How Clean is Natural Gas?
So back to my original question—how clean is natural gas, really? It does burn cleaner than coal and oil. But if the methane life cycle from extraction to burning is considered, it’s not clean at all.
Energy featured
Carbon and Canada’s Cars: “Business As Usual, Electrified”
Electrification is an important and necessary step for a sustainable, healthy future, but growth-driven Business As Usual—even Electrified—is killing us.
Restoring Appalachia’s ex-coalfields: How native trees are reviving the region
Renew Appalachia is working to be a beacon of hope for the region. With native tree restoration, community involvement, and sustainable practices, they’re showing that even the most damaged landscapes can heal.
Outrage as Plug Pulled on Coal Mine Public Hearing
In an unprecedented move Rob Morgan, the CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator, has bowed to intense bullying from an Australian-based coal company and cancelled a planned public hearing on a large underground project near the town of Grande Cache.
Unpacking the coloniality of energy, seeking alternatives from below
For too long, discussions about energy have been confined to the realms of technicians and engineers. The energy we consume and the infrastructures sustaining its seemingly endless supply—whether fossil fuels or electricity—have largely remained out of sight and out of mind for much of modern history.
The Peak Numbers Canada’s Oil-Friendly Newspapers Keep Ignoring
If our country is to meet the mounting challenges faced by an uncertain future, we need to focus on credible fact-based information – not industry sponsored hype.
IEA: Renewables will be world’s top power source ‘by 2026’
Renewable energy will overtake coal to become the world’s top source of electricity “by 2026 at the latest”, according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
How resilient is our energy system? Reflections on the findings of a report by the National Preparedness Commission
To make the energy system resilient requires identifying all potential risks and their impacts, maintaining flexibility and redundancy in the system, and ensuring a wide range of stakeholders are involved in decision making.
Transformer bottleneck: Can the U.S. maintain and expand its electric grid?
Electrical transformers are becoming a key chokepoint for maintenance and expansion of the electrical grid in the U.S. and worldwide.
Weak UK lobbying laws let fossil fuel giants influence climate policies
Climate-focused think tank InfluenceMap has uncovered that industry influence appears to have led to the delay and dilution of UK policies on the roll-out of heat pumps, the development of ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel and the granting of new oil and gas licenses.
Green Colonialism and African Futures: Interrogating the Just Transition from Below
Across the continent, from the DRC to South Africa, large-scale energy and infrastructure projects are being pushed in the name of climate goals. Yet, as multiple speakers highlighted, these projects often bypass the very communities they claim to serve. People are not at the centre of these plans; they are at best an afterthought, at worst a disposable obstacle.
Go solar, go vegan and still collapse: beyond the global environmental problems framework
There is no “if we all just did x” solution, shorn of local context, to the unravelling of the high-energy global economy. This kind of contextless thinking exemplifies what I call in my forthcoming book the ‘world environmental problems’ framework. It signally fails to provide plausible solutions.
