Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Fossil fuel subsidies are 10 times those of renewables, figures show
-Scaling Up Solar: The Global Implications of a New Study that Says Solar Power Is Cost Competitive with Nuclear Power
-Free solar panels and cheaper bill offered in exchange for use of roof by electricity firm
-Unity College Gives Solar Panels From Carter White House to China
-Councils key to meeting UK’s green energy target, report warns
-Property prices soar in the desert
-Clean Energy and the U.S. Handicap: One Man’s Story
As elsewhere in western Europe, the advanced liberal consumer democracies are ever more unable (politically unwilling) to implement genuine change. Deutschland’s rulers in Berlin firmly believe that techno-managerial innovation (and a hefty dose of financial risk-taking) will continue to provide cures for current ideas of what is unsustainable. As has happened time and again in Europa’s history of nations, from the mid-19th century onwards, the costs of such ‘revolutions’ will be externalised elsewhere (east and south), and the ecological sustainability that Germany’s admirable network of communes have long been admired for will remain out of reach of the country’s policy and practice.
-Germany targets switch to 100% renewables for its electricity by 2050
-Report sees need for 500 additional biofuels plants
-No link between wind turbines and health: report
-Residents reject wind farm health findings
-Locally Owned Wind Power: Quaint it Ain’t
New technologies, feed-in tariffs, and tax credits are helping propel the small wind industry, especially in the United States. Once found mostly in rural areas, small wind installations are now starting to pop up on urban rooftops.
Even where it comes to renewable energy, we face the battle of centralization vs. relocalization, the corporatism of politics vs. democracy. Economically, technologically, politically, we face the same democratic struggle.
The dirty secret of wind: utilities don’t like wind not because it’s not competitive, but because it brings prices down for their existing assets, thus lowering their revenues and their profits.
-Giant gravel batteries could make renewable energy more reliable
-Regulators Approve First Offshore Wind Farm in U.S.
-Colorado Shows How It’s Done
-Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE
As Paul Krugman’s New York Times Magazine cover story on environmental economics, “Building the Green Economy,” was ricocheting around the enviro blogosphere last week, the American Wind Energy Association released its annual report on the state of the wind industry.
Too many discussions of the future after peak oil start from the assumption that the only alternative to collapse is maintaining the arrangements for energy distribution and use we have today. This kind of thinking, rooted in a logic of abundance shaped by three extraordinary centuries of unparalleled energy glut, forms one of the principal barriers in the way of workable responses to a challenging future.
-Throwing the Race for Green Energy
-A Rising Green-Tech Tide Will Lift All Boats
-The war of words over home-produced electricity feed-in tariffs could cost dearly
-Wind resistance
-Marine energy projects approved for Scotland
-EU to exceed 2020 green energy target: forecasts
-Quantum Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Find an Equation for Materials Innovation
-Solar PV has failed in Germany and it will fail in the UK
