Tiptoeing Through the Renewable Energy Minefield
As just about everyone knows, there are gaping chasms separating the worldviews of fossil fuel promoters, nuclear power advocates, and renewable energy supporters.
Renewable Energy
In Iowa, A Bipartisan Push to Become Leader in Wind Energy
Thanks to state officials who have long supported renewables, Iowa now leads all U.S. states in the percentage of its energy produced from wind. Big companies, including Facebook and Google, are taking notice and cite clean energy as a major reason for locating new facilities there.
Denmark’s Energy Transition
In percentage terms, Denmark is the world leader in energy transition, as well as the king of wind power.
Let Nature be Nature
We had two scientific papers shoved under our door, and both of are serious sources of hope for a world undergoing climate shock. They represent the two sides of the solution ledger, adaptation and mitigation.
A Renewable Energy Economy will Create More Jobs. Is That a Good Thing?
The 20th century fossil-fueled economic growth spurt happened not because the energy industry created many jobs, but because it created very few jobs.
The Global Energy Transformation and Innovation: the Case of Solarcentury and Sunstation
The solar revolution will continue to unfold, meanwhile, and the better that innovation teams in the clean energy industries deploy their design magic – in the broadest possible sense of that word – the quicker it will all accelerate.
But What’s the REAL Energy Return of Photovoltaic Energy?
According to a recent, comprehensive study of the scientific literature (1), the average energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of the most common photovoltaic technology (polycrystalline Si) is 11-12. A far cry from the legend of the “EROI smaller than one” that’s making the rounds in the Web.
Bristol Energy Cooperative: “it felt right for us to be ambitious”
When we fit solar on community buildings, the buildings get cheaper and greener electricity, local people can obviously invest in what we’re doing, and we’ve set up a community fund that will cross-subsidise other energy projects, and indeed, community projects more generally.
Publicly Owned Energy Comes to London
A successful, publicly owned renewable energy company for London would not only give millions of people access to greener, cheaper energy. It would also demonstrate that privatization and profits aren’t the only way we organize society.
Monster Day for Renewables in California
Yesterday, May 14th, was a windy, sunny, fairly cool day in California. As a result, records were set for the proportion of California electricity produced by renewables.
The Peak Oil Dilemma
Peak oil, as a theory, has been downplayed, because models predicted that we’d hit peak oil production between 2000 and 2010, and we didn’t–instead, we plateaued.
How Much for the Sustainable Energy Transition? A “Back of the Envelope” Calculation
"Back of the Envelope" calculations are a tradition in science and often turn out to be able to provide plenty of useful information, at the same time avoiding the common pitfall of complex models, that of being able to fit anything provided that one has enough adjustable parameters.
