When I was at the Dublin Institute of Technology to complete my Bachelor of Arts in International Business and languages I learned an English expression about rare events : “Once in a blue moon. ” It seems that this expression has an astronomical origin as it is the second full moon in the same calendar […]
Great astrophotographies – January 2010 Read More »
We have seen it throughout this blog, deforestation is a key environmental issue but it is sometimes hard to grab for people in developed nations as they aren’t directly concerned by this phenomenon. How much time would it take for Central Park or the Champs de Mars to be destroyed if deforestation were to occur
Putting deforestation in perspective Read More »
Solar and wind energies are going slowly but irresistibly mainstream as more and more large deals are being signed worldwide. Even if they still represent a tiny fraction of the world electricity generation, this will change this decade. The 2.5 GW deal signed in Ontario (Canada) by Samsung for $6.6 billion – 4.7 billion euros –
A huge solar and wind energy deal for Ontario Read More »
The UNEP and the World Glacier Monitoring Service published a report showing how glaciers all around the world are melting faster and faster, thus threatening the water supplies of hundred of millions of people. The report then noted that “the average annual melting rate of glaciers doubled after the turn of the millennium.” This scary
Glaciers are melting faster and faster Read More »
I believe we are beginning this decade with a triple crisis as our economies are crumbling, our climate is warming and our energy supplies are getting scarcer. This assessment of our situation seems pessimistic but it couldn’t be more accurate as it is based on the +700 articles I published here over the past three years.
The triple crisis : why we need green jobs Read More »
20 percent of America’s – and perhaps the world’s – electricity could soon come from wind and solar. Our societies thus need reliable, cheap and sustainable energy storage solutions. Concentrated solar could benefit from molten salts, yet wind energy doesn’t have yet its own solution. German and Swiss utilities are working on Compressed Air Energy Storage
The critical issue of back up power Read More »
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) published its annual report and the results are encouraging as the offshore wind energy capacity grew by 54 percent in 2009 with 577 MW. The United Kingdom appears to be leading the sector as it installed more than half of the added capacity of the European Union. And this
An offshore wind energy boom in Europe Read More »
With the wave of cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere (America, Europe, Asia) of the previous weeks, some skeptical people believe Earth is heading toward a global cooling or more simply that there is no global warming. Don’t rejoice to fast. As I noted previously weather forecasts and climate are totally different. See why here. There
Are we heading toward global cooling ? Read More »
To Reuters, ” Germany will stick to a more ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 even though the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen fell short of expectations, a government adviser said on Monday. “ Details of how the country will achieve such drastic cuts still remain to be defined.
Germany to cut its emissions by 40 percent Read More »
Solar energy is to me the panacea for Africa, a continent where 550 million people still lack electricity. With molten salts, concentrating solar could bring light to these populations during important parts of the night. Solar cookers could also help fighting deforestation by removing the need for fuelwood. Now an experiment run in Benin (West Africa) shows
Solar energy, a panacea for Africa Read More »
