Cleantech

Desertec first solar plant to start construction

Remember the Desertec project and how I was convinced ? Their goal is to build solar, wind and other renewable energies facilities to power North Africa, the Middle East and part of Europe. Well, I am not the only one as their first plant will start construction next year. With a capacity of 500 MW […]

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Smart thermostat programs itself to save energy

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

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Seven reasons to develop solar thermal

Cleantechies published last week a tremendous article on solar thermal and why it is “is about to see explosive growth”. I am not entirely surprised of that as I have been a strong advocate of this solution for more than five years. Presenting the industry, the article goes on and gives no less than seven

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Kuwait sets ambitious renewable energy goals

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

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The ten most promising cleantechs

The Guardian Sustainable Business blog published last week an interesting post on the ten most promising future cleantechs. I have to admit I am not sure all of them really are as I spotted at least one odd out. Indeed, even if algae, zinc air batteries, organic solar cells or marine energy and most other

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A compelling example from Iceland

A post on TreeHugger got my attention last week. It was about how the President of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, stated that further to the economic downturn in 2007 he putted people before banks and cleantech before fossil fuels. As the OECD notes, the economic situation is improving quickly and now the country is powered

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Solar PV to become the cheapest option by 2018

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 ?

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Australia to introduce carbon tax in July 2012

As the Wall Street Journal notes : ” Australia’s controversial plan to introduce a tax on carbon emissions cleared a major political hurdle Wednesday, securing the expected approval of the country’s lower legislative house.” ” The package to introduce a price on carbon pollution and encourage investment in clean and renewable energy narrowly passed at

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Which future for Lorraine, and France ?

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

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Energy efficiency is slowly gaining traction

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

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