Month: July 2010

IEA to France: increase electricity prices and competition

After a long break I am finally back to writing for CleanTechies. The occasion was given by the International Energy Agency as it released on Monday its latest country report on France. As I wrote there : Although France has not been immune to the global economic downturn, the climate change plan known as the …

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China to take the lead in the cleantech arms race

It seems that at least one country clearly understood how cleantech is important, even vital in today’s and tomorrow’s world. Indeed, the People’s Republic of China is going full speed ahead at developing all clean energy sources. On June 19 it revealed a $738 billion dollar plan – 545 billion euros – to develop cleaner …

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10 energy myths, debunked

We have heard that before : ” Wind power is far too unreliable ” or ” Nuclear power isn’t a safe solution “. Yet the reality is most of the times far from these myths. Popular Mechanics published a long article debunking energy myths. I wrote about some of them such as clean coal that …

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How deforestation in Brazil keeps slowing down

I wrote about it before : deforestation in the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest – aka the lungs of Earth – decreased by no less than 46 percent and is at record low levels in the past two decades. These are surely good news as deforestation is a predominant part in Brazilian greenhouse gases …

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From an oil spill to another…

How ironic ! As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was almost over another begun in China as two crude oil pipelines blew up on July 16th in Dalian’s Xingang port, beginning the worst oil spill in the country. Oil is already polluting massively our air and water as we burn it everyday …

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The world without us

I recently finished reading a most interesting book of what Mankind would leave behind once it has disappeared from the surface of the Earth. This 300-page thought experiment was written by the American journalist Alan Weisman. Even if cities like New York will disappear as buildings crumble and as plants of all sorts grow, Nature …

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The Story of Cosmetics

Annie Leonard comes back ! After the Story of Stuff – about the true environmental cost of our consumerist frenzy – and the Story of Bottled Water – which is the apex of unsustainability – she comes back with the Story of Cosmetics. Exposing the horrendous toxic products found in our personal care products Annie …

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A creative idea for the plastic in our oceans

I don’t know if this the most interesting or the craziest idea I came across this year : WHIM Architecture outlined a plan to create Recycled Island which would collect plastic in our oceans and use it to build an Hawaii-sized island. On top of cleaning our oceans from all this mess this project could …

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China becomes the world’s first energy consumer

According to the International Energy Agency, China became in 2009 the world’s biggest energy consumer in front of the USA. Indeed it consumed 2.25 billion tons of oil equivalent (TOE) while the latter consumed 2.17 billions. To the Wall Street Journal : ” China’s total energy consumption was just half that of the U.S. 10 …

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Is the BP oil spill finally over ? (A wake up call)

After nearly three months (cf. A huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ) it seems it is finally (almost) over. To the Guardian : ” BP held out hope today that it had finally brought America’s worst oil spill under control “. But we shouldn’t rejoice too fast as ” executives and officials …

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