Energy transitions – Apr 4

•Learning from Germany’s Renewable Energy Transition •German energy surplus quadruples despite renewable push •The ‘unstoppable’ renewable grid •German village offers blueprint for rural green energy •Desertec on the Ropes: Competitors and Opponents Threaten Energy Plan •Renewable energy providers to help bear cost of new UK nuclear reactors •Energy policies ‘reduce bill rises’ •Philippines turns trash into clean energy windfall

UK rewards polluters and locks up people who want to save the planet

What if, instead of giving Marie Curie and Alexander Fleming Nobel prizes for their life-saving work on radiation and penicillin, they’d been thrown in jail? Or, instead of being awarded the Grand Croix of the Légion d’honneur for his work on the germ theory of disease, Louis Pasteur was imprisoned like Napoleon on Elba? It would be perverse to return the favour of great, public works by depriving people of their freedom. Yet that is just what we’re doing in Britain right now. The contributions of the people above were remarkable, but how much greater is the challenge of preserving a readily habitable climate, and how thankful should we be to those prepared to throw their life’s energy and creativity at the task?

Climate, politics & money – Mar 29

•Giant investment bank taken over by hippie alarmists •Fossil Fuels Divestment Fever: Canadian Students, Doctors Launch New Campaign •Republican Mayor Leads City To First-Ever Solar Energy Mandate •New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated •Why Russian doomsday climate predictions may prove prophetic •Carbon in Worst Quarter Since 2011 Set for Rescue Vote

Victory at Hand for the Climate Movement?

There are signs the climate movement could be on the verge of a remarkable and surprising victory. If we read the current context correctly, and if the movement can adjust its strategy to capture the opportunity presented, it could usher in the fastest and most dramatic economic transformation in history. This would include the removal of the oil, coal and gas industries from the economy in just a few decades and their replacement with new industries and, for the most part, entirely new companies. It would be the greatest transfer of wealth and power between industries and countries the world has ever seen.

Germany’s Energiewende — What Has Been Learned So Far?

Within the next decade, Germany will have shifted from a coal- and nuclear-powered economy to a thriving, decentralized system with power from renewable sources. This transformation, writes John Mathews, will not only make a real reduction in global carbon emissions. It is leading to a democratization of economic power that is unprecedented in the industrial world.

State of the Union: Green energy and rural

Rural resistance has helped slow the development of renewable energy. It doesn’t have to be that way. For the President’s green-energy plans to succeed, he needs to reach out to the rural leaders who are ready to act on climate change. President Barack Obama made urgent calls for new steps to address climate change in his State of the Union address yesterday, “for the sake of our children and our future.” While the focus was on renewable energy, he missed an opportunity to talk about the essential ingredient for addressing climate change: the support of rural communities.

Energy transitions – Feb 13

•Solar for All •Energy-Efficient Mortgages now widely available in the US •EDF asks would you do the washing when the wind is blowing? •Energy Co-ops Bring Energy by the People, for the People Through Social Innovation •Why councils could be the answer to the energy crisis

Nate Hagens: Things are not going to be as easy over the next 40 years

Recently Karen Rybold-Chin interviewed Nate Hagens, former editor of The Oil Drum and former Lehman Brothers vice president, questioning him about a future economy without growth and an environment suffering climate change. Nate Hagens asks whether ultimately – contrary to our animal nature – we are willing and able to plan for future generations by reducing our own energy consumption and economic growth.

The new future of energy policy

Flood myths are common to human culture. Swollen rivers, tidal storms, and tsunamis make their appearance frequently in literature. But Hurricane Sandy, which has drawn newly etched high-water marks on the buildings of lower Manhattan (and Brooklyn), has shifted the discussion from storytelling to reality.