Inside the King Abdullah research center in Riyadh, a space station-like compound powered by 20,000 solar panels. Photo: Iman Al-Dabbagh / The New York Times

Inside the Saudi strategy to keep the world hooked on oil – “People would like us to give up on investment in hydrocarbons. But no.”

By Hiroko Tabuchi 21 November 2022 (The New York Times) – Shimmering in the desert is a futuristic research center with an urgent mission: Make Saudi Arabia’s oil-based economy greener, and quickly. The goal is to rapidly build more solar panels and expand electric-car use so the kingdom eventually burns far less oil. But Saudi […]

Electricity fed into the German power grid from conventional and renewable sources (percent) in 2021 and 2022. Graphic: Destatis

Germany generates almost one-third of its electricity from coal as it replaces Russian gas before winter – Coal-generated electricity up 17 percent in 2022 on the same period in 2021

By Zahra Tayeb 8 September 2022 (Insider) – Germany is relying more on coal to generate electricity, as Russian gas cuts force the country to seek alternative sources of fuel before winter.  The European nation produced 82.6 kilowatt-hours of electricity from coal-fired power plants in the first six months of 2022, a 17.2% rise from […]

Racking systems to hold solar panels sit empty on top of an old strip mine in Portage, Pennsylvania, on Monday, 25 April 2022. The fallout from a trade probe is rippling through the US solar industry, delaying projects and threatening to slow the renewable energy transition. Photo: Justin Merriman / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Solar energy projects are grinding to a halt in the U.S. amid investigation into parts from China – “We’re getting crushed because we literally can’t buy a module today”

By Ella Nilsen 6 May 2022 (CNN) – The solar energy industry has been thrown into a panic and projects are grinding to a halt after the Biden administration launched an investigation that some solar CEOs worry could tank the industry. The Commerce Department launched the probe in March into whether four countries in Southeast Asia that supply […]

Anti-solar supporters pose for a portrait at the Johnson County BOCC public hearing on the solar amendments recommended by the Planning Commission in Olathe, Kansas, U.S., 4 April 2022. Photo: Arin Yoon / REUTERS

U.S. solar expansion stalled by rural land-use protests – “It’s pretty obvious that, if there’s a climate urgency, we’re not behaving that way”

By Nichola Groom 7 April 2022 (Reuters) – The Solar Star project in California is among the largest solar energy facilities in the world, boasting 1.7 million panels spread over 3,000 acres north of Los Angeles. Its gargantuan scale points to an uncomfortable fact for the industry: a natural gas power plant 100 miles south […]

Carbon emissions projected to 2050 in three scenarios: Accelerated, Net Zero, and New Momentum. BP’s Energy Outlook 2022 uses three main scenarios (Accelerated, Net Zero, and New Momentum) to explore the range of possible pathways for the global energy system to 2050 and help shape a resilient strategy for BP. Graphic: BP

BP Energy Outlook 2022 edition – The carbon budget is finite, and it is running out

By Spencer Dale 14 March 2022 (BP) – At the time of writing, the world’s attention is focussed on the terrible events taking place in Ukraine. Our thoughts and hopes are with all those affected. The scenarios included in Energy Outlook 2022 were largely prepared before the outbreak of the military action and do not include any […]

Uyghur men imprisoned at the Lop County #4 Re-Education Camp, Xinjiang, China. They are forced to listen to “de-radicalization” lectures. Photo: Weixin

Forced labor from China’s Uighur Muslims “behind global supply of solar panels”

By Sam Courtney-Guy 15 May 2021 (MetroUK) – A huge chunk of the world’s solar panels production depends on forced labour from China’ Uighur Muslims, according to new research. An investigation by Sheffield Hallam University estimates almost half of global supplies of polysilicon are produced by Uighurs under conditions ‘tantamount to enslavement’ in their home […]

Carbon emissions from the power sector 2018. Graphic: BP

BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2019: “A growing mismatch between hopes and reality”

By Spencer Dale 11 June 2019 (BP) – The Statistical Review of World Energy has been providing timely and objective energy data for the past 68 years. In addition to the raw data, the Statistical Review also provides a record of key energy developments and events through time. My guess is that when our successors […]

Standing perfectly still: no progress in replacing fossil fuels for the past twenty years

15 July 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – It’s well known that human population is increasing relentlessly, with no peak in sight for at least the next century. Various projections estimate that the population will be somewhere in the neighborhood of ten to twelve billion by the year 2100 (cf. New projection shows human population could reach […]

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