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
Environmental author Bill McKibben and his international campaign 350.org are joining the solar company Sungevity in a new effort to encourage President Obama to reinstall an updated set of solar panels on the White House roof.
Now that I’m retired from the academic life — or rather, now that I’ve departed the academy in disgust and despair — I no longer spend time in my swivel chair, dispensing information on the telephone or tending to the tender young psyche of an overwrought twenty-something.
-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
-A road not taken
-Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities and Our Health
-Richard Heinberg Lecture Peak Oil Pt 1
-Q&A with Chef Dan Barber: Can organic farming feed the world?
-The Global Food Market (VIDEO): Why Do Some Eat Well While Others Starve?
-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
The difference between diffuse and concentrated energy sources, the theme of last week’s Archdruid Report post, means that some of today’s highly touted alternative energy schemes may be worth much less than currently claimed, while other technologies that receive much less attention may be the wave of the future. A closer consideration of energy concentration and its effects helps clarify which is which.
-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
Solar thermal is a way of harnessing the largest source of energy available to us, so in this post I’ll have a look at the upswing in interest in the use of this technology for electricity generation in recent years and look at some of the approaches being pursued to make it economically competitive with coal fired power generation.
