In one year China added almost as much generation from renewable power as Germany’s total renewable energy generation, according to the end of January statistics for 2016 by the National Energy Administration of China and the China Electricity Council. Yet the country’s electricity supply still relies strongly on coal, notes Simon Göß of Berlin-based consultancy Energy Brainpool. … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2017
New President, new electric grid?
As the new Trump administration considers measures to enhance roads and bridges, they should also focus on America’s ageing electricity infrastructure, writes Dick Munson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The U.S. electricity system is shockingly unreliable compared to every other developed nation, notes Munson, and the regulation of the industry is “byzantine”. By focusing on investment, efficiency, and markets, the U.S. could have a … [Read more...]
Separating fact from fiction in newest U.S. federal ethanol study
The latest ethanol study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture mixes facts with fictions, writes John DeCicco of the University of Michigan. The study contains fundamental errors that undermine its claims that the use of corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions. … [Read more...]
MEPs will fight Brexit deal that lets the UK become an offshore pollution haven
The European Parliament has indicated it will not accept a Brexit deal that will let the UK have lower environmental standards than the EU, writes Charlotte Burns (@EUrefEnv), Senior Lecturer Environmental Policy at the University of York. If only because this would put EU manufacturers and farmers at a competitive disadvantage. Courtesy of The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Hamburg considers innovative heat storage scheme
Institutions in Hamburg are proposing to build a large underground thermal heat storage system that could supply roughly a quarter of the city’s heating needs with waste heat from industrial and power plants. If successful, it would make Vattenfall’s plans to realise a CO2-neutral district heating network superfluous. It could also serve as an example for other cities. … [Read more...]
Wake-up call: production of Dutch small gas fields headed for collapse
Partly as a result of policy neglect, production from small gas fields in the Netherlands has dramatically declined in recent years, a fact that so far seems to have escaped public notice, writes Jilles van den Beukel. Dutch gas is effectively being replaced by Russian gas, he notes. According to Van den Beukel, this is not in the best interest of the Netherlands or of the EU, neither from a financial nor from an environmental point of view. He … [Read more...]
Green power revolution grinds forward, an unstoppable glacier
Webster’s defines revolution as “a sudden, radical or complete change.” The ongoing revolution in the United States electric utility industry fits that definition to a T, writes Washington-based energy reporter Dennis Wamsted. The changes have been unbelievably quick (at least by company standards, if not by activists’ desires), and the long-term impacts are going to be both radical and complete. Importantly, in today’s political climate, the … [Read more...]
Can emissions trading produce adequate carbon prices? That’s the question
Prices under emissions trading schemes have been low, unlike some carbon taxes. This undermines confidence in this key climate instrument, writes energy and climate change economist Adam Whitmore. The EU should take the lead in demonstrating that emissions trading can work, or climate change efforts will suffer. … [Read more...]
Carbon Tracker: no growth for oil and coal from 2020, gas can flip-flop
Falling costs of electric vehicle and solar technology could halt growth in global demand for oil and coal from 2020, finds a new report co-authored by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative launched on Thursday. The future of natural gas is highly uncertain in this new scenario analysis. … [Read more...]
The next EV revolution: think trucks and buses
Most of the talk around electric vehicles centres round Tesla’s, Chevy Bolts and other passenger cars. But the financial and environmental case for the electrification of big vehicles, such as buses and garbage trucks, is actually much more compelling than for small cars, writes Chris Denny Brown. According to Brown, founder of job site Cleantekker, this is where the electric transport revolution should have begun. … [Read more...]