According to The Guardian and Cleantech, Ireland plans to invest 22 billions euros on renewable energies and “smart” and efficient systems over the next 12 years. Half of this money will be invested in wind, wave and tidal energies and biomass. This is due to cut by half the greenhouse gases emissions by 2020. An […]
Ireland to invest billions on energy Read More »
I have been willing to write an article on biofuels for now more than a year, and the so-called panacea they represent to some people. Today the famous company Nestlé provided me a great occasion to do so as according to its CEO, biofuels are planting the seeds of famine. This is quite shocking as
Are biofuels a solution or a (huge) problem ? Read More »
According to the latest report of the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st century (REN21), renewable energies are witnessing an important increase. Indeed global generating capacity of grid-connected solar photovoltaic rose by 52 percent and wind power by 28 percent in 2007, compared to 2006. These renewables are due to have a bright future,
The meteoritic rise of renewables Read More »
By reading Al Gore’s blog, I came to a very interesting fact. Investors are more and more interested in projects that are due to mitigate climate change. As I was reporting earlier this month, renewable energies are witnessing a real boom of private investments and it seems it is only the beginning. I discovered while
Investing massively in climate change mitigation Read More »
I continue my series on the various investments realized in renewables as the Worldwatch Institute released a report giving some data on this topic. According to this NGO, global investments in these various energy sources might reach 66 billion USD in 2007, a sharp increase over 2005 and 2006. The State of the World 2008
Worldwide, 66 billion USD invested in renewables Read More »
This is the great – and yet very simple – idea developed by a German company, SkySails. The container ship pictured on the left uses one of the oldest inventions: a simple kite. According to SkySails, this enables to decrease by 10 to 35 percent the energy consumption of these boats, which are largely used
Using wind energy for cargo shipping Read More »
When I was writing in October my article on the clean alternatives to coal, I was planning to add at the bottom a page summing up the pros and cons of each solution. I never did so but still found this document interesting as it sums up quite well the situation at hand. Each and
There is no perfect energy generating solution Read More »
I have never been a great fan of traditional biofuels (nor the World Bank and the OECD) as their yield is quite small and as they require a lot of by-products (pesticides…). However, some alguae like Ulva lactuca (sea lettuce, pictured left) have a much superior yield than cereals and aren’t as much eaten as
Algae, the best solution to make biofuels Read More »
Both the Financial Times and the Worldwatch Institute provided me monday with interesting data and news on the Chinese energy market. Good news : the country is willing to get 30% of its electricity via renewables by 2050. Bad news : the growth of energy consumption last year was of 16.2 percent. This wouldn’t be
Two news on Chinese energy for the price of one Read More »
The world famous US company Google ,which is behind the most used search engine, plans in the very next years to invest hundreds of millions Dollars in renewable energy sources. The goal is to make solar, geothermal and wind energies price-competitive with electricity from coal-fired plants. A very ambitious idea as coal is much cheaper
Google to invest massively in renewable energies Read More »
