Al Gore did it again in another TED Talk in the end of last month. In 20 minutes he managed to show how critical our climate situation is but also brought a lot of optimism as solar and wind are beating all past predictions on how fast and big they are growing.
After reducing our trash at the source and composting and recycling what can be, waste to energy is a good way to avoid landfilling while producing both heat and electricity. China is thus turning to this solution to answer its most pressing challenges.
Here is some research we might see one day off the coasts around the world : giant 50 MW offshore wind turbines, with blades as long as 200 meters (650 feet). That’s two and a half times longer than any existing wind turbine blade.
With renewable energy sources ramping fast, it is no surprise that even the generally conservative International Energy Agency believes that solar, wind and the likes will the primary electricity source globally by 2030.
Smart infrastructure choices from cities worldwide would save them $17 trillion (15.2 billion euros) by 2050. The solutions – renewable energy, public transportation, energy efficiency – are not new but the lens of this new study is interesting.
The drought that is affecting Brazil so much is also undermining Uruguay and its large dependance on hydro energy ( 74 percent of local electricity ). The current alternative to hydro is oil. So the country will invest $2.6 billion ( 2.3 billion euros ) in wind energy in the next couple of years.
Having access to the Seattle Public Library I was able to borrow this book that was strongly recommended to me by Jimmy Jia, one of the many bright faculty of Pinchot University.
If you consume as little as electricity as you can and have solar panels installed, you are just one step away from being independant from coal and gas fueled utilities. This step might come sooner than expected thanks to Tesla.
Today, fossil fuels account for the vast majority of energy sources around the world today. This will change in the next decades as we reached a turning point as a new study revealed this week.
That’s Elon Musk’s opinion so that must be true. Tesla’s genius founder put yet another nail in the hydrogen coffin and stated what we knew all along : hydrogen is a technology that may well be too complex to ever be significant.
