Earlier this year I was wondering if cleantech is the new arms race. I noted at the time that America, Europe and China are beginning to compete in such an important economic sector. A US study released last month shows that not only there is an arms race between the United States and Asian nations, […]
The Cleantech arms race continues Read More »
Scientific American published in this month’s issue an article on how the world could completely stop relying on fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear) by 2030 and use only solar, wind and water energies. To make a long story short and after reading the various critics this is completely impossible. We can go
Can we stop relying on fossil fuels by 2030 ? Read More »
According to Reuters Spain will add up to 8.8 GW of renewable energies by 2012. As GreenUnivers [Fr] points out this would increase by 37 percent the current renewable electricity capacity in just three years. This occurs as now wind energy has more installed capacity than nuclear in Spain and even supplied the country more
Spain to add 8.8 GW of green electricity by 2012 Read More »
The International Energy Agency published today it’s annual World Energy Outlook. The 2009 version is even more urging action on climate change than the previous version. As Reuters noted in its article : ” The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a
IEA publishes its World Energy Outlook 2009 Read More »
One of the main hindrances of solar energy is that when there is no more sun, there is no more electricity as well. This problem is being solved with the molten salt technology which stores energy for seven hours. A Californian company is willing to build a 150 Megawatt plant – The Rice Solar Energy
Storing solar electricity with molten salt Read More »
At first I wasn’t that convinced that electric vehicles were the solution to end our oil addiction and decreasing carbon dioxide emissions. But reading Sustainable Energy – Without the hot air changed that. Before proposing you a series of articles on electric vehicles (it will begin after my series on nuclear) I would like to
A brilliant video on electric cars and Better Place Read More »
Warning: This is an old post from 2009, before the catastrophe of Fukushima, Japan and before the sharp decrease of prices for both solar and wind. I have since then changed my position on nuclear, cf Five reasons to oppose nuclear. Some points below however, remain valid.
10 reasons to support nuclear power Read More »
During World War II, posters were advocating a series of efforts to civilian populations to conserve energy. Similarly cars industries were producing tanks. What was done in the US in the 1940s now has to be done on a global scale. Avoiding catastrophic climate change now needs war time effort at war time speed. Governments,
We now need war time effort at war time speed Read More »
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 »
