Renewable Energy

Bionic Leaf Can Fuel Energy Revolution

June 11, 2016 Tim Radford, www.climatenewsnetwork.net Create! Renewable Energy

By Tim Radford for Climate News Network - LONDON, 10 June, 2016 − Scientists in the US claim to have beaten nature at its own game. They have created a “bionic leaf” that exploits sunlight to create biomass − and they say their invention is now 10 times more effective than an oak or maple leaf. Two separate laboratories at Harvard University have co-operated to devise, enhance and test a system that uses sunlight to split water molecules and feed the hydrogen to bacteria that then produce liquid fuels. The next task is to scale up the experiment to produce carbon neutral fuels to combat climate change.

Chile Producing So Much Solar Energy It’s Giving Electricity Away For Free

By Lorraine Chow for Eco Watch - In a new Bloomberg report, Chile Has So Much Solar Energy It’s Giving It Away for Free, solar capacity from the country’s central grid has increased four fold to 770 megawatts since 2013. Another 1.4 gigawatts will be added this year with many solar power projects under development. Thanks to an economic boost from increased mining production, Chile now has 29 solar farms and another 15 in the pipeline.

The Renewable Energy Future Is Bright

June 3, 2016 Staff, www.us1.campaign-archive2.com Create! Renewable Energy

By Staff of The Post Carbon Institute - The renewable energy future is bright. But what it shines on will look very different. The truth is, to make the transition away from fossil fuels successfully we're going to need to re-think and re-tool how we use energy—and how much we use—not just its source. After all, we built the modern world to suit the unique characteristics of fossil fuels. By necessity, our renewable future will require us to live differently.

Renewable Energy Surges To Record Levels Around The World

June 2, 2016 Matt McGrath, www.bbc.com Create! Renewable Energy

By Matt McGrath for BBC - New solar, wind and hydropower sources were added in 2015 at the fastest rate the world has yet seen, a study says. Investments in renewables during the year were more than double the amount spent on new coal and gas-fired power plants, the Renewables Global Status Report found. For the first time, emerging economies spent more than the rich on renewable power and fuels.

Renewables Are Leaving Natural Gas In The Dust This Year

May 24, 2016 Joe Romm, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Renewable Energy

By Joe Romm for Think Progress - In the first three months of 2016, the U.S. grid added 18 megawatts of new natural gas generating capacity. It added a whopping 1,291 megawatts (MW) of new renewables. The renewables were primarily wind (707 MW) and solar (522 MW). We also added some biomass (33 MW) and hydropower (29 MW). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” reports that no new capacity of coal, oil, or nuclear power were added in the first quarter of the year.

Why The Leap Manifesto Is Common Sense

May 22, 2016 Joanna Kerr, www.greenpeace.org Create! Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Indigenous Rights, Renewable Energy

By Joanna Kerr for Green Peace. The response from politicians and commentators to the Leap Manifesto, a policy proposal to government from Canadian civil society, has been surprising. Much of the proposals contained in the manifesto flow from an acceptance of things we know to be true: that climate change is real and threatens our society and economy, that some groups of Canadians are more disadvantaged than others, and that dirty energy affects Indigenous communities on the frontlines of industrial sites foremost, to name a few. Far from being an elite and far-fetched radical proposal, the Leap Manifesto, with its roots in the country’s diverse civil society and the latest scientific research, reveals the zeitgeist of how Canadians want to live and do business with one another.

The Coal Vs. Fracking Canard

May 14, 2016 Mitch Jones, www.foodandwaterwatch.org Educate! Coal, Fossil Fuels, Fracking, Renewable Energy

By Mitch Jones for Food & Water Watch - Following a recent report from the Department of Energy that 66 percent of natural gas produced in the United States comes from fracked wells and news that March was the third straight “hottest month ever,” Mother Jones has published a piece – for a second time this year – that argues that fracking for natural gas is a valuable, even necessary, tool in the fight against climate change because it displaces coal. Both pieces were written by ClimateDesk Associate Producer Tim McDonnell.

10 States Blocking The Power Of The Sun

May 2, 2016 Staff, www.ecowatch.com Educate! Renewable Energy, Solar Energy

By Staff of Center for Biological Diversity - The 10 states highlighted in Throwing Shade: 10 Sunny States Blocking Distributed Solar Development—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin—account for more than 35 percent of the total rooftop-solar technical potential in the contiguous U.S., but only 6 percent of total installed capacity. “Thanks to weak and nonexistent policies, the distributed-solar markets in these states have never been given a chance to shine,”

Changing Everything

April 10, 2016 Steve Gorelick, www.localfutures.org Create! Capitalism, Climate Change, Energy, Renewable Energy

By Steve Gorelick for Local Futures. It seems that a transition to renewable energy might not be as transformative as some people hope. Or to put it more bluntly, renewable energy changes nothing about corporate capitalism. Which brings me to the new film, This Changes Everything, based on Naomi Klein’s best-selling book and directed by her husband, Avi Lewis. I saw the film recently at a screening hosted by local climate activists and renewable energy developers, and was at first hopeful that the film would go even further than the book in, as Klein puts it, “connecting the dots between the carbon in the air and the economic system that put it there.” But by film’s end one is left with the impression that a transition from fossil fuels to renewables is pretty much all that’s needed – not only to address climate change but to transform the economy and solve all the other problems we face.

As Oil & Gas Crash, Workers Look To Renewable Energy

April 4, 2016 Candice Bernd, www.truth-out.org Create! Oil & Gas, Renewable Energy

By Candice Bernd for Truthout - Lliam Hildebrand says he had a moment of clarity during an apprenticeship at a steel-fabricating shop in Victoria, Canada. He was learning the metal-working skills he would need to become a boilermaker, to eventually move on to work on the many steel vessels -- including furnaces, pipelines, "cokers" and "exchangers" -- that make up the oil industry's vast infrastructure in Alberta, Canada's oil sands fields.

Coal And Gas Investment Fall To Less Than Half Clean Energy

March 27, 2016 Fiona Harvey, www.theguardian.com Create! Climate Change, Coal, Oil and Gas, Renewable Energy

By Fiona Harvey for The Guardian. Global investment in coal and gas-fired power generation plants fell to less than half that in renewable energy generation last year, in a record year for clean energy. It was the first time that renewable energy made up a majority of all the new electricity generation capacity under construction around the world, and the first year in which the financial investment by developing countries in renewables outstripped that of the developed world. Catherine Mitchell, professor of energy policy at the University of Exeter, said the developments were “extremely significant” and showed a new trend. She said: “We are looking at serious sums of money being invested in clean energy, with the dirtiest forms of fossil fuels the losers. This is the direction of travel that we need to see to have a chance of escaping the worst impacts of climate change.”

Second Year Renewable Energy Largest Source Of New US Electricity

February 6, 2016 Joe Ryan, www.bloomberg.com Create! Electricity, Renewable Energy

By Joe Ryan for Bloomberg Business - Renewable energy was the biggest source of new power added to U.S. electricity grids last year as falling prices and government incentives made wind and solar increasingly viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Developers installed 16 gigawatts of clean energy in 2015, or 68 percent of all new capacity, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in its Sustainable Energy in America Factbook released Thursday with the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. That was the second straight year that clean power eclipsed fossil fuels.

Join Global Wave Of Resistance To Keep Coal, Oil + Gas In Ground

January 29, 2016 Staff, www.breakfree2016.org Organize! Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Renewable Energy, Resistance

By Staff of Break Free 2016 - From 7–15 May, 2016 we are mobilising to keep fossil fuels in the ground and accelerate a just transition to 100% renewable energy and a sustainable future for all. After the Climate Summit in Paris we need to redouble efforts to end the use of destructive fossil fuels and choose a clean and just energy future. This May we hope to see more people than ever commit to joining actions that disrupt the industry’s power by targeting the world’s most dangerous and unnecessary fossil fuel projects, and supporting the most ambitious climate solutions.

Solar Chased Out Of Sunny Nevada

January 10, 2016 Michael Graham Richard, www.treehugger.com Educate! Climate Change, Corruption, Oil and Gas, Renewable Energy, Solar Energy

By Michael Graham Richard for Tree Hugger. To drive out solar power companies out of sunny Nevada, you have to do something pretty bad. This is exactly what happened while most of us weren't paying attention, enjoying the holidays (or stressing out, depending...). The Nevada Public Utility Commission (PUC) changed its rules surrounding net metering and increased fees charged to the owners of solar systems (who said the sun was free?): "The base service charge is rising from $12.75 to $17.90 per month [a 40% increase] for southern Nevada solar customers and from $15.25 to $21.09 [a 38.2% increase] for northern Nevada customers. The changes also reduce the amount the utility pays to buy power back from rooftop solar panels, from 11 cents a kilowatt hour to 9 cents [an 18.2% decrease] in southern Nevada and from 12 cents to 10.5 cents [a 12.5% decrease] in the north.

Inside New Mexico’s Off-Grid Community Made from Trash

January 8, 2016 Staff, www.yesmagazine.org Create! Housing, Renewable Energy, Zero waste

By Staff of Yes Magazine - This short film directed by Flora Lichtman and Katherine Wells for the podcast The Adaptors takes you inside the Earthships of Taos, New Mexico—a community of off-grid homes made from trash. After studying architecture, Earthships creator Michael Reynolds decided he wanted to experiment with different materials. “We build out of trees, but we don’t want to get rid of them,” says Reynolds, explaining how the project began 30 years ago. “We want to get rid of garbage, so why don’t we try to build out of garbage? It started as kind of a contrived effort to recycle, and has ended up the best way I know of to build, regardless of recycling.”

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