Europe

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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Can China build three fast rail transcontinental networks ?

While reading CleanTechnica I came across a tremendously huge project : link via high speed rail Asia and Europe. This network would enable to go from London to Beijing in only two days. Within ten years, the three networks would transport people and goods alike and would link 17 nations – including India, Singapore, Vietnam,

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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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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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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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Xynthia, another extreme weather event

As climate warms, extreme weather events are more and more frequent and more and more violent. Indeed, after the blizzards on the East coast of the United States, Europe was hit this weekend by an important storm. Xynthia claimed more than fifty lives this weekend in France alone and the costs are due to exceed

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Biofuels aren’t a sustainable solution

At first I wasn’t sure even if I had huge doubts. But now this is a certainty as I came accross three articles on how biofuels production in the United States, Brazil and Europe is a threat to our societies and our environment. In Brazil, biofuels production are a danger to the Amazon rainforest as farmers

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A global wind energy boom

If you think 2009 was a rotten year for all businesses, read on. To the Global Wind Energy Council 37.5 GW of wind energy capacity was installed in 2009 alone. This represents a 31 percent increase over 2008. In Europe, capacity grew up by 10 GW and investors pumped 13 billion euros into the industry.

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E-bikes : a growing sustainable alternative to cars

We have seen previously that electric cars and vehicles are an interesting alternative to traditional cars with internal combustion engines. But another solution exist : electric bicycles. There are already 65 million e-bikes on Chinese roads and the market size is fastly increasing Such bicycles compete with cars in large cities like Shanghai as they

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Think the current crisis is the worse ?

According to the Guardian, Richard Branson believes that ” The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well.” The founder of the Virgin Group and other business leaders from the United Kingdom are urging

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