Dueling forecasts: Why our energy future is actually a risk management problem
It is well to remember that none of people making forecasts can know the one thing they all desperately want to know: the future.
energy transition
Energy Crunch: the truth about green levies
Despite the row about green levies the bulk of household energy costs are dictated by the cost of wholesale fuel, and investments in upgrading network infrastructure.
Energy Crunch newsletter – August 9
George Osborne, the newly appointed minister for shale gas development, might have expected some rough headlines this week, but he could hardly have guessed who would supply the fuel.
Energy transitions – headlines
•The global outlook for renewable power in one graph •US joins elite 10GW solar club •Behind the Tea Party Push For Solar in Georgia •China Raises Target for 2015 Solar Power Capacity •Delivering Stability in the Renewable Energy Transition •U.S. court says biofuel producers must face carbon emissions rules •MEPs deal a blow to crop-based biofuels •Re-Engineering Energy: A Dutch Perspective •Geothermal Plants Can Cause Earthquakes, Say Scientists
Wind to Double and Solar to Triple in 6 Years, Says IEA
Renewables will surpass natural gas for electricity generation globally by 2016, doubling nuclear output and coming in second only to coal in power generation.
Alternative Energy Challenges
The various obstacles to alternative energy compound the fundamental challenge of how to supplant a fossil fuel–based supply chain withone driven by alternative energy forms themselves.
Watts Up, Vaclav? Putting Peak Oil and the Renewables Transition in Context
Smil’s mantra is this: "All of the past shifts to new sources of primary energy have been gradual, prolonged affairs, with new sources taking decades from the beginning of production to become more than insignificant contributors, and then another two to three decades before capturing a quarter or a third of their respective markets."
The 2020 Deadline: No Excuse Left for Delaying the Energy Transition
Energy intensity — energy use per dollar of GDP — is the last refuge of fossil fuel proponents. Instead of measuring real improvement in energy efficiency, it hides the outsourcing of dirty, coal-based manufacturing to developing countries and changes during times of economic growth or recession, irrespective of efficiency.