts of capacity in 40 years seems very little when one knows that Germany installed no less than seven gigawatts of capacity in 2010 alone. Continue »
According to Reuters : ” The world added about 16 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaic (PV) power in 2010, double the growth seen a year earlier, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association told Reuters on Monday.”
Out of these 16 gigawatts, Europe is behind the vast majority of the growth with an impressive 13 gigawatts. Out of these, Germany account for seven GW and Italy three (and not six as I wrote there…)
Still to Reuters : ” Estimates for the other major European players included the Czech Republic (1.3 GW), France (0.5 GW), Spain (0.4), Belgium (0.25) and Greece (0.2). “ Continue »
Good news everyone ! (*) You – as well as many and many other people – will now be able to read my humble articles about solar energies on the Solar Feeds News Network.
The world’s largest solar news network, it will enable me to reach over 59,000 Twitter followers and over 1,400 Facebook fans. The amount of subscribers is also much larger than mine.
Many thanks to Scott Weitzman the president and editor of this awesome website for featuring my work. Continue »
The solar powered plane Solar Impulse flew for over 26 hours without interruption and landed on July 8th. This plane has a wingspan of 63 meters – the same as a Boeing 777 – weights 1,600 kg and goes as fast as a scooter, 70 km-h.
The plane gathered enough energy from the sun during daytime to remain in the air during a whole night. This is a huge success for the main sponsors of the project ( Solvay, Omega and Deutsche Bank).
In the very next years Solar Impulse will attempt at flying around the world in several stages. Be sure that I will keep you posted on this most exciting project. Read the New York Times article.
This year will remain as an important milestone in the history of solar power. Indeed to GreenTech Media : ” In 2010, we will cross the threshold of 10 gigawatts of photovoltaic solar installed globally in a single year.”
This is indeed amazing as in 2000 only 170 megawatts were installed. This is 58 times more, which means a 51 percent increase per annum. If we were to continue this trend we would install 580 GW in the year 2020…
Such a thing is unlikely to occur. Specialists believe however that we could install up to 100 GW of capacity in 2020. This is still a note-worthy figure and a bright prospect. Continue »
This week was unveiled what is perhaps to date the largest renewable energies project in the world. Indeed, an Indian company – Airvoice Group – plans to build 10 GW of solar PV capacity and three GW of wind power.
All these capacities are due to be built on various sites within the decade in the southwestern state of Karnataka. This occurs as China is also pushing hard on renewable energies.
This $50 billion (36 billion euros) project exemplifies even more India’s willingness to increase its use of low-carbon energy sources. The cleantech arms race is just beginning. Be sure I will keep you posted.
Thanks to GreenUnivers, a great French blog on green business, I came across the latest report from the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21). It presents various figures worth mentioning.
Between 2004 and 2008, solar PV capacity increased sixfold to more than 16 GW, wind power capacity increased 250 percent to 121 GW, and total power capacity from new renewables increased 75 percent to 280 GW (excluding large hydro).
Investments in this sector also grew sixfold between 2004 and 2008 to reach $120 billion (82 billion euros). All this is very encouraging. Continue »
Even if this not new as I wrote about this very issue as early as June 2008, the additional research bring us more data on how renewables – and especially biofuels – need much more land to generate energy than traditional solutions.
As you can see with the graph biofuels are by far the least efficient solutions in terms of space used per TWh. The most efficient and sustainable ones are nuclear and energy efficiency as it enable to decrease the space needed.
To bring a TWh per year wind energy needs 72 square kilometers, hydro 54 ; solar photovoltaïc 36.9 ; solar thermal 15.3 ; geothermal 7.5 and nuclear only 2.4. Continue »
