Energy

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In 2011, Scotland’s government, urged on by visionaries like Richard Dixon, set itself the ambitious goal to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. At that time, it only only got about a fourth from clean energy sources, and a lot of that was hydro. The report card […]

Iran

Trump put the US on a War footing Iran: Biden must Reverse that Immediately

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Manon Dark | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – The current controversy over Iran’s nuclear program is one of Trump’s lingering foreign policy legacies that has proved particularly difficult for President Joe Biden to resolve. The U.S. withdrawal in May 2018 from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear […]

Climate Crisis

Germany sees record greenhouse gas emission fall due to pandemic, renewables

Clean Energy Wire

By Kerstine Appunn and Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire) – Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped nearly nine percent in 2020 – the largest annual fall since 1990 – as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic pushed down the use of fossil fuels and added to the effects of the shift to renewable […]

Authoritarianism

How the Big Oil – Dictator Complex Threatens our Planet

Basav Sen

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – This March, the leading global consulting firm IHS Markit held its CERAWeek conference, billed as the “world’s premier energy event” bringing together the “Who’s Who list of the global energy industry.” The conference’s keynote speaker and recipient of the Global Energy and Environment Leadership Award was Indian Prime Minister […]

Climate Crisis

America is ‘Can-do’ again: Biden’s $3 trillion infrastructure Plan includes $500 bn for Green Energy and Transit and Massive Innovation

Juan Cole

Jeff Stein and Tyler Pager at WaPo report that $500 billion of the proposed $3 trillion Biden infrastructure plan, or 16 percent, will be devoted to dealing with climate change. They write, “The infrastructure component is expected to include $400 billion in spending to combat climate change, including $60 billion for infrastructure related to green […]

Climate Crisis

German Greens come out against Russian Gas Pipeline: “It ought not to Exist”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Germany’s Green Party has come out strongly against the Nord Stream II Baltic natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The pipeline’s construction is already advanced. Der Tagesspiegel reports, “Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock warned that the pipeline would undermine European sovereignty and pose an obstacle to a common European […]

Education

A Green New Deal: Arkansas School District goes Solar, Gives Teachers $1000s in Bonuses with Savings

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Climate Wire reported last fall on a remarkable story about the way renewable energy not only saves the earth from the destructive climate emergency but can at the same time improve our lives and those of our children. Our hero is Michael Hester, who some years ago became the superintendent […]

China

Not Waiting on Biden: China breaks US Iran Blockade, moves to import nearly 1 mn b/d of Ayatolllah’s Oil

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – China is dramatically ramping up its imports of petroleum from Iran this spring, going from a daily average of 300,000 barrels per day during the past year to 856,000 bpd. So reports Felicity Bradstock of Oilprice.com. The Biden administration has dragged its feet on negotiating a return to the 2015 […]

Coal

As Solar, Wind costs Plummet, Coal, Gas vastly Over-priced in Bubble that could Burst worse than 2008

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new report by RethinkX, a think tank using the ideas of Tony Seba, who teaches Business at Stanford University, demonstrates that the value of fossil fuels and of the electric plants they fuel is vastly overstated by government agencies and financial analysts. Seba and his colleagues point out that […]