According to the Guardian, Richard Branson believes that ” The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well.” The founder of the Virgin Group and other business leaders from the United Kingdom are urging …
I believe fossil fuels will be replaced sooner or later by electricity. This might prove to be a good thing as heat pumps and electric vehicles are two excellent energy efficient solutions. Thus, electric consumption is rising and is due to keep rising in the next decades. Having low carbon sources to generate electricity is very …
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 – …
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 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 …
The United Kingdom has a most ambitious climate change mitigation plan as it is willing to cuts its emissions by 34 percent by 2020. This is further than the European Union which is willing to go as far as 30 percent. This week, Gordon Brown is due to unveil a £100 billion (110 billion euros …
During the financial crisis in late 2008, oil prices went down from $147 to $33 in just a few months. However, oil prices soon went up as they increased by 78 percent last year. This is the largest yearly increase in a decade. There are more and more concerns that either peak oil already occurred or …
This was the title of an article on Dot Earth, as I read the associated New York Times article in Le Figaro as this newspaper now proposes a selection of the best articles from the NYT. The article is about how natural gas – and methane – is leaking through the miles and miles of …
The World Bank via its Clean Technology Fund is investing $750 million (522 million euros) in eleven concentrating solar plants in the Middle East and North Africa region. This is due to spur additional investments worth $4.85 billion. These projects are due to add nearly a gigawatt of capacity to local grids within three to …
While some magazines print sensationalist articles, some other prefer to carry out real research with real facts and figures. New Scientist indeed published an interesting article on what they call extreme – or unconventional – oil. Understanding that peak oil is either near or already arrived we can either burn as much unconventional oil as …
