alternative energy – Page 8 – Desdemona Despair

Aerial view of Millstone Power Station. Unit 2 of Millstone Power Plant near New London was shut down on 12 August 2012 after temperatures in the sound exceeded 75 degrees for 24 hours, the maximum temperature at which the nuclear power plant has permits to extract cooling water for the unit. Photo: Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis

July 23, 2019

Nuclear power, once seen as impervious to global warming, threatened by heat waves – “You need to solve global warming for nuclear plants to survive”

By Alan Neuhauser 1 July 2019 (US News) – There’s a reason nuclear plants are built close to water. Harnessing the enormous power of nuclear fission, plants generate steam, which shoots through pipes to spin a turbine that generates massive amounts of electricity. To keep from getting dangerously hot, the plants suck up surrounding water […]

Committed CO2 emissions from existing and proposed energy infrastructure. Estimates of future CO2 emissions by industry sector and country/region Emissions from existing infrastructure are shown by darker shading, and emissions from proposed power plants (i.e. electricity) are more lightly shaded. Graphic: Tong, et al., 2019 / Nature

July 18, 2019

“Committed” CO2 emissions jeopardize international climate goals – Existing, planned fossil fuel-burning infrastructure must be retired early, replaced – “Without such radical changes, we fear the aspirations of the Paris agreement are already at risk”

IRVINE, California, 1 July 2019 (UCI News) – The nations that have signed agreements to stabilize the global mean temperature by 2050 will fail to meet their goals unless existing fossil fuel-burning infrastructure around the world is retired early, according to a study [pdf] – published today in Nature – by researchers at the University […]

Energy consumption and income inequality in the Philippines, 1990-2015. Data: McGee and Greiner, 2019 / Energy Research and Social Science. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

July 14, 2019

Shifts to renewable energy can drive up energy poverty, study finds – “We don’t think of energy as a human right when it actually is”

By Cristina Rojas 12 July 2019 (PSU) – Efforts to shift away from fossil fuels and replace oil and coal with renewable energy sources can help reduce carbon emissions but do so at the expense of increased inequality, according to a new Portland State University study. [Data available here: Renewable energy injustice McGee and Greiner […]

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions under current federal and state policy, net emissions (million metric tons of CO2e). Graphic: Rhodium Group

July 9, 2019

Taking Stock 2019: U.S. on track to miss Paris Agreement climate goal by wide margin

By Hannah Pitt, Kate Larsen, Hannah Kolus, Shashank Mohan, John Larsen, Whitney Herndon, and Trevor Houser 8 July 2019 (Rhodium Group) – For the past five years, Rhodium has provided an independent annual assessment of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and progress towards achieving the country’s climate goals. Given the current state and federal policy […]

A motorist drives on top of the Kariba Dam wall in Kariba, Zimbabwe, 19 February 2016. Photo: Philimon Bulawayo / REUTERS

June 30, 2019

Too much water or too little: Hydropower fights wild weather as climate changes rapidly

By Gerald Porter Jr. and Jeremy Hodges 22 June 2019 (Bloomberg) – The Kariba Dam has towered over one of Africa’s mightiest rivers for 60 years, forming the world’s largest reservoir and providing reliable electricity to Zambia and Zimbabwe. But as drought grips the region, flow on the Zambezi river has dwindled to a third of what […]

Carbon emissions from the power sector 2018. Graphic: BP

June 11, 2019

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 […]

June 9, 2019

Leading scientists set out resource challenge of meeting net zero emissions in the UK by 2050: Twice the total annual world cobalt production and at least half of the world’s copper production

5 June 2019 (NHM) – A letter authored by Natural History Museum Head of Earth Sciences Prof Richard Herrington and fellow expert members of SoS MinErals (an interdisciplinary programme of NERC-EPSRC-Newton-FAPESP funded research) has today been delivered to the Committee on Climate Change. The letter explains that to meet UK electric car targets for 2050 […]

June 9, 2019

Reductio ad absurdum: “The big deception is that we have weaned ourselves off coal, when in reality we have just exported our coal burning to someone else’s country”

4 June 2019 (The Consciousness of Sheep) — One of the advantages of being a rocky island in the northeast Atlantic, right underneath the Gulf Stream is that you get to deploy record amounts of offshore wind turbines to delay the day when your economy grinds to a halt. This is the reality of modern […]

Cover of “State of India’s Environment 2019: In Figures”. Graphic: Centre for Science and Environment

June 5, 2019

Air pollution kills 100,000 children in India every year, study finds – “The country’s progress in renewable energy in 2018-19 has also been dismal”

5 June 2019 (AFP) – The noxious air hanging over India’s towns and cities kills more than 100,000 children under five every year, a damning study published Wednesday for World Environment Day found. India has repeatedly failed to address environmental concerns. Last year a UN report found 14 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities […]

May 28, 2019

Luxury condo buildings sucking twice as much power as older ones – “There seems to be a disconnect between what their perceived energy footprint is and what their actual energy footprint is by living in one of these high-rises”

By Sean Boynton 12 April 2019 (Global News) – If you live in a newly-built luxury condo building, you may be enjoying some of the perks being offered: swimming pools, fitness centres, even movie theatres and bowling alleys. But a new report from BC Hydro says those amenities come at a cost — and it […]