Ever since I started to delve into energy and environmental issues, I have been advocating energy efficiency. It is the cheapest solution, and also the best one. This is why I have called it the panacea to all our energy and climate problems. It seems I wasn’t the only one to call for more efficiency […]
Efficiency gains momentum, decrease emissions Read More »
President Obama is willing to save his country a lot of money : $40 billion, or around 30 billion euros, annually. These huge sums of money equal to reducing energy use in commercial buildings 20 percent by 2020. As Elisa Wood wrote on Cleantechies : ” To achieve the goal, the Obama administration in 2011
United States on an energy conservation quest Read More »
Years ago I was often reading The Oil Drum, a great website dedicated to oil and other energy issues. Years later, the website still provides great content and I am glad to have read one of their latest posts : Our Energy Predicament in Charts. This post is an excellent introduction to energy issues for
A primer on our current energy predicament Read More »
According to the Portuguese utility REN, renewable energies supplied a massive 70% of domestic consumption of electricity in the first quarter of 2013. As the press release notes, this is due to particularly favorable conditions. Hydro supplied 37 percent of the total while wind provided 27 percent. Last year, both energy sources only accounted for
Portugal : Renewables supplied 70 percent of electricity Read More »
In the wake of the tragic catastrophe and the nuclear incident that shook Japan in 2011, we have seen that the local government is willing to push renewable energy sources forward. Among them, solar energy and wind power. This has led to the installation of 1,12 GW of solar PV capacity in only nine months
A renewable energy boom in Japan Read More »
What were you doing when you were 17-year old ? Sara Volz, A Colorado, USA, teen created a biofuel lab in her bedroom. Even better, she developed more efficient algae that produce higher oil content just by selecting them artificially. This is seen as an important boost to algae based biofuels. It was done with
Teen boost efficiency of algae-based biofuels Read More »
How oil prices are just keeping on increasing and how they are just going to go up and up.
Oil prices will just keep on increasing Read More »
According to TreeHugger, graphene could offer 60% solar cell efficiency if it were to replace silicon in PV panels. As they note : ” Researchers from the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Spain have just published results from their experiments.” ” While their results so far will probably be more useful to make better image
Graphene could bring solar PV efficiency to 60% Read More »
Solar PV is slowly but surely reaching grid parity around the world as it is now a reality in parts of the United States, India and some European countries.
Solar reaches grid parity around the world Read More »
Do you know Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform more used to fund video games and other similar projects ? Well, one of its recent successes is the Nanolight, perhaps the world’s most efficient light bulb. Only consuming 12 W to offer the light of the traditional 100 W incandescent bulb, the Nanolight was developed
A Kickstarter success, the Nanolight Read More »
