Energy

Nuclear power plants in the Middle East ?

According to a great article from the Huffington Post, 13 countries of this region are negotiating to acquire the technology to build nuclear plants. As an example of this the United Arab Emirates are negotiating to build reactors soon. Why a region rich with two thirds of the global oil reserves would switch to another […]

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Solar PV to provide 300 MW to France by 2011

Last week Jean-Louis Borloo, the French energy and environment Minister, launched a plan that will quadruple the amount of electricity provided by solar photovoltaïc in order to reach 300 MW by 2011. This is great news as investing 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in solar PV is the right move for France to enable local

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China’s electricity will be 35% clean by 2020

It seems the arms race is continuing as the People’s Republic of China is willing to get 35 percent of its electricity by renewable energy sources by 2020. This will represent 570 gigawatts of capacity. It is worth noting that the country’s electricity demand is due to double by then and will reach 1,600 GW

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The energy cost of our electronic devices

The International Energy Agency issued a study – Gadgets and Gigawatts – on the energy consumption of the numerous mobile phones, mp3 players and other electronic devices. By 2030, they are due to consume up to three times more and thus burn up to 700 terawatt-hours of electricity. All this energy would cost up to

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European energy official: oil may have peaked

Thanks to the Oil Drum, I read about an interesting fact. Andris Piebalgs, the European Energy Commissioner published this month an interesting post on his blog stating that oil production may have already peaked. This is no big surprise as we have already seen that to the Oil Drum, global production peaked in 2008. Additionally,

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Two massive renewable energies projects

I never write about renewable energy projects who will bring only a few megawatts to the grids.  I prefer to focus on huge plants that will bring at least several hundreds megawatts which are more interesting in a global scope. This is the case of two projects I heard about this week. One will bring

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Could peak coal occur as soon as 2025 ?

I wrote recently that  global coal reserves may be overestimated. At the time, the data I was quoting noted that coal reserves could be overestimated by 23 %. Now a new study show that coal supply could start decreasing by as early as 2025. With peak oil also due to occur in the very next

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Solutions to cut US dependance on foreign oil

I came across interesting data last week : Americans consume more than two times more oil per capita than Europeans. As we will see, this can be explained by three factors. Bringing oil consumption per capita to European levels would enable the USA to be independent from foreign oil, save a lot of money, create

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More energy efficiency in the European Union

I have been an advocate of energy efficiency for years and believe it is the best solution to solve the energy and climate equation. So when the European Union plans to ban importing energy inefficient goods I can only applaud the initiative. This is done to enable the 27 countries and their 500 million inhabitants

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Retrofitting the Empire State Building

What happens when organizations like the Clinton Foundation and the Rocky Mountain Institute work together ? Answer: they retrofit the Empire State Building. This will cut by the energy consumption by 40 percent. Built during the 1930s to create thousands of jobs and answer the economic crisis, its $20 million retrofit will occur as we

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