Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A lot of hope is riding on the wheels of the world’s three million electric cars. So, how’s the EV revolution going? And even if it’s going well, is it really the best strategy? Those are the questions I want to address here.
An Indigenous-led coalition is fundraising to install solar panels along the route of the Keystone XL pipeline to protest the project and provide renewable energy to family farms and Native communities in Nebraska and South Dakota.
Humans and our livestock now make up 97 percent of all animals on land. Wild animals (mammals and birds) have been reduced to a mere remnant: just 3 percent. This is based on mass. Humans and our domesticated animals outweigh all terrestrial wild mammals and birds 32-to-1.
Many people, including myself, fear that the great acceleration (1, 2) of our consumption and destruction of resources such as land, biodiversity, soil, minerals, and fossil energy sources, could lead us into a catastrophe.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if the battles being fought to maintain federal energy and environment policies and programs are clouding the nation’s collective understanding of what the war being waged against the Trump administration is really about?
Leggett’s insider observations vindicate the conclusion that humankind finds itself in the midst of an unprecedented civilisational ‘phase-shift’, in which we are witnessing the slow (and sometimes not so slow) implosion of the old industrial paradigm.
Shale oil, which the Energy Information Administration projects will represent a rising proportion of American oil supplies in the coming decades, has a surprising Achilles heel: its low octane levels, which make it a poor fit for the high-efficiency car engines of the future.
The research suggests that improving energy efficiency – chiefly by saving on everyday energy use – could play a major role in restricting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which is the aspirational target of the Paris Agreement.
The increasingly competitive dynamic duo of solar photovoltaic plus battery storage is taking energy markets by storm. Utilities are increasingly looking at batteries as a tool for leveling out power available over the course of the day.
Halcón is an excellent example of the Ponzi scheme that is the fracked oil story in America. Big promises that lead to huge loans that lead to more promises. And while the investors get burned and $280 billion gets squandered, the fracking CEOs walk away very rich along with the deal makers on Wall Street.
The Ancient Romans never understood what hit them. Nor did later historians: there exist literally hundreds of theories on what caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
California and 12 other US states, plus parts of Canada and Mexico, are considering whether to expand the California wholesale grid and balancing area to include the entire region, in order to increase the flow of reliable, affordable, and renewable power across the West.
