Energy

France unveils new efforts to renovate buildings

It had been a long while since my last post on Cleantechies, as I didn’t post during summer. But I am back with a post on a topic close to my heart as my Master’s thesis was on it. The French residential sector could benefit immensely from energy efficiency efforts and it seems the current …

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China coal consumption could peak soon

The People’s Republic of China is in the middle of a very serious situation as it is struggling with horrendous air pollution which in the Northern provinces cut life expectancy by over five years. To avoid this from worsening even more, the local government has been investing heavily in the past and will invest more …

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The Fukushima horror story goes on

Safe and clean nuclear energy seems everyday further away as the horror story of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan unfolds. Each passing year seems to bring its flow of bad news. As the New York Times notes : ” Problems at the plant seemed to take a sharp turn for the worse in July …

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The carbon tax works : British Columbia edition

We have  seen in previous articles on how taxing carbon makes a lot of sense. Ireland and Australia have already implemented them with resounding successes. Both China and South Africa are planning to enact one by 2015. Now the Economist and Grist published articles on a third example of a successful carbon tax implementation, and …

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The beginning of the end for coal

Carl Pope, the former executive director and chairman of the Sierra Club published an article on the very topic last week as the World Bank and the US government announced they wouldn’t fund coal anymore. But this week, there was another third blow on financing coal. As The Guardian reported : ” The European Investment …

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An innovative idea to push for building retrofits.

Houses and building energy efficiency is a hot topic for me since I wrote my Master’s thesis on it back to 2006. Then I discovered that France had no less than 20 million buildings to insulate ( not bad for a country with 65 million inhabitants ) Now according to the Guardian, the UK Green …

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Random vacation thoughts

My time out for the past two weeks in southern France was the occasion for me to think a bit about energy and environmental issues as I was experiencing stuff I have been writing about on this blog. Exemplifying with day-to-day and real-life examples is a fantastic opportunity to see how stuff just works.  From …

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LED lights save a lot of money, could save even much more

According to a study carried out in the United States by the local Department of Energy (DOE), the 49 million LED light bulbs already installed helped save a massive $675 million (over 500 million euros) in a single year. But wait, there is more as if all light bulbs in the United States were replaced …

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