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The renewables energy industry has again called on the government to urgently clarify its plans for low-carbon energy development after 2020, following the release of a controversial submission to the EU, which argues the bloc should abandon specific renewable energy targets post-2020.

Latest data show, however, that in 2010, the indicative targets the member states set themselves for the electricity and transport sector were missed by most member states and the EU overall.

'It is the fifth consecutive year that renewables have accounted for more than 40% of new electricity generating installations,' said Zervos.

By 2035, 80% of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources'.

There’s a promising new entry in the race to build cheap batteries for storing energy from solar panels and wind turbines. Stanford researchers led by Yi Cui, a professor of materials science and engineering, have demonstrated a partially liquid battery made of inexpensive lithium and sulfur. Cui says the battery will be easy to make and will last for thousands of charging cycles. Cui believes that the material and manufacturing costs of the battery might be low enough to meet the Department of Energy’s goal of $100 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, which the DOE estimates will make the technology economically attractive to utilities. Existing batteries can cost hundreds of dollars per kilowatt-hour of capacity, although several companies are working to commercialize cheaper ones (see “Ambri’s Better Battery” and “Battery to Take On Diesel and Natural Gas”).

A 2009 progress report by the Commission suggests that the EU will fall short of its 2010 renewable energy targets as set out in the first Renewables Directive and the Biofuels Directives. The Commission projects that the EU will achieve 19% instead of the target of 21% of total electricity consumption, and 4% instead of the 5.75% target for the transport sector. This failure may in part be due to the absence of binding targets in either directive.

1. Transmission Developers would provide electricity transmission in underwater cables (previous story this week), that can be lain in aqueducts, riverbeds and lakes, or down ocean coastlines – clearing the one big hindrance to the development of renewable energy, which is the new transmission needed, and the NIMBYism that succeeds in prevents that from being built, because these would be out of sight. 2. The other,  Riverbank Power – an equally innovative breakthrough, would provide a complete solution to storing wind power (previous story)  effectively making it dispatchable base-load power.

Who’s driving us toward disaster? A radical answer would be the reliance of capitalists on the extraction and use of fossil energy. Some, however, would rather identify other culprits. The earth has now, we are told, entered “the Anthropocene”: the epoch of humanity. Enormously popular — and accepted even by many Marxist scholars — the Anthropocene concept suggests that humankind is the new geological force transforming the planet beyond recognition, chiefly by burning prodigious amounts of coal, oil, and natural gas.

The important thing to note here is the logical structure of the Anthropocene narrative: some universal trait of the species must be driving the geological epoch that is its own, or else it would be a matter of some subset of the species. But the story of human nature can come in many forms, both in the Anthropocene genre and in other parts of climate change discourse.

Giving short shrift to all the talk of a universal human evildoer, she writes, “We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe — and would benefit the vast majority — are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.”

Norway set a renewable energy target for 2020 of 67.5 percent of its domestic production. The Norwegian Energy and Petroleum Ministry said that means the country needs to increase its renewable energy portfolio around 9 percent per year

The government's climate watchdog today urged the coalition to focus on hitting the UK's renewable energy targets rather than raising them higher.

"The UK envisages multiple low-carbon technologies: renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage, all competing freely against each other in the years to come … For this reason, we cannot support a 2030 renewables target," it reads.

If all US homes built before 2000 were brought up to the same efficiency standards as those built after that time, energy consumption would fall 22.5%, according to a new report.The study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, which was co-sponsored by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), looked at the affordability, energy and location efficiency of the country’s existing housing stock.