Build small, think big
Proponents of community energy, or energy cooperatives, envision a future in which small-scale renewable energy infrastructure is owned and used by local communities.
Energy featured
Native pipeline foes make inroads across Northern Plains
As Native grassroots water protectors carried on more than a decade of resistance to oil and gas pipeline construction during the first part of December, authorities across the Northern Great Plains responded in kind.
UNEP: Net-zero pledges provide an ‘opening’ to close growing emissions ‘gap’
The recent net-zero pledges by major emitting countries and the potential for a “green recovery” from the Covid-19 pandemic “presents the opening” for the world to close the growing “gap” between existing commitments and what is needed to limit global warming to meet the Paris Agreement goals.
Over 550 Environmental Groups Rally Around Call for Biden to Act on Plastics Pollution in 2021
Yesterday, an unusually broad coalition of environmental groups, numbering more than 550, called on the incoming Biden-Harris administration to address plastic pollution alongside fossil fuels.
Going nuclear
Here, I continue with my theme from this post about energy futures, particularly the notion that we can transition from our present high energy, high carbon civilization to a future high energy, low carbon one based around nuclear power.
BC’s Coal Mining Has Failed to Deliver, Finds Report
Canadians beware. The promises made by metallurgical coal mining companies rarely match what they deliver in terms of jobs, revenue, production capacity, investment or tax
What Oil’s Troubles Mean to the Rest of Us
To the extent that stock prices reflect expectations of future value, investors don’t like the prospects for oil, and oil’s demise signals muted prospects for economic growth.
Internalizing Climate Risk
From ‘natural’ disasters causing property damage, to climate mitigation measures rendering fossil fuel assets unburnable, to potential impacts of climate change on agricultural production, energy, food, insurance, real estate, and other sectors, it’s clear that private sector companies and all kinds of investments stand to suffer significant losses as a consequence of climate change.
Low prices batter oil industry (and later the rest of us)
Low prices which seem felicitous now could foreshadow instability and trouble ahead. The world still depends on oil for about one-third of its energy needs.
Oil-backed trade group is lobbying the Trump administration to push plastics across Africa
A lobby group representing oil and chemical companies, including Shell, Exxon, Total, DuPont and Dow, has been pushing the Trump administration during the pandemic to use a US-Kenya trade deal to expand the plastic and chemical industry across Africa.
Greenwash
If someone is making money from oil, coal or gas but tries to persuade us that they are on our side on the climate crisis, and they’ve got a way to tackle it without stopping burning fossil fuels – that is greenwash.
Stranded Assets
Now, the warnings about stranded assets are converging with calls for companies and investors to apply ESG filters to their activities, and investors are demanding divestment from carbon-heavy assets.
