#fossil-fuel

[superpoojastuff]

Swedish waste power plant switches to clean energy

The plant situated in Renova has transitioned from fossil-fuel powered to biodiesel.

Read More: https://www.industryglobalnews24.com/swedish-waste-power-plant-switches-to-clean-energy

[likethedew]

Propaganda, politics, and the tragedy of profitable disinformation

Propaganda, politics, and the tragedy of profitable disinformation

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” ~ Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1916-1939)

With bitter irony, I pondered a recent promotional item announcing an upcoming Republican event entitled, “Free Trade vs. Socialism.” Evidently the fundraiser proponents were attempting to exploit their…

View On WordPress

[garryrogers]

India’s Air Pollution Rivals China’s as World’s Deadliest

India’s Air Pollution Rivals China’s as World’s Deadliest

GR: The smoke from burning coal, oil, diesel, and gasoline causes many health problems and deaths worldwide. According to the New York Times, the problem is so bad in India, that the country is going to make electric vehicles mandatory by 2030. The country is also switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The article doesn’t mention the great loss of wildlife that is also occurring…

View On WordPress

[garryrogers]

Trump Repeal of Climate Rules Means U.S. Paris Target Now Out of Reach

Trump Repeal of Climate Rules Means U.S. Paris Target Now Out of Reach

GR: Ignoring recent weather extremes, thinning sea ice, disappearing wildlife, and more, our leaders are rushing to help their masters take a little more profit before the Earth becomes uninhabitable. Do they think their children will get to go along to the mountain retreats or to Mars when temperature extremes, floods, and fires have made life unendurable across much of the planet? “The U.S.…

View On WordPress

[garryrogers]

Obama's dirty secret: the fossil fuel projects the US littered around the world | Environment | The Guardian

Obama’s dirty secret: the fossil fuel projects the US littered around the world | Environment | The Guardian

  GR:  These are huge projects that Obama has helped build at a time when the world should be cutting back on fossil-fuel use. The impact of the projects is massive.  Through his approval of funding, Obama has contributed directly to the death of portions of the Great Barrier Reef and to human misery and disease in many areas. As I’ve speculated before, history may show that Obama was the worst…

View On WordPress

[garryrogers]

Can we #keepitintheground please?

GR:  Face it folks our world needs citizen action now–now. Conservation groups challenge planned fossil fuel leases on public lands in Colorado Summit County Citizens Voice Staff Report:  “Conservation groups are challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s plans to auction fossil fuel leases on 20,000 acres of public land in Colorado based on concerns about air and water pollution, and potential…

View On WordPress

[thursdayfilebuzz]

A little guy cleans up Even with its economy and politics in upheaval, Portugal shows the way forward to 100% renewable energy by Eric Reguly - June 24 2016 - The Globe and Mail's Report on Business - July/August 2016 issue Portugal has been a nightmare lately. In 2011, it joined Greece on the sovereign bailout list. Since then, it has been battered by strikes, failing banks, corruption scandals, double-digit unemployment and hung parliaments. But as Lisbon burned, the rest of the world barely noticed that the tiny country was making great strides in renewable energy—so great that it is now being lauded as an example of what is possible as industrialized economies try to embrace a low-carbon future. The high point came in May when, for four consecutive days, fossil-fuel-free sources produced 100% of the country’s electricity. Most of it came from hydro power and wind turbines, with small dollops from biofuels and solar panels. That extraordinary run is unlikely to be repeated soon. It was the result of a period of relatively low energy demand, strong winds and ample rainfall. But there is no doubt that a pleasing trend is in play (unless, of course, we are content to go on cooking the planet with greenhouse gas emissions). In 2013, renewables supplied about 26% of Portugal’s electricity, a figure that rose to 63% a year later, before falling to 50% in 2015 because of a drought. Assuming that renewable energy costs keep falling and that financially strapped Portugal does not crunch its clean-energy subsidies (as Spain has done), an electricity market dominated by clean power seems likely in the next decade or so. The message: If Portugal can do it, so can Canada and other Western countries with stated ambitions to wave goodbye to the carbon era. And maybe, just maybe, African countries can take inspiration from Portugal and go directly to renewable energy instead of building fleets of highly polluting coal-burning plants—the grubby development route taken by China and India—as they move up the industrial value chain. While Portugal is a standout example, other countries are making abundant, if not quite spectacular, progress too on the renewables front. On one day in early May, the amount of electricity generated by coal in Britain fell to zero for the first time since the famously sooty country launched coal-fired generation in the 1880s. That, too, was something of a fluke—some coal plants had been closed for maintenance—but huge capacity in renewable energy allowed the lights to stay on. Renewables already supply half of the electricity in Sweden and are coming on strong in Morocco, of all places, where vast thermal-solar plants are under construction. They already supply almost 10% of Morocco’s electricity, and the goal is to see their share rise to more than 50% by 2030. Meanwhile, the state of South Australia recently closed its last coal burner. It now gets more than half of its electricity from wind and solar. But both Portugal and other like-minded Western countries are missing one crucial element—the industrial side. They are now employing scads of technology—wind and water turbines, solar panels, lenses used to concentrate sunshine in solar-thermal systems—that is being built in China and other low-cost Asian countries. China views renewable energy not just as a way to clean up skies clouded with smoke but as a grand job-creation project that, in tandem with a program of building nuclear-power plants, will see the country manufacture national energy security. That beats the option of relying on imported oil and gas. The West has yet to realize that a renewable win-win requires making the machines as well as the electricity itself. “Portugal is only a small part of the green shift,” says John Mathews, a management professor at Australia’s Macquarie University who has chronicled China’s renewables ascent. “China is building new green industries at a furious rate, as export platforms for the future.” Ever-cheaper renewable energy technology from China can make it hard for Western rivals to compete, especially if a sympathetic industrial strategy is absent. The near eradication of the European and North American solar-panel industry was the result of China flooding the global market with omegrown knockoffs. One victim was Arise Technologies, once the leading light of the Canadian solar industry. European companies, among them Vestas and Siemens, are still big manufacturers of wind turbines. China’s capture of the solar-panel market will make Vestas and Siemens try all the harder to stay in the top rank. One Western energy company that appears to understand that the Future lies in making both the juice and the juicemaker is, ironically, France’s oil champion-- Total. In 2011, it bought 60% of SunPower, one of the largest solar companies in the United States. In May, it picked up French energy-storage company and battery maker Saft Groupe for almost (Euro) €1 billion. Little Portugal has inspired the clean-energy market. It would be all the more inspiring if the country could make the technology too. -- Steven H MacDowall Sign up to my blog at www.thursdayfile.com Next one goes out July 07, 2016

[customstoday]

Fossil-fuel restrictions emerge as target for deal on global warming

Fossil-fuel restrictions emerge as target for deal on global warming

BERLIN: Envoys from some 190 nations are taking more seriously the idea of setting a goal to phase out the pollution from fossil fuels, lending support to the movement against investments in oil and coal companies.

After a week of discussions in Geneva, delegates convened by the United Nations adopted an 86-page draft document with options including the near-elimination of greenhouse-gas…

View On WordPress