Solar Energy

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – The Hawaii legislature has just passed a bill by an overwhelming margin that sets a goal of 100% renewable energy in the state by 2045. The new law requires that the state get a third of its electricity from renewables by 2020, only five years from now. […]

China

The China-Pakistan trade corridor and its implications for regional security

contributors

By Brian M. Downing | (Informed Comment) | – China and Pakistan announced, with considerable fanfare in Islamabad, a $46 billion dollar investment program to build a transportation corridor from the western Pakistani port of Gwadar to Xinjiang region in northwestern China. In time, the route will link with Chinese railways bringing Afghanistan’s wealth to […]

Climate Change

China’s Big Clean-Up: Asia’s Hope

contributors

By Mark L. Clifford | (Author of The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency) – Asia sometimes feels like one big environmental emergency. Breathing Beijing’s air on a bad mid-winter’s day is more dangerous than breathing the smoke in a forest fire. The appearance of thousands of pig carcasses floating […]

Energy

Clean Disruption: Why Conventional Energy and Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030

contributors

Tony Seba | “Tony Seba gives the keynote address at the NZ SmartGrid Forum at the Te Papa museum in Wellington, New Zealand, March 31, 2014. The keynote is titled “Clean Disruption: Why Conventional Energy and Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030″. In this keynote, Seba highlights four areas where the combination of exponentially improving […]

Acidification of Oceans

Turning Point: 2015, the Year the World turned to Renewables and saved itself

contributors

By Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – Don’t hold your breath, but future historians may look back on 2015 as the year that the renewable energy ascendancy began, the moment when the world started to move decisively away from its reliance on fossil fuels. Those fuels — oil, natural gas, and coal — […]

Climate Change

Australia’s new Super Solar Cells Double Efficiency

contributors

Graham Philips | (ABCTVCatalyst) | – “Australian scientists from the University of New South Wales have set a new world record for the efficiency of commercially-viable solar cells. Dr Graham Phillips investigates new technology that is able to convert more than 40 per cent of the sun’s light into electricity. This is more than double […]

Apartheid

Israelis Illegally Remove Solar Panels from Palestinian Bedouin Village

contributors

By IMEMC | – Solar panels finally brought electricity to the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, but the residents’ joy was short lived. A few weeks after the panels were installed, Israeli authorities confiscated them, indicating the latest chapter in Israel’s long battle to quash the strategically located village. PNN reports […]

Climate Change

Spain at 70% non-Carbon Electricity: Will it be 1st Net Carbon Zero G-20 State?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – CleanTechnica reports that Spain got nearly 70% of its electricity from plants that did not generate carbon dioxide in March. The two biggest non-carbon energy sources were nuclear and wind. In recent years, the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy cut some government subsidies and other help to the […]

Barack Obama

Obama to Train 75,000 Solar Workers in 5 Yrs, Including Veterans

contributors

Barack Obama | (Whitehouse.gov) – “President Obama traveled to the Hill Air Force Base in Salt Lake City, Utah to discuss his initiative to connect veterans with jobs in the burgeoning solar energy industry. April 3, 2015.” The White House: “President Obama Speaks on Jobs in America’s Solar Energy”