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 […]
Keeping natural gas in pipelines, not air Read More »
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
World Bank funds solar projects in North Africa Read More »
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
Extreme oil anyone ? Read More »
According to Reuters Spain will add up to 8.8 GW of renewable energies by 2012. As GreenUnivers [Fr] points out this would increase by 37 percent the current renewable electricity capacity in just three years. This occurs as now wind energy has more installed capacity than nuclear in Spain and even supplied the country more
Spain to add 8.8 GW of green electricity by 2012 Read More »
According to the New York Times around 10 percent of the US electricity is provided by old nuclear bombs, including Russian ones. I find very inspiring that weapons once targeting houses are now powering them. These agreements concern thousands of warheads and are part of a non proliferation policy enacted by both countries. With up
Old nuclear weapons generate electricity Read More »
For the fourth and last part of my nuclear series and after reviewing 10 reasons to support nuclear, the past and present of this energy source and a review of the main fission future solutions we are finishing with fusion. Contrary to future fission solutions, fusion won’t happen before mid-century as it is the exact
An overview of future fusion nuclear technologies Read More »
It is a well known fact, coal-fired plants are by far the most carbon dioxide intensive energy source. Now according to an article on Celsias coal ash is also much more radioactive than nuclear waste. The massive coal sludge accident in Tennessee last year showed that coal-fired plants can massively destroy ecosystems. This adds up
Think nuclear is dangerous ? Have a look at coal Read More »
We have already seen that some believe that peak oil may have already occurred last year. Now some IEA officials stated unofficially that oil production forecasts are completely unrealistic. As The Guardian noted : “The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the IEA
More on why peak oil already occurred Read More »
After my articles on the 10 reasons to support nuclear power and the one the past and present of nuclear energy it is time to have a look at the main future technologies. David JC MacKay on his website mentions two main fission possibilities : fast breeders and thorium and fusion. We will have a
An overview of future fission nuclear technologies Read More »
One of the main hindrances of solar energy is that when there is no more sun, there is no more electricity as well. This problem is being solved with the molten salt technology which stores energy for seven hours. A Californian company is willing to build a 150 Megawatt plant – The Rice Solar Energy
Storing solar electricity with molten salt Read More »
