Seven reasons against fracking
An article outlining no less than seven reasons to oppose hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.
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Energy
The carbon tax works : British Columbia edition
We have seen in previous articles on how taxing carbon makes a lot of sense. Ireland and Australia have already implemented them with resounding successes. Both China and South Africa are planning to enact one by 2015. Now the Economist and Grist published articles on a third example of a successful carbon tax implementation, and
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The beginning of the end for coal
Carl Pope, the former executive director and chairman of the Sierra Club published an article on the very topic last week as the World Bank and the US government announced they wouldn’t fund coal anymore. But this week, there was another third blow on financing coal. As The Guardian reported : ” The European Investment
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An innovative idea to push for building retrofits.
Houses and building energy efficiency is a hot topic for me since I wrote my Master’s thesis on it back to 2006. Then I discovered that France had no less than 20 million buildings to insulate ( not bad for a country with 65 million inhabitants ) Now according to the Guardian, the UK Green
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Random vacation thoughts
My time out for the past two weeks in southern France was the occasion for me to think a bit about energy and environmental issues as I was experiencing stuff I have been writing about on this blog. Exemplifying with day-to-day and real-life examples is a fantastic opportunity to see how stuff just works. From
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LED lights save a lot of money, could save even much more
According to a study carried out in the United States by the local Department of Energy (DOE), the 49 million LED light bulbs already installed helped save a massive $675 million (over 500 million euros) in a single year. But wait, there is more as if all light bulbs in the United States were replaced
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Methane hydrates : a pandora’s box ?
As Japan is working on exploiting one day methane hydrates, I thought it would be appropriate for me to present you an article on this dirty and unconventional fossil fuel which is also referred to as burning ice. As I noted in a draft a while back : « Science without conscience is but ruin
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My review of Promised Land
I don’t publish movie reviews here anymore as I generally do that elsewhere. But tonight I watched a movie with a strong energy / environment connotation, so here is my review of Promised Land. Featuring Matt Damon in the main role, Promised Land is about a fossil fuel company trying to buy drilling rights from farmers and land
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Could the European Union ban coal ? When ?
Yesterday Alice Stollmeyer asked on Twitter “ What should the European Commission do to improve air quality ? ” as she is participating today to a EU chat session dedicated to green topics. My answer was quite simple: Ban new coal projects and phase out the existing capacity. Replace by efficiency and renewables. This would
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Grid parity for solar PV is already here in 105 countries
I have already noted quite a few times in the past month that grid parity is slowly but surely approaching. What if it were already the case ? To the Applied Materials blog and REneweconomy it is already here in over a hundred countries. Yes, solar photovoltaic installed on rooftops is now cheaper than electricity
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