As Eurobserv’ER published a market barometer for heat pumps I thought it might be the occasion to have a look at this most interesting and promising technology which already accounts for nearly 9 GW th of capacity in Europe. With over 100,000 systems installed every year throughout the European Union, heat pumps can both heat […]
Why heat pumps are a fantastic idea Read More »
Concentrating Solar Thermal is a fantastic energy source and some experts estimate that it could answer a quarter of the global electricity needs by 2050 if large plants were installed in sunny deserts. However the New York Times notes that this energy source use significant amounts of water. Since this resource is already scarce in
Concentrating solar needs huge amounts of water Read More »
The European Union will give over the next decade up to 50 billion Euros to research on low carbon energy. Solar energies will receive 16 billion euros, wind power 6 billion, nuclear 7 and energy from waste and biomass 9 billion. This is due to enable the 27 members to compete on cleantech with the
EU to give 50 billion euros to energy research Read More »
Until now when I was thinking about Canadian energy I had the exploitation of oil shale in mind. But this is changing as the local wind energy industry is booming with up to 2,000 MW of installed capacity at the end of 2008. This is only the beginning as a deal for an offshore wind
Canadian wind energy industry is booming Read More »
As Angela Merkel was reelected German Chancellor and is due to begin a new coalition with the Liberals, nuclear power plants may not be phased out in 2020 as it was previously agreed. Meanwhile, and if Germany keeps it targets of renewables answering 33 percent of the electricity demand in 2020 this may mean that
Why Merkel’s reelection may be good news for climate Read More »
After the quite encouraging news of Wednesday I would like to present you a study showing that the United States’ government still gives much more money to polluting fossil fuels industries rather than lower carbon solutions. This occurs as I noted last year than to the UNEP cutting the subsidies given to big oil and
We still are funding fossil fuels industries Read More »
According to a study to be released in November by the International Energy Agency, global greenhouse gases emissions decreased by no less than 2.6 percent. This can be explained by several factors. Among these factors are the economic recession which decreased the emissions of the global industrial sector but also the various commitments of the
IEA : Global CO2 emissions decreased Read More »
Thanks to GreenUnivers, a great French blog on green business, I came across the latest report from the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21). It presents various figures worth mentioning. Between 2004 and 2008, solar PV capacity increased sixfold to more than 16 GW, wind power capacity increased 250 percent to 121
A global renewable energies boom Read More »
It is a well known fact : American per capita greenhouse gases emissions are among the world’s highest because of massive consumption of both oil and coal. But to a new study Australian per capita emissions are exceeding the US. One of the main reason is the country’s electricity production which mostly comes from the
Australian per capita emissions larger than US Read More »
I finished reading this weekend a book I strongly recommend to anyone interested by sustainable development and energy as it is packed with figures and findings that are due to start discussions among CleanTechies. One of the main findings of this book is that electrifying our cars and installing heat pumps in our buildings would
Book Review: Sustainable energy – without the hot air Read More »
