Global primary energy consumption by region, 2010-2050. Data: U.S. Energy Information Administration International Energy Outlook 2019 reference case. Graphic: EIA

EIA projects nearly 50 percent increase in world energy usage by 2050, led by growth in Asia – Carbon dioxide emissions to grow from all three fossil fuel sources

3 January 2020 (EIA) – In its newly released International Energy Outlook 2019 (IEO2019) Reference case, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that world energy consumption will grow by nearly 50 percent between 2018 and 2050. Most of this growth comes from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and […]

Victoria Falls before and after a prolonged drought, on 17 January 2019 and 4 December 2019. Photo: REUTERS

Victoria Falls shrink to a trickle, feeding climate change fears – “This is our first experience of seeing it like this”

By Mike Hutchings and Tim Cocks 6 December 2019 VICTORIA FALLS, Zambia (Reuters) – For decades Victoria Falls, where southern Africa’s Zambezi river cascade down 100 meters into a gash in the earth, have drawn millions of holidaymakers to Zimbabwe and Zambia for their stunning views. But the worst drought in a century has slowed […]

Aerial view of the Kasulo neighborhood of Kolwezi, DRC. In the first picture, taken May 2016, there are just residential houses. By May 2019, Congo DongFang International Mining (a subsidiary of chinese company Huayou Cobalt) have built a mining site, with a walled perimeter and processing buildings (in blue). The pink tarps cover tunnels used for mining. Photo: CNES / Airbus DS / Earthrise / The Guardian

Apple and Google named in U.S. lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

By Annie Kelly 16 December 2019 (The Guardian) – A landmark legal case has been launched against the world’s largest tech companies by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the Guardian can reveal. Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla […]

Radar plots of urban types based on identified factors. For each city we collect information on 64 urban indicators, from which we identify nine dominant factors: metro, bus rapid transit (BRT), bikeshare, development, population, sustainability, congestion, sprawl, and network density (Oke, et al. 2018). We then cluster the 331 cities on these nine factors, producing 12 unique city types Radar plots indicate normalized factor scores (from 0 to 1) averaged for all cities in each type; adapted from Oke, et al. (2018). The “Congested Boomer” type represents rapidly growing megacities with severe congestion problems and low metro availability, particularly in India; notable members are Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi. Graphic: MIT

Why the electric-car revolution may take a lot longer than expected – MIT analysis finds steady declines in battery costs will stall soon

By James Temple 19 November 2019 (Technology Review) – A new report from the MIT Energy Initiative warns that EVs may never reach the same sticker price so long as they rely on lithium-ion batteries, the energy storage technology that powers most of today’s consumer electronics. In fact, it’s likely to take another decade just to eliminate […]

Racks of computers used for Bitcoin mining line a hallway inside Genesis Mining’s Enigma facility in Iceland. Photo: Lisa Barnard

Photo gallery: Inside the Icelandic facility where Bitcoin is mined – Cryptocurrency mining now uses more of Iceland’s electricity than its homes

By Laura Mallonee 3 November 2019 (Wired) – Less than two miles from Iceland’s Reykjavik airport sits a nondescript metal building as monolithic and drab as a commercial poultry barn. There’s a deafening racket inside, too, but it doesn’t come from clucking chickens. Instead, tens of thousands of whirring GPUs perform the complex, exhaustive calculations […]

Clip from BP’s “Energy Illustrated” web series. Graphic: Spencer Dale / BP

BP chief economist to youth conference: “The haves must remember the have nots”

By Spencer Dale 23 October 2019 LONDON (BP) – It’s a great pleasure to be here this morning. One Young World is a big deal in BP. As you just heard, Bob Dudley is a massive fan. And many friends and colleagues have been delegates in the past and raved about it. So I’ve heard […]

Southern resident orca J16 makes a rainbow while surfacing in Puget Sound. Photo: Miles Ritter

Orca task force adds 13 recommendations at final meeting as “biological extinction” looms

By Bellamy Pailthorp 8 October 2019 (KNKX) – Their goal is clear: to prevent Puget Sound’s iconic Southern Resident killer whales from going extinct. Solving that problem is anything but simple. The task force convened by Gov. Jay Inslee to save the orcas added 13 new recommendations this week, at its final meeting. The additions […]

A semi-truck hauls a wind turbine blade to the Casper Regional Landfill to be buried, 18 September 2019. Photo: Wyoming News Now

Wyoming landfill begins burying turbine blades – Burial site “to last hundreds of years”

By Kody Allen 18 September 2019 CASPER, Wyoming (Wyoming News Now) – One wind farm in Glenrock and two from the Saratoga area have partnered with the Casper Regional Landfill to dispose of their old wind turbine blades. More than 900 blades will be brought to the landfill beginning now until the end of next […]

A crane hoists wind turbine blades. Photo: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg

Wind turbines tossed into dump stirs debate on wind power’s dirty downside

By Chris Martin 31 July 2019 (Bloomberg) – Wind turbines may be carbon-free, but they’re not recyclable. A photograph of dozens of giant turbine blades dumped into a Wyoming landfill touched off a debate Wednesday on Twitter about wind power’s environmental drawbacks. The argument may be only beginning. Fiberglass turbine blades — which in some […]

Species richness of freshwater megafauna in the year 1500 and in the 21st Century in Europe. Graphic: Fengzhi He, 2019

88 percent decline of big freshwater animals over 40-year period – “The results are alarming and confirm the fears of scientists involved in studying and protecting freshwater biodiversity”

By Nadja Neumann 8 August 2019 (IGB) – Rivers and lakes cover just about one percent of Earth’s surface, but are home to one third of all vertebrate species worldwide. At the same time, freshwater life is highly threatened. Scientists from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and international colleagues have now […]

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