Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A transition to renewable energy is often given a significance that goes well beyond its immediate impact: it would somehow make our exploitative relationship to Nature more environmentally sound, our relationship to each other more socially equitable.
The great global energy transition is accelerating. Who could have imagined a few years ago that global carbon emissions would stall in 2015, spurred by a rise in renewable energy?
Fossil fuels are polluting and in limited supply, but they give us copious amounts of energy from small areas of land. Doing without these concentrated fuels won’t be a simple matter of trading a gas tank for a plug-in. A look at Vaclav Smil’s Power Density.
We don’t just extract fossil fuels. Instead, whether we intend to or not, we get a lot of other things as well: rising debt, rising pollution, and a more complex economy.
Carbon-negative cars, cost-effective organic solar cells and electricity from waste treatment are possible clean energy options as scientists stretch the laws of physics.
For many years energy, climate change or Transition were not on people’s radar in Ireland, but circumstances have been changing and people are now waking up to our energy challenges.
Small hydropower (<10 MW) has been gaining ground as a renewable energy source that could play a significant role in both reducing our fossil fuel use in many developed and developing countries and in helping some regions of the world that are currently handicapped by inadequate electricity supplies.
Another year, another U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) assessment report that makes the agencies own forecasters look foolish.
What’s the best way to bring energy to those in the developing world who lack it?
What kind of grid architecture and markets will we need in order to actually operate the distributed, decentralized grid of the future?
Since the renewable energy revolution will require trading our currently dominant energy sources (fossil fuels) for alternative ones that have different characteristics, there are likely to be some hefty challenges along the way.
When Trucks Stop Running makes a convincing case that the US is scarily dependent on truck transportation, and renewable energies will not power a freight system like the one we rely on today. But does this mean a crisis is just around the corner?
