Clean Energy Transition

On January 25th the sector experienced a huge shock when the state-owned electric utility Eskom informed the big mining companies that it could only provide for 50% of the mines’ usual needs for the months to come. The consequence? Mines had to be shut down. You don’t want your miners stuck hundreds of meters deep below the surface and see the light suddenly go off.

Results from a year-long study on high-tech electricity meters found smart grid technology performed as intended, saving consumers about 10 percent on their bills while easing strain on the power grid.

natural gas is okay but it's not ideal. It still emits greenhouse gases and NOx. It's also becoming more volatile and is likely to become much more expensive over the coming years. Also, the power mix in Ontario will become cleaner over the next decade -- no coal, more nuclear, hydroelectric, wind and natural gas. So there's an argument that heating your home with electricity could be cleaner than using natural gas, if you can do it efficiently -- in other words, if you can find a better way than using resistance heating.

a 34-year-old engineer who was a cryogenics expert with the U.S. Navy, realized that conventional air-source heat pumps that are popular in the U.S. south do not perform well in cold climates and are therefore not economical. So he went ahead and built his own, called Acadia, and it can operate efficiently down to minus 30 degrees C.

If hydrogen is introduced into the energy system, the cost to reduce one unit of CO2 decreases by 4% in 2030 and 15% in 2050, implying that hydrogen is a cost-effective option for the reduction of CO2

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - The World Bank on Monday launched a new carbon credit trading guarantee that will allow private-sector firms in developing countries to tap the growing 40 billion euro ($63.11 billion) global carbon market, a senior official said.

SANTIAGO, March 20 (Reuters) - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed a new energy law into effect on Thursday that requires electric utilities to invest in and supply nonconventional energy sources (NCES). The vanguard law is an attempt by the energy-poor country to diversify supply as it tries to feed booming industry, particularly its copper mining sector.

What should we do about climate change? The question is an ethical one. Science, including the science of economics, can help discover the causes and effects of climate change. It can also help work out what we can do about climate change. But what we should do is an ethical question.

Weighing our own prosperity against the chances that climate change will diminish the well-being of our grandchildren calls on economists to make hard ethical judgments

Undertaking a home building project? Sustainable, eco-friendly materials are the only way to go — they’re better for you, as well as the planet. According to GreenBuilding.com, “the US EPA ranks indoor pollution among top five environmental risks, and unhealthy air is found in up to 30% of new and renovated buildings.”

Some researchers are looking beyond our planet to the night sky. It turns out, there's a way that we can generate electricity from the moon -- thanks to the tides created by the gravitational pull the moon exerts on Earth's oceans. The Earth is tugged by the sun and moon. The sun dwarfs the moon in size, but the moon is much closer to Earth -- around 239,000 miles away, compared to the distance of 93 million miles between the sun and the Earth. Proximity trumps size when it comes to tidal movement here on Earth: The moon exerts more than twice as much gravitational force on Earth than the sun does

Éléments pour un débat sur les énergies renouvelables en France

GM's engineers have been flogging the mules -- known formally as "engineering development vehicles" -- pretty hard for a couple of months now and they've got the lithium-ion batteries and electric drivetrain pretty much sorted. Lutz finally got a chance to take one of the range-extended electric vehicles for a spin and notes on his blog, "While the car is still most definitely a work in progress, the thrill of driving electrically -- that instant, silent torque -- is certainly present and accounted for."

At Four Dollars per Gallon Almost Three Quarters of Americans Report Changing Driving Habits to Cope with Gas Prices

In support of the State of California Renewables Portfolio Standard, the California ISO (CAISO) has worked with Participating Transmission Owners, the California Energy Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission, industry experts, adjacent control areas and owners/developers of renewable resources to identify integration issues and solutions for the integration of large amounts of renewable resources into the CAISO Control Area.

If you care about reducing your emissions of greenhouse gases, then you might want to move to Honolulu, Los Angeles or Portland, Ore., according to a new study from The Brookings Institution. These three metropolises boast, respectively, the lowest three per capita levels of world warming pollution (read: carbon dioxide) in the nation's top 100 metro areas.

Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: NCI) today announced the launch of a major multi-client study on the convergence of the Smart Grid with Photovoltaics (PV). This comprehensive and focused study is helping the eighteen participating organizations identify the key technology components of a PV Smart Grid; understand how the Smart Grid could create additional value for distributed PV; gain insight to the implications for utilities; and identify trends and valuable market opportunities.