All Posts | The Energy Collective

Obama’s Biggest Climate Decision Of The Year May Be … Palm Oil?

May 17, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 268 views

The Obama administration is poised to make one of the biggest climate policy decisions of its entire administration – and it’s not about coal, oil, or gas, but rainforests. EPA is deciding whether or not palm oil should be included in the Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates that American motorists use 36 billion gallons of biofuel in their cars and trucks by 2022. [read more]

A new solution for our plastic waste?

May 16, 2012 by Katherine Friedrich
with 324 views

Rich Carey/Shutterstock

Polyester polyurethane is unappetizing to most living things – including the sea creatures who encounter it in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where recent news shows insects are starting to lay their eggs on pieces of plastic.What will we do with all the plastic we make – and the oil that we use to make it? Luckily, there are... [read more]

Are solar subsidies unnatural but unavoidable?

May 14, 2012 by Alex Chapman
with 378 views

Wind energy has become the favourite whipping boy in the renewable energy world. However, solar energy has its critics as well. Wind energy opponents are usually current or prospective neighbours of turbine installations. Solar energy naysayers are typically actual or would-be economists. [read more]

When Global Warming Hits Home (Literally)

May 12, 2012 by Peter Lehner
with 635 views

Photo by Sue Waters via Flickr

In a recent PBS documentary, the mayor of Norfolk, Virginia, Paul Fraim, talks about how flooding has become a monthly occurrence in his town, and how global warming and sea level rise are as much a daily issue for him as education and fighting crime. In some parts of Norfolk, streets turn into rivers at high tide. Homes are flooded five... [read more]

UK Wind Energy Industry Worth £548 million

May 10, 2012 by Vicky Portwain
with 127 views

The UK onshore wind energy industry was worth £568 million in 2011 according to a report recently published by RenewableUK and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.The report “Onshore Wind, Direct and Wider Economic Benefits” by BiGGAR Economics showed that the industry provided around 8,600 green jobs in the UK last year. Of this... [read more]

Everyone on the planet helps subsidise fossil fuels by £45 per year

May 9, 2012 by David Thorpe
with 196 views

NASA's James Hansen Fossil fuel companies get between $400 and $500 billion in subsidies per year. This must end. The first major scientist to alert the world to the dangers of climate change, NASA's James Hansen, has issued a new challenge to the world based on the latest science surrounding the issue. In a new paper... [read more]

National Clean Energy Standard Would Lower Power Sector CO2 Emissions 44% By 2035

May 8, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 161 views

There’s no way around it: we need a price on carbon in order to rapidly reduce emissions. But absent that necessary policy, putting the investment structure in place to promote renewables can also have a substantial impact on lowering emissions. [read more]

Carbon offsetting of uranium mines?

May 7, 2012 by Barry Brook
with 352 views

———————South Australia is host to the single largest known deposit of uranium in the world, at Roxby Downs. The recent plans to massively expand production at its Olympic Dam mine will take uranium production from 4,000 tonnes of uranium oxide (tUO2) in 2010-2011 to 19,000 tUO2 by the early 2020s. This enlarged open-cut... [read more]

Mexico Sets Legally Binding Carbon Reduction Targets

May 4, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 271 views

Since Mexico’s legislative body passed sweeping climate change legislation on April 19, Mexico joins the UK as the only two countries in the world with legally binding emissions goals to combat climate change. [read more]

Broadening the EU ETS debate

May 3, 2012 by David Hone
with 140 views

The ongoing debate in Europe about the current state of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the low carbon price outlook is gaining momentum and importantly gaining advocates for action, including senior figures from both business and academia on both sides of the Atlantic. [read more]

Dispatch from Kiribati: Can you "see" sea level rise?

May 2, 2012 by Simon Donner
with 339 views

Tarawa, Kiribati - This is my fifth time visiting Kiribati for research. I'm here working on a coral monitoring project together with my colleagues at the local government. For more, check out my Scifund site, which is dedicated to raising funds for the in-country side of the coral research. People at home often ask whether I have seen... [read more]

Climate Change's Impact on International Arctic Security

May 1, 2012 by Jay Gulledge
with 381 views

Volodymyr Goinyk/Shutterstock

Is the Arctic region a bellwether for how climate change may reshape global geopolitics in the post-Cold War era? [read more]

Reduce CO2 and Slow Global Warming?

April 30, 2012 by Willem Post
with 476 views

People have been concerned about what global warming, GW, may do to their future well-being for at least the past 50 years. Governments and academia responded by performing studies to identify the causes and holding international meetings to get agreement on future actions. Current annual spending has risen to about $200 billion to... [read more]

The Latest Publication from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development: 'The Energy Mix'

April 28, 2012 by David Hone
with 574 views

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) held its annual company delegate conference in Switzerland this week. For the WBCSD Energy and Climate team the event marked the launch of the latest WBCSD publication “The Energy Mix”. This is a document that started life back in the middle of last year, originally as a response to the reaction from a number of governments to the events in Fukushima. The initial aim was to inform policy makers on the implication of sudden changes in energy policy, such as the decision by the German government to rapidly phase out the use of nuclear power. But as the work got going, the document took on a number of additional dimensions. [read more]

The Royal Society Gets It Wrong on 'People and the Planet'

April 27, 2012 by Breakthrough Institute
with 397 views

The Royal Society - Britain's premier scientific institution - has just released a major report called People and the Planet, arguing that per capital resource consumption in the richest parts of the world needs to come down dramatically if the poorest 1.3 billion are to be lifted out of extreme poverty whilst protecting the Earth's environment from irreparable harm. [read more]