Solar

Book Review: Sustainable energy – without the hot air

I finished reading this weekend a book I strongly recommend to anyone interested by sustainable development and energy as it is packed with figures and findings that are due to start discussions among CleanTechies. One of the main findings of this book is that electrifying our cars and installing heat pumps in our buildings would …

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Japan to invest $21 billion in space-based solar

I like creative ideas and I love everything related to space. Needless to say I am also a strong supporter of solar energies. Yet, I find that investing 14,7 billion euros in space-based solar is preposterous. All this money will be invested to see if it is feasible to have one GW of power by …

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Energy sprawl is another reason to mix sources

Even if this not new as I wrote about this very issue as early as June 2008, the additional research bring us more data on how renewables – and especially biofuels – need much more land to generate energy than traditional solutions. As you can see with the graph biofuels are by far the least …

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Why solar air conditioning is a fantastic idea

In these times of heat waves – it was 37°C here in France yesterday  – we all know that solar energy can heat places but it seems the sun could also cool them down thanks to air conditioning. Even if this is not entirely new as I read about such technologies as early as 2005 …

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Renewable energies are progressing in Europe

EurObserv’ER published its eighth report on the state of renewable energies in Europe. Both in French and English, it demonstrates the sector is vibrant and is just taking off. As there are too many renewable energy solutions to be handled in a single article, I will only present you here the findings of the report …

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Towards sustainability: going solar

For the seventh part of this series – and after having tackled heating, electricity, water, transport, food and waste – I guess it is time for us to see how solar energies can benefit our lives. I mention solar energies as there are three possibilities : passive solar applications, which are the most basic, solar …

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Is Desertec a sound idea ?

The fact has been known for years:  harvesting the energy provided by the sun to a tiny fraction of the Earth could supply all the energy Humankind needs without greenhouse gases emissions or pollution due to operation. This week many blogs and websites published articles on Desertec, a foundation that would like to install many …

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Renewables due to boom in South America

Recently two Latin America countries unveiled large renewable energies plans. If those projects were to become reality, they would bring several gigawatts of clean energy to the continent. Argentina is very ambitious as it plans to build a wind farm that will amount for 600 to 900 MW as well as an impressive solar park that …

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Cleantech investments quadrupled since 2004

The United Nations published this week a compelling report on the investments in the green energy / clean tech sector last year. This shows that a real green New Deal is under way. No less than $155 billion (110 billion €) have been invested last year in low carbon energy sources and efficiency. All this …

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India’s great plan for solar energies

The most important news this weekend on energy and the environment was the draft of a plan from the Indian government that could literally change the world’s market for both solar thermal and photovoltaïc. To a local newspaper – The Hindu – the world’s largest democracy indeed would like to have 20 GW of solar …

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