Reuters (September 25)
“Hopes that the People’s Republic would step up to be the leader in battling global warming… appeared to take a hit when Xi said the country would cut its emissions by a measly 7% to 10%. But this looks like a clear case of consciously underpromising in order to overdeliver.” China is likely to “breeze past its target. Hitting Xi’s 2035 goal of 3,600 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity would, for example, mean adding just 200 GW a year. That’s 44% lower than the 360 GW installed in 2024.” The publicly stated “climate goal also downplays the role electric and hybrid vehicles already play” with plans “that new energy vehicles would be mainstream in a decade, yet they already make up around half of all new car sales.”
Tags: 2035 goal, China, Climate goal, Downplays, Emissions, Global warming, HEVs, Hopes, Leader, Mainstream, Overdeliver, Solar, Target, Underpromising, Wind, Xi
Washington Post (February 21)
“By the end of 2023, some 43 percent of global electricity generation was powered by solar, wind and other renewable sources — up dramatically since the turn of the 21st century, when these sources accounted for only 18 percent. Yet the distance to 100 percent remains daunting.”
Tags: 100, 18, 2023, 43%, Daunting, Electricity, Generation, Global, Power, Renewable sources, Solar, Wind
Washington Post (April 7)
Numerous conflicts are “pitting the environment against, well, the environment. Solar plants and wind farms, transmission lines and carbon-capture projects face opposition from conservationists and other environmental groups asking courts to stop new infrastructure from encroaching on wetlands, forests and other ecosystems.” Trade-offs like these “generally lean against developers,” but they were “written in an era before those developers included promoters of the green power that humanity needs to stave off climate change.” Things need fixing. We should not “let environmentalism sabotage green energy.”
Tags: Carbon capture, Climate change, Conservationists, Ecosystems, Environmentalism, Forests, Green power, Opposition, Solar, Trade-offs, Transmission lines, Wetlands, Wind
Reuters (September 8)
“Britain’s shaky ambitions to be the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind’ now stand at a blustery crossroads. Developers had been warning for months that the UK’s latest offshore wind auction, divulged on Friday, would receive no takers. Now that it’s happened, it may spur much-need action…. The very real prospect of zero wind schemes ought to be the kick up the backside UK politicians need to make the terms more appealing.”
Tags: Ambitions, Auction, Blustery, Crossroads, Developers, Offshore, Saudi Arabia, Shaky, UK, Warning, Wind, Zero wind schemes
New York Times (February 24)
“The energy transition poised for takeoff in the United States amid record investment in wind, solar and other low-carbon technologies is facing a serious obstacle: The volume of projects has overwhelmed the nation’s antiquated systems to connect new sources of electricity to homes and businesses.” The interconnection system now faces a multiyear logjam of over 8,100 projects (mainly clean energy) “waiting for permission to connect to electric grids,” up from 5,600 a year earlier.
Tags: Antiquated, Electricity, Energy transition, Grids, Interconnection, Investment, Low-carbon technologies, Obstacle, Record, Solar, U.S., Wind
New York Times (January 8)
“It is not just fusion. The advance of wind and solar and battery technology remains a near miracle. The possibilities of advanced geothermal and hydrogen are thrilling. Smaller, modular nuclear reactors could make new miracles possible…. Clean, abundant energy is the foundation on which a more equal, just and humane world can be built.”
Tags: Abundant, Advance, Advanced, Battery technology, Clean, Energy, Fusion, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Just, Miracles, Nuclear, Possible, Solar, Thrilling, Wind
Bloomberg (May 31)
“Power-hungry, fossil-fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun.” The Kairyu prototype is designed to harness the Kuroshio current. “The advantage of ocean currents is their stability. They flow with little fluctuation in speed and direction, giving them a capacity factor…of 50-70%, compared with around 29% for onshore wind and 15% for solar.”
Tags: Capacity factor, Dependent, Energy, Fossil fuel, Japan, Kairyu, Kuroshio current, Ocean, Power-hungry, Prototype, Renewable, Solar, Steady, Tested, Wind
The Economist (August 4)
“Earth is smouldering. From Seattle to Siberia this summer, flames have consumed swathes of the northern hemisphere.” And humanity is not rising to the challenge. Three years following the Paris Accord, “greenhouse-gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal rose. Subsidies for renewables, such as wind and solar power, are dwindling.” While “it is tempting to think these are temporary setbacks and that mankind, with its instinct for self-preservation, will muddle through to a victory over global warming. In fact, it is losing the war.”
Tags: Coal, Demand, Earth, Emissions, Gas, GHG, Global warming, Humanity, Oil, Paris accord, Renewables, Self-preservation, Setbacks, Smouldering, Solar power, Wind
Industry Week (December 4)
“Investments in electric cars may soon begin to do to the transportation sector what wind and solar have done to the power sector: turn the pollution curve upside down. The price of battery packs has been plummeting by about 8 percent a year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and electric cars are now projected to become cheaper, more reliable, and more convenient than their gasoline-powered equivalents around the world by the mid-2020s.”
LA Times (March 12)
“California leads the pack with the share of electricity from renewable sources, more than doubling from 12% in 2008 to 25% today. In that period, private companies invested more than $20 billion in new renewable power plants here. California is home to the largest geothermal, wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic power plants in the world.” By2030, California is aiming to reach 50% renewable energy, after which fossil fuels will become “the alternative energy.”
Tags: Alternative energy, California, Electricity, Fossil fuels, Geothermal, Photovoltaic, Power plants, Renewable sources, Solar, Thermal, Wind
