May 2012
19 posts
11 tags
Explaining My Lack Of Blogging & Finishing My Uni...
To any of you wonderful people out there who actually still read/fall upon this blog, I just wanted to send out a little notice about my lack of action on the blog, both of recent times, and in the next few days.
Basically, I’ve been in the last few weeks of my 3rd year at university, so have been cramming hard for exams and not really having much of a social life, let alone time to...
22 tags
UK Energy Policy Takes Yet Another Muddled Route -...
UK energy policy is sure one confusing and constantly changing subject, with many recent news stories no deviation from this pattern. Us English and our government just love mixing and muddling our energy futures as much as we cash, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes it seems like it’s just for the kicks.
A little over half a year ago, I went to an open day...
19 tags
So Environmentalists Are Satanic,...
A few stories have caught my eye of late, and both have not failed to make me laugh out loud and bring a swift hand to the forehead, striking it with such force as to try and knock what I’ve just read back out of my brain.
Unfortunately, they also haven’t failed to demonstrate the fundamentally ignorant and foolishly confident views of some big-mouthed American speakers on climate...
13 tags
NREL's Renewable Energy Map Takes Mapping To A New... →
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s fantastic customisable map, demonstrating every conceivable form of green energy you can think of, really sets the bar high for future mapping of this kind.
Head on over to the link above and you’ll find yourself presented by a US-wide map with a multitude of drop-down settings to choose from, ranging from solar (PV & concentrated) to...
17 tags
Is The US Handling A Double-Edged Sword With Their...
So the other day I posted a blog surrounding this whole mess we’re calling the ‘solar trade war’, of which the US and China are the key players, and of which I finished by saying would benefit nobody and, if anything, seriously hurt the solar industry at a crucial (this can’t be understated) moment in its growth.
At this point in time, solar as a form of energy, a very...
17 tags
Chinese Solar Tariffs Hide Some Unfortunate Truths
First of all, I just want to say a quick apology for the distinct lack of posts in the past 3 days, a detour from my usual every other day/daily posts. Basically, university work is to blame for it; dissertation has finally been handed in but two more exams sit lurking in front of me, so I’ll likely be taking a bit of a downtime between each post, but do not worry (if you even read this...
“Well, of course it is! Every new technology is more expensive. What if we hadn’t...”
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US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus’ no nonsense response to the argument that renewable energy sources (e.g. solar, wind, geothermal) are (currently) more expensive than non-renewable energy (e.g. oil, coal, natural gas). I found the quote in the recent Climate Progress article, ‘The U.S. Military...
16 tags
Hypersolar Believes It Can Make Natural Gas...
Hypersolar is an interesting and thought-provoking solar company, whose main goal is to bring clean energy to the masses through the clever and sometimes ingenious use of science and technology. Though a relatively small name in the big world of solar energy (I hadn’t heard of them until now), they harbour some big ideas and have introduced some powerful technology into the mix.
They...
25 tags
A Pan-European/Continental Electricity Grid Could...
This is simply a great idea, I just want to start by saying that. I love and am in awe of the vision and prospects this plan could bring to fruition, and it seems so ingenious to boot.
A future in which continent-spanning electricity grids feed the many hungry nations of Europe, Iceland and N. Africa has recently been plotted out by multiple energy ventures and renewable project giants such as...
19 tags
Carbon PPM Hits A New High, & Natural Gas Is...
Coal has always been the number one fossil fuel in our society’s list of burnable sunlight, which of course it simply is, which also begs the question why is solar taking so long to kick off? Sorry, going off on a tangent here, I think I’ll reserve that for another post. Back to the main subject.
Coal is by far the most worrisome and dirty of the fossil fuels, although its brother...
19 tags
Now More Than Ever, Solar Teeters At The Point Of...
The solar industry is on the brink of something special if we are to believe data from a recent Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) study, in which they state that solar has come further than other energy source, in much less time, with relatively little help from the government and is exploding in popularity.
As you can see from the graph above, solar is still in its infancy, sitting...
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The Unfortunate Truth Of The Heartland Institute:...
I frankly wasn’t surprised when I saw yesterday the latest plans in a long line of atrocious climate-deinal and truth-twisting projects carried out by the Heartland Institute of America. They’re well known by now for their incredibly biased and simply wrong (on many levels) views on man-made climate change, and have produced some fantastic propaganda on the subject for decades.
...
17 tags
Will A Warming World Screw With Our Hydroecletric...
Whilst fooling around yesterday trying to avoid doing work and reading up on the world’s news via Twitter etc, a question popped into my head and sat there like an itch I needed to scratch, an itch to do with climate change and a very widespread, but often neglected form of green energy - hydropower.
As my mind wandered, I began thinking about what effect a globally warming world, with...
8 tags
Renewable Energy Use By State Over The Last Decade →
Following on with the map theme of the blog before last, here’s a nice one found through the social sphere that is Twitter regarding renewable energy use in the US, showing change since 2001.
Clearly some states have made massive leaps and bounds, whereas others seemed to have furthered their energy mix whatsoever (I’m looking at you Eastern states). However, if you follow the link,...
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Solar Experiences The Bad & The Good - Graphene,...
The past week has been a bit of roller-coaster for the solar industry, with some rather large ups and a potentially even larger down. As it stands, solar is either teetering on the edge of a steep cliff, ready to drop into possible failure and public outcry, or it may be just months away from its crowning moment.
First on the agenda, I’ll get the bad out of the way, leave you folks with...
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Billionaires Around The World & Environmentally...
I thought I’d share these simple but incredibly neat and telling maps of a couple of key factors of our modern global society and its foibles, not only to show you how fun it actually can be playing with maps and programs like GIS (geographical information systems) to produce such beauties, but how useful they are in teaching us about the world in a concise way.
I can assure you this...
20 tags
The Media At It Again - Wind Turbines Cause...
Isn’t the global media just wonderful at blowing things massively and unprecedentedly out of proportion, when the prospect of a big story is just too tantalising to exaggerate.
This time its victim is renewable energy and the wind industry in particular, which recently came into the public eye when a study undertaken by the University of Albany, with Liming Zhou at the head, produced...
