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Al Gore’s televised, 24-hour PowerPoint extravaganza last month predictably sparked some hot debate – much of it not about the science itself, but about Gore as its mouthpiece (common themes: he’s a hero, he’s become irrelevant, he’s a hypocritical capitalist). But a key message within Gore’s Climate Reality Project was that our recent strange weather [...]
In some ways, the days are bright right now for solar power. The average price of solar modules has fallen 30% this year, continuing a steep reduction from the year before. New installations more than doubled last year, enough to make solar a $60 billion market. If you’re in the market for rooftop solar panels [...]
It was a little more than a year ago that Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted, spewing thick ash high into the atmosphere. The volcano itself—aside from giving copy editors and news readers headaches—did relatively little damage in Iceland itself, but the ash cloud spread across much of Europe. Because volcanic ash can wreck havoc with a [...]
Day two of the European Future Energy Forum in London and today I wanted to get a sense of the state of venture capital investment in cleantech and renewables in Europe. Specifically, how does it compare to the U.S? Before he took the stage for a panel discussion titled “Low Carbon Financing in Europe—State of [...]
It has long been said of renewable energy sources that they cannot survive without subsides. But the dirty secret of fossil fuels is that they, too, receive tax payer support—even in environmentally friendly Europe. On Wednesday, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, announced that state subsidies for loss-making coal mines should [...]
There is probably no more sorry field of clean energy research than fusion. The quest to harness the power of the sun—without carbon emissions—has long attracted quixotic dreamers, amateur fusioneers and straight hucksters. But by its own, low standards, fusion research is in a sorry state. The only large, serious, potentially viable project—the multinational International [...]
