Green Energy

Jiang Mengnan ( China Dialogue ) – Around the world, tech and finance companies have been laying staff off. In 2022, tech firms’ payrolls fell by 164,000 employees, with a further 166,000 jobs cut in the first quarter of 2023, according to tracking platform Layoffs.fyi. In China, youth unemployment is also rising, hitting 20% this […]

Climate Crisis

Renewable Energy poised to overtake Coal, Providing 1/3 of Global Electricity: IEA

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The International Energy Agency’s report on electricity markets is out and it has some good news. Depending on how cold the winters are, the IEA expects renewable sources of energy to outstrip coal in 2024, and forever thereafter. It calls this change “structural.” That is, it isn’t a blip or […]

Climate Crisis

We Need to Decarbonize our Electricity, and Quickly — the Good News is that Green Energy is Practical and Brings Economic Benefits

The Conversation

By John Quiggin, The University of Queensland | – We use energy in everything we do, but few of us understand it properly. Much of the time this doesn’t matter. We can flick a light switch or turn the ignition key in a car, knowing the technology will work whether we understand it or not. […]

Climate Crisis

Renewables covered more than Half of German Electricity Consumption in the first half of 2023

Julian Wettengel

( Clean Energy Wire) – Wind, solar and other renewable energy sources covered 52 percent of German electricity consumption in the first six months of 2023, up from 49 percent in the first half of last year, preliminary data by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wuerttemberg (ZSW) and energy industry association BDEW […]

Climate Crisis

Europe’s largest Heat Pump to heat Cologne Homes using Rhine River Water

Clean Energy Wire

By Sören Amelang | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Cologne energy supplier RheinEnergie is planning Europe’s largest heat pump that will use energy contained in Rhine river water to heat homes in the city centre. “RheinEnergie has awarded the general planning contract for a large-scale heat pump in a capacity class that does […]

Green Energy

Germany gets 1/3 of its Electricity from Wind, 48% from Renewables in First Quarter

Clean Energy Wire

( Clean Energy Wire ) – Wind power has become Germany’s most important electricity source again in the first quarter of 2023, according to an analysis by the statistical office Destatis. Onshore and offshore turbines supplied nearly one third (32.2%) of the electricity produced between January and March, while total electricity production was 7.8 percent […]

Batteries

Tipping Point? Global Investments in Low-Carbon Energy Outstrip Fossil Fuel Commitments by 1.7 to 1 for First Time in World History

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Globally, investors will sink $1.7 trillion into low-carbon energy this year — for the first time more than will be invested in fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the IEA, said, “For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, about 1.7 dollars are […]

Climate Crisis

EPA Again Proposes Restrictions on Power Plant Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Wisconsin Examiner

By: Robert Zullo ( The Wisconsin Examiner ) – The Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Power Plan — intended to cut carbon emissions from power plants — was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Trump administration’s much-criticized replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy rule, derided as a “tortured series of misreadings” of the […]

European Union

The European Union is Struggling to Respond to Biden’s Subsidies for Green Energy

China Dialogue

By Anna Gumbau ( China Dialogue ) – After the economic crisis caused by Covid-19 and the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European unity is being tested once again, this time by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). When President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law in August 2022, European leaders […]