Energy

Whatever concerns energy and the ways to produce it goes here

A swimming pool heated by waste energy

I really like swimming. So, twice to thrice a week I go swimming at the Lons-Le-Saunier Aqua’ReL center (pictured left). Opened in 2007 it was built with sustainable development in mind and comes with plenty green features. Energy efficient, it is heated by the local waste-to-energy plant. Additionally, part of its electricity comes from 30 […]

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Scotland to harness 1.2 GW of marine energy

Scotland announced last week that 1.2 GW of tidal and wave energy capacity would be built there by 2020. To achieve this, 10 projects will be started and will be the first commercial applications of these energy sources. Scotts are determine to have 31 percent of their electricity coming from renewables by 2011 and are willing

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The huge potential of LED lightning

The US Department of Energy released last week an interesting study on how LED lightning could enable America to save $120 billion (88 billion euros) over the next 20 years. To Ecogeek : ” The cumulative savings of widespread adoption of this technology over the next 20 years would be about 1.500 terawatt-hours (…) The

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An official visit from Mr. Borloo at Ravoyard SA

Yesterday the French Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning, Mr. Jean-Louis Borloo visited a company in Vaudrey, less than 20 kilometers from my hometown. Ravoyard SA manufactures since its origins metallic structures. Dynamic, it recently diversified its activity to add photovoltaïc films to its existing products. As the market is currently

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Europe to meet its renewable energies goals

These are good news, to the European Commission : “The EU will surpass its target to consume 20 percent of its energy from renewable energy by 2020, according to national forecasts submitted to the European Commission.” Out of the 27 members, 12 may exceed their national targets domestically. But this isn’t the only good news

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The huge potential savings of small changes

This week I read an article from GreenTech Media titled When sleep saves.  This shows that a single company is due to save $400,000 (290,000 euros) this year just by putting all its computers in sleep mode when possible. I am amazed at how such a simple thing can save so much money. If such

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Italy to build four nuclear reactors by 2020

There is something I totally overlooked while writing earlier this week my article on how Europe goes forward on energy. Indeed, last month Italy announced its intention to build nuclear reactors this decade. Italian electricity is both heavily reliant on foreign fossil sources (70 percent) and on imports (ten percent comes from France’s own reactors). Building

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Can Iraq quadruple its oil production ?

According to an article from The Economist, Iraq has plans to quadruple its oil production by the next seven years. This would increase the production from the current 2.5 million barrels per day to 12 million barrels. This would bring Iraq as the world’s first oil producer, putting Saudi Arabia in the second place. The

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Europe goes forward on energy

I found during the past few weeks news showing that Europe is investing more and more in solving the climate / energy equation by using various solutions : energy efficiency, smart grids and renewable energies. Here are some examples : Sweden pledged this week for the installation of 2,000 wind turbines by the year 2020

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$2.2 trillion : the huge costs of environmental damages

The Guardian published last week a most interesting series of articles on a report to be published this year by the United Nations and Trucost which estimates the damages on the environment to $2.2 trillion per year. To the newspaper ” the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost

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