Community Coops for Green Electricity
What is required are forms of action that go beyond uncoordinated and unheralded individual steps to cut down personal use of practices that emit greenhouse gases.
energy transition
‘Peak Coal’ is Getting Closer, Latest Figures Show
Total global coal capacity continues to inch up, but a peak is on the horizon. In the first half of 2018, retired capacity has nearly matched newly operating plants and the global pipeline for proposed coal is quickly eroding.
In-Depth: BP’s Global Data for 2017 Shows Record Highs for Coal and Renewables
Carbon Brief runs through the 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which, for the first time, covers all sources of electricity and the key materials needed for electric vehicles.
Ask Eric Gimon
In this episode, energy expert Eric Gimon answers questions submitted by Energy Transition Show subscribers on a wide range of topics, including the non-climate effects of climate change; whether we even need to keep investing in climate research; what the reliable indicators of the global energy transition might be…
Mineral Depletion Need not Be Always a Problem: The Case of Aluminum
This post was inspired by my participation at the ARABAL 2017 conference in Muscat, Oman to discuss the options for renewable energy integration in the aluminum industry. It addresses a seeming reluctance I encountered during the discussion to adopt RE with some initial considerations on how the industry can be transformed away from utilizing fossil inputs. It provides an overview of the industry’s products, scale and impacts, before discussing transition opportunities.
The Energy Transition: Too Little, Too Late
The idea of the energy transition (“energiewende” in German) originated in the 1980s and gained legislative support in Germany in 2010. The idea is good and also technically feasible. But it requires sacrifices and, at present, sacrifices are politically unthinkable since most people don’t realize how critical the situation really is. What we are doing for the transition seems to be is too little and too late.
Siting Long Distance Transmission Lines
Many outlooks for a mostly renewable U.S. power grid include a lot more high-voltage transmission lines. But is this a realistic hope, considering how few of these lines we’ve built in recent years, and the many barriers they always seem to face?
Delusions of Grandeur in Building a Low-Carbon Future
There is a very real trade-off between the rate at which we address climate change and the amount of economic growth we can expect during the transition to a low-carbon economy, but most economic models insufficiently address this trade-off, and thus are incapable of assessing the transition.
What Future for the Anthropocene? A Biophysical Interpretation
The history of the earth system is normally described in terms of a series of time subdivisions defined by discrete (or “punctuated”) stratigraphic changes in the geological record, mainly in terms of biotic composition. The most recent of these subdivisions is the proposed “Anthropocene,” a term related to the strong perturbation of the ecosystem created by human activity.
Talking Energy Transition
This is the second and final part of a recent conversation with Richard Heinberg by Greening the Apocalypse. Greening the Apocalypse is a weekly show on Melbourne’s Triple R 102.7FM.
What Happened to Peak Oil? With Richard Heinberg
The Greening the Apocalypse team talk peak oil with Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow with the Post Carbon Institute. This is the first of a two part interview.
Is 100% Renewables Realistic?
Is it really feasible to run the world on 100% renewables, including supply and demand matching at all times and places? Would doing so require vast amounts of seasonal storage? Are exotic new technologies like next-generation flexible nuclear power plants or coal plants equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment needed to balance out variable renewables at a reasonable cost?
