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A surprising reaction from the UK Green Building Council to a policy change that appears to make a lot of sense.

"The Chilean government has set its sights on significantly increasing its geothermal energy capacity. The Ministry of Energy recently announced a new contract for the development of 20 areas by 2012. 70 bids from 13 domestic and foreign firms were submitted for the rights to exploit the newly released regions of Rarapacos and Los Ricos. Earlier in the year, Energy Minister Ricardo Raineri announced more than 170 concessions for geothermal energy by 2012. He further specified that these concessions would be supported by US$200 million in funding from the government. The country is striving to increase its geothermal capacity to 1,000 megawatts in order to meet an ever-growing energy demand in a sustainable manner"

The Scientific basis for carbon reduction targets - video of meeting in UK Parliament\n\nWitnesses\n\n 1. Professor James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Tim Helweg-Larsen, Director, Public Interest Research Centre\n 2. Professor Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Professor John Beddington CMG FRS, Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science

The latest word on the state of climate change.

Sorry, not strictly on topic, but I found this very gripping and wanted to share it.

While other governments are reducing their feed-in schemes, UK is moving towards them.

Comprehensive and accurate information on government interventions in energy markets. Doug Koplow founded Earth Track in 1999 to more effectively integrate information on energy subsidies. For nearly 20 years, Mr. Koplow has written extensively on natural resource subsidies for organizations such as the Global Subsidies Initiative, the National Commission on Energy Policy, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Greenpeace, the Alliance to Save Energy, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. He has analyzed scores of government programs and made important developments in subsidy valuation techniques.

On March 17, two U.S. government agencies announced they would work together to help spur the development of offshore energy projects. Under the agreement, the Interior Department has jurisdiction over offshore wind and solar energy projects, and the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC) has jurisdiction over wave and tidal currents projects.

This merits revisiting. With the recent collapse of the Spanish market, the correction of the German market and the expected collapse of the French PV market, FITs prove unsustainable or victim of their own success. Once the market picks up, governments can no longer support their price tab. Moreover, they are based on a false premise: the cost of taking a technology through the learning cycle is prohibitive - it requires too many tens of billions.

The topic is complex. Some underlying questions: * Why promotion of renewables was set-up? * What is the complete economic balance of renewables promotion? (expenses in subsidies, but savings in fuel imports, job creation, exports.... some interesting studies have been done on this - see for instance Macroeconomic study on the impact of Wind Energy in Spain - http://www.aeeolica.es/userfiles/file/aee-publica/091211-executive-summary-2009.pdf) * Is the allocation of subsidies cost done correctly? Electricity consumers often pay extra-cost, but benefits go to other pockets. Should there be a cost re-allocation to make the model sustainable? * Is regulatory framework evolving less rapidly than technology? FITs on PV in 2008 could be significantly reduced compared to FITs in 2007, and so on. How to accomodate regulation to that quick cost reduction? * Had governments defined a cap in global subsidies amount? Not really, this explains why they are all reacting to initial plans. * Development of technology and market drives costs down. Why some few countries should make this investment to the benefit of the entire world? * Have we excessively promoted market growth and neglected technology development? Are we paying too much for building power plants with primitive technology?

@Fernando - I agree that the topic is complex. However, I'd refrain from making claims on employment effects. This is an area where secondary effects are rarely taken into account. While I realise these claims are popular, basically nobody knows.

Is it ironic? Or is it a case of preferring real action over grand declarations?

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) announced on May 14, 2012, that it has formulated a policy for promoting energy conservation and management, titled "Toward a Smart Energy City Beyond Power-Saving" (unofficial translation). In addition to i...

There's a problem with this mythology: sometimes there's no invisible hand. Sometimes short-sighted government regulations give preference to bad technologies over good ones - stifling innovation and blinding us to our own ability to make progress.

I added the tag 'USA' to this bookmark. It is not the case in Europe, where efficiency has improved steadily. But it's also a debate of apples and oranges. Nuclear, fossil and renewable energy are as different as cricket, baseball and golf bats. And we do not calculate batting averages accross them.

Brazilian Government introduces new taxes for inefficient lamps.

Each federal government agency receiving recovery funds has set up a website which outlines how they plan to spend funds. This page has a link to each of these sites. This includes some interesting information from the department of energy.

The climate in Iraq is hot and dry with plenty of sunshine. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the electricity infrastructure has been in shambles. The actual electricity production in IraqIraq is about one-third of the electrical grid's capacity. The U.S. government, as of July last year, spent $4.91 billion repairing the Iraqi infrastructure, but only there is only a few hours of electricity a day for most Iraqis. Enter solar energy.

Thousands of new offshore wind turbines could power every home in Britain by 2020, the government announced today, as it set out new wind-energy plans. John Hutton, the business secretary, proposed the creation of up to 33 gigawatts of offshore wind energy. He called for companies to invest in large-scale farm development to generate enough power for up to 25m homes in the next 12 years. That would require around 7,000 turbines, or one every half-mile. He admitted that "tough choices" would have to be made if the UK wanted to respond to climate change and become more self-sufficient.

The U.K. Business Secretary John Hutton, who earlier this month pledged to support new nuclear plants, said the government will consider whether to back a tidal power project with an output equivalent to five reactors. The government will study proposals including a dam between England and Wales that would produce 8,640 megawatts of power by 2020, enough to meet 5 percent of U.K. demand, the minister said today in a statement. It will also assess plans by Tidal Electric Ltd. to build a walled pool to produce 60 megawatts.

Ah Severn and Cape Cod - just build the bloody things, or be silent forever.

The Scottish Government granted ScottishPower planning permission for what the company says would be the world's largest wave farm. The announcement is a milestone for the $20.4 million project which will see four floating generators, designed to convert wave movement into electricity, positioned off the coast of the new facility's sister site - the European Marine Test Centre also in Orkney. Expected to be operating by 2008, the 160-metre Pelamis Devices (Sea Snakes), are anticipated to provide around 3 megawatts (MW) of electricity.