Energy

Whatever concerns energy and the ways to produce it goes here

USA: The high cost of fossil fuels

According to a recent report published by a US environmental organization, fossil fuels are due to cost the United States up to $23 trillion between 2010 and 2030. To TreeHugger, these energy sources cost one trillion in 2008 alone. 85 percent of US energy comes from coal, oil and natural gas. This leaves only 15 […]

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4,000 MW of wind power in France

I would like to announce that my first article at CleanTechies has been published today. This is both a huge pleasure and a honor to write for such a blog. Here is an extract: According to an article [Fr] from the AFP, the installed wind power capacity in France reached 4,000 MW. In line with

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Can we clean up coal ? Is it worth the hassle ?

To a study from the Massachussets Institute of Technology : “There is today no credible pathway towards stringent GHG stabilization targets without CO2 emissions reduction for existing coal power plants.” To me retrofitting coal-fired plants represents a huge detour from going straight to massive plans of energy efficiency and low carbon energy alternatives like wind,

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Is Desertec a sound idea ?

The fact has been known for years:  harvesting the energy provided by the sun to a tiny fraction of the Earth could supply all the energy Humankind needs without greenhouse gases emissions or pollution due to operation. This week many blogs and websites published articles on Desertec, a foundation that would like to install many

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The Grenelle could create up to 600,000 jobs

Les Echos [Fr], the French leading financial newspaper brought my attention to a study published by the Boston Consulting Group stating that the Grenelle de l’environnement could create up to 600,000 jobs in France in the very next years. The majority of the job creations are due to occur in the building sector as up

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Renewables due to boom in South America

Recently two Latin America countries unveiled large renewable energies plans. If those projects were to become reality, they would bring several gigawatts of clean energy to the continent. Argentina is very ambitious as it plans to build a wind farm that will amount for 600 to 900 MW as well as an impressive solar park that

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French carbon tax delayed to 2011

To the AFP:  ” The French government on Wednesday kickstarted plans for a so-called carbon tax on energy-hungry products, to be rolled out by 2011 as part of France’s efforts to slash global warming emissions. “ (…) ”  President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has said it hopes to shift part of French taxes from labour towards

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The world is about to get a whole lot smaller

Recently I read two articles on a book about Peak Oil that seems most interesting. Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin explores the consequences of the end of cheap oil and how it will affect us. The author – a former chief economist for CIBC World Markets

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Cleantech investments quadrupled since 2004

The United Nations published this week a compelling report on the investments in the green energy / clean tech sector last year. This shows that a real green New Deal is under way. No less than $155 billion (110 billion €) have been invested last year in low carbon energy sources and efficiency. All this

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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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