Four billion trees…

The billion tree campaign from the United Nations Environment Program announced it yesterday: four billion trees have been planted so far. This happens only a few months after reaching the three billion hallmark… After reaching the one billion mark in 2007, the UNEP decided to plant seven billion around the world before the Copenhagen meeting […]

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India’s great plan for solar energies

The most important news this weekend on energy and the environment was the draft of a plan from the Indian government that could literally change the world’s market for both solar thermal and photovoltaïc. To a local newspaper – The Hindu – the world’s largest democracy indeed would like to have 20 GW of solar

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Guns, Germs, and Steel

I recently finished reading the Pulitzer winning book Guns, Germs and Steel (GGS) by Jared Diamond. Like the latest book of the author – read my review of Collapse – I believe this is an absolute must read. This is a magisterial lesson on history and how Mankind evolved during 13,000 years from small groups

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Worth an article: my May 2009 tweets

Since I don’t have much time to blog, I restrain myself to publishing here around 25 articles per month. However, many more great news are worth reading and blogging about. My goal being to provide you with the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change and the world energy sector , I

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Great astrophotographies – May 2009

This is that time of the month: the one for me to present my selection of the best pictures of the NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). As always, this month was packed with beautiful images. It was very difficult to select just ten. This month is special as Hubble (left) was repaired by

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A quarter of global electricity can be provided by solar thermal by 2050

I was writing in a comment that solar thermal could and even should provide electricity to the nations of  the Middle East and how it would much better than nuclear. It seems I was quite right. Published by an environmental NGO and various official bodies specialized in solar energy, a study notes that concentrated solar

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Nuclear power plants in the Middle East ?

According to a great article from the Huffington Post, 13 countries of this region are negotiating to acquire the technology to build nuclear plants. As an example of this the United Arab Emirates are negotiating to build reactors soon. Why a region rich with two thirds of the global oil reserves would switch to another

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Prosperity without growth

Further to the discussion I had with Kiashu in the previous post, I thought a recent post from the Oil Drum would be appropriate to continue our discussion on why it seems we have to consume always more and if there are alternatives. A British organization wonders in it’s latest report if we can achieve

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Why is energy conservation so unpopular ?

I am currently wondering why are energy conservation and efficiency so unpopular. Indeed, these solutions can cut significantly our greenhouse gases emissions and enable us to save huge amounts of money. Most governments are putting money on renewable energies or stuff like “clean coal“. Instead of the latter, why aren’t they instead investing in solutions

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Solar PV to provide 300 MW to France by 2011

Last week Jean-Louis Borloo, the French energy and environment Minister, launched a plan that will quadruple the amount of electricity provided by solar photovoltaïc in order to reach 300 MW by 2011. This is great news as investing 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in solar PV is the right move for France to enable local

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