Well done to Morocco. Different technology, but just about to go live. Also good aims for 2020.
Solar Power in Morocco
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Category Archives: Energy
Excellent news at last
At last here is a story that suggests many new projects planned for gas extraction and distribution may not be required IF we try and limit global CO2 emissions to a 2 degree Celsius rise. There are many hints in the media that Paris 2015 will be our last opportunity to agree drastic action to alter our polluting behaviour. Keep in mind this is only 6 months away now. Will anything happen or not?
China: rapid progress with air pollution
: China's last Beijing coal power plant - David Gray, Reuters
Two interesting articles here. China has always been capable of long-term planning, and more recently with creating rapid change (e.g. building a new city a month). So if these stories are correct, then well done to China. That also begs another question: why is Tony Abbott’s government in Australia stiil so keen on massive new coal mines?
Vested interests vs. climate change
: Gregory Boyce chairman, Peabody Energy - Aaron M. Sprecher, Getty Images
This is what these times are actually about: just who is in charge of our globalised world?
European Union environment
: EU EEA Soer study - European Environment Agency
This status and outlook synthesis just arrived, file is about 16 mb and available in several languages
Hydrogen-powered trams
Political monkey-business?
The first story seems to suggest a London politician wants to lead the way for divestment from fossil fuels … especially ‘dirty coal’. Bravo! Or not?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/17/britain-coal-investment-fossil-fuel-assets-worthless-divestment
The second story however, written a year earlier, shows Britain’s reliance on coal is very low. The coal mines themselves virtually, if not actually, gone by now. Power stations took recent advantage of cheap, and dirty, coal exported by USA to Europe; USA switched to even dirtier fracking products. UKCoal said only 4% of power in UK was generated by their coal in 2013.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10740600/Britain-to-have-just-one-remaining-coal-pit-after-UK-Coal-announces-closures.html
So, effectively, Ed Davey is shouting loudly about climate change (good), but secretly Britain will be largely unaffected, whereas many other developing countries will once again bear the brunt of these policies. Unfairness and deceit are still the order of the day 🙁
Jurassic Coast windfarm?
I know this area pretty well, lived somewhere along there three times too. The cliffs are mainly chalk and home to an incredible fossil fauna. Its spectacular beauty is very well known. I’m also intrigued that this is another environmental damaging venture from EDF ~ the French firm involved in Hinckley Point reactor. Perhaps it’s time to take a look at EDF & add them to a ‘Black list’?
Algae: a novel approach to an old problem
This article is most interesting, and I wish them success with their endeavours. I’m familiar with some of these old mines: in Britain we’ve mined for millennia. In fact, on a mountain ‘Mynydd Parys’ just across from my mountain-top farm in North Wales ~ there was a gold & silver mine that was already 1000 years old when the Romans invaded Britain. I used to take my dogs over there sometimes and the ‘tailings ponds’ were highly acidic; some plants still grew there though. I also conducted interviews with the caretaker staff at the mine, when I did an EIA for heavy metal pollutants going down the streams into the sea. Fascinating study.
So if this algal remediation works out well, this will be a neat solution to some pressing global problems. Well done 🙂
Scotland: Tidal energy project
Another excellent milestone for Scotland. Well done … green all the way.