Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Hall invented the very term energy return on investment, and he’s done decades of seminal research on the phenomenon that it describes. As the current shale oil miracle goes the way of all mirages—causing the issue of energy depletion to reenter the public discourse in a big way—one can only hope that Hall’s ideas will draw a great deal of well-deserved notice.
For the first time in 2017, global solar capacity grew faster than all fossil fuels combined, including coal, oil and gas-fired power stations. That’s one finding of the latest annual report on global trends in renewable energy finance, from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
Shell knew climate change was going to be big, was going to be bad, and that its products were responsible for global warming all the way back in the 1980s, a tranche of new documents reveal.
The best political evidence suggests that the government is not building Site C to power 450,000 homes but instead wants to provide “clean” energy for oil and gas companies so they frack shale rock and pretend that the export of liquefied natural gas is somehow “clean.”
Given an analysis of play fundamentals based on current drilling data, there is no credible basis for the highly to extremely optimistic forecasts offered by the EIA. Actual production is likely to be far less. Assuming the EIA forecasts are accurate in a long-term energy plan is likely to end very badly.
Prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out all forms of fossil fuel power, including natural gas.
In this ninth part of our mini-series on climate science, we turn to one of the key suspects in extreme weather events we have experienced in recent years—the shifting shape of the North Atlantic jet stream.
Almost every state along the Atlantic coast — 12 out of 14 — has offshore wind potential that exceeds its current electricity needs, according to a new study. Bringing the electricity generated by offshore Atlantic wind farms ashore could help meet future electricity demand created by activities — transportation and the heating of homes and businesses — that are currently powered by gasoline, natural gas, and other fossil fuels.
Richard Heinberg joins Sustainable Nation to discuss:
The current state of energy and its contributions to the climate crisis
The shale gas and tight oil bubble
Community resiliency
The transition to a fossil fuel free future
Recommendations and advice for sustainability leaders
A new possibility for near-term abatement involves heat/cool energy, the only type of consumption that’s unaffected by growing demand for electronic technology. In addition to cutting carbon, less air conditioning also cuts the use of chlorinated refrigerants.
This appears to be the core of the oil companies’ strategy. First, believe everything the IPCC says. Second, the IPCC says the real problem is prosperity, economic growth! Therefore, blame the ones burning the oil — all we did was dig the stuff up.
Taking serious action on climate change now could mean saving hundreds of millions of lives across the globe, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change on Monday by researchers at Duke University.
