The Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss noted in a 1954 speech to the National Association of Science Writers that the splitting of the atom and the dawn of the Atomic Age heralded, in his view, a coming era of electrical power that for consumers would be “too cheap to meter.” Soon, […]
As the end of coal continues to loom larger on the horizon, a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has blown trench-sized holes in the industry’s latest attempt to talk up its future, dismissing the myth of coal alleviating poverty in the developing world. The report makes it clear that renewable energy projects are far better investments […]
Overnight, China has become a leading world grain importer, set to buy a staggering 22 million tons in the 2013–14 trade year, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture projections. As recently as 2006—just eight years ago—China had a grain surplus and was exporting 10 million tons. What caused this dramatic shift? The world’s […]
Major Australian coal projects risk losing value due to falling demand from China, where leaders are increasingly concerned about growing public anger over severe air pollution, a new analysis from Oxford University has found. Australia’s coal investments, like this open pit mine in Victoria, risk becoming stranded if China implements new energy policies. Photo credit: Marcus Wong […]
Greenpeace By Kelly Mitchell It’s been a big month for news on the state of the U.S. coal industry—from announcements that China is significantly curbing coal use, to the long-awaited unveiling of the Obama Administration’s carbon standards for new coal-fired power plants. Despite Peabody’s claims that “We have trillions of tons of coal resources in the […]
TomDispatch By Michael T. Klare What sort of fabulous new energy systems will the world possess in 2040? Which fuels will supply the bulk of our energy needs? And how will that change the global energy equation, international politics and the planet’s health? If the experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are right, […]
TomDispatch By Michael T. Klare When it comes to energy and economics in the climate-change era, nothing is what it seems. Most of us believe (or want to believe) that the second carbon era, the Age of Oil, will soon be superseded by the Age of Renewables, just as oil had long since superseded the […]
Worldwatch Institute Global use of solar and wind energy continued to grow significantly in 2012. Solar power consumption increased by 58 percent, to 93 terrawatt-hours (TWh), and the use of wind power increased by 18 percent, to 521 TWh. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock Although hydropower remains the world’s leading renewable energy, solar and wind continue […]
Greenpeace By Mahesh Prasad For ten years, the Chinese state-run organization Shenhua Group, the world’s biggest coal producer by volume, has sucked this land dry, exploiting water resources at a shocking scale from these beautiful grasslands to use in its coal-to-liquid project (also known as coal liquefaction, a process for producing liquid fuels from coal) […]
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