The 19th century was a century of empires, 20th century was a century of nation states and the 21st century will be a century of cities...
This outstanding infographic (courtesy of postscapes.com) begins with some information about our current state of urbanization.
Did you know that 1.3 million people are moving to cities each week?! It then explains the need for smart cities and delves into what is required to establish these intelligent connected environments, how the smart city may take various forms in the developing worlds and what specific technologies are necessary to achieve such grand goals in practice.
Until now, geothermal technology has only been used on a small scale to produce power. But with major new projects now underway, deep geothermal systems may soon begin making a significant contribution to the world’s energy needs.
Ultimately, thanks to unusually hot rock close to the surface and existing infrastructure from oil-and-gas production, the Cooper River basin alone could produce about 10,000 megawatts of electricity — enough to replace 20 large coal-fired power plants, says geologist Doone Wyborn, Geodynamic's chief scientist. That’s just a taste of the potential that this technology, known as enhanced geothermal systems, holds for Australia and the world, according to Wyborn.
In the US, researchers estimate that for just $1 billion invested over 40 years — the cost of one large coal-fired power plant and a fraction of the cost of a nuclear power plant — 100 gigawatts of clean, dependable geothermal power could be developed in the United States alone. That’s the energy equivalent of more than 200 coal-fired power plants or 100 new nuclear power plants.
London, New York, Vancouver, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Stockholm: Which city is the greenest?
It’s hard to quantify what makes a city "greener" than any other metropolis, but there are some clues: car ownership, green space, bicycle usage, solar installations, recycling, and water consumption are just some of the factors that add up to create environmentally responsible cities. An infographic from HouseTrip lays out what different cities are doing.
3.5 percent of U.S. counties consume more than 10 percent of the nation's oil.
America consumes a lot of energy. Counties play a large role in this overall consumption — and many of them contain large cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.
Deron Lovaas, the federal transportation policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, posted a map charting oil consumption by county on the NRDC staff blog Thursday.
The map is the product of a joint research effort of the NRDC, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters to identify the most oil dependent locations across the United States.
As shown in the map (and accompanying list of national averages), oil consumption is geographically uneven and highly concentrated. Lovaas notes that "just 108 counties out of the nation's 3,144, or about 3.5 percent of the total consume more than 10 percent of the nation's oil." Not surprisingly, Los Angeles county had the most annual oil consumption, at nearly 1.9 billion gallons in 2010. Harris county, Texas, follows with 1.7 billion gallons, and Cook county, Illinois, takes third with 1.6 billion.
Wind power in the European Union (EU) has surpassed 100 gigawatts according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). This is enough electricity generated per year to meet the total needs of 57 million households. The installation of wind power is accelerating: it took 20 years to install the first 10 gigawatts; 13 years to add another 90 gigawatts...
A few other stats: 100 gigawatts of wind power can produce the same amount of electricity over a year as 62 coal power plants, 39 nuclear power plants or 52 gas power plants. To produce the same amount of electricity it would requiring the mining, transporting and burning of 72 million tonnes of coal, at a cost of € 4,983 million, and emit 219.5 Mt of CO2, or would requiring extracting, transporting and burning 42.4 million cubic meters of gas, at a cost of € 7,537 million, and emit 97.8 Mt of CO2.
Renewable Electricity Nearly Doubles in last 4 years (US): I Think They’re The Future.
Non-hydro renewable electricity generation has nearly doubled since President Obama took office, reaching 5.75 percent of net electricity, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration.
In 2008, before Obama entered the White House, non-hydro resources like solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass represented just over 3 percent of generation. Today, they total nearly 6 percent. Ken Bossong of the Sun Day Campaign has been meticulously following EIA generation figures over the years. In his assessment of the figures below, Bossong offers an historical perspective: During 2008, the last full year of the Bush Administration, non-hydro renewables accounted for 3.06% of net electrical generation with an average monthly output of 10,508 gigawatthours. By mid-2012, the average monthly electrical generation from non-hydro renewables had grown by 78.70% to 18,777 gigawatthours. Comparing monthly electrical output in 2008 versus 2012, solar has expanded by 285.19%, wind by 171.72%, and geothermal by 13.53%. However, electrical generation from biomass dropped by 0.56%.
A musical investigation into the causes and effects of global climate change and our opportunities to use science to offset it. Featuring Bill Nye, David Attenborough, Richard Alley and Isaac Asimov. "Our Biggest Challenge" is the 16th episode of the Symphony of Science series by melodysheep. ...
The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected back into space. 700 watts of power, on average, reaches Earth’s surface. Summed across the half of the Earth that the sun is shining on, that is 89 petawatts of power. By comparison, all of human civilization uses around 15 terrawatts of power, or one six-thousandth as much. In 14 and a half seconds, the sun provides as much energy to Earth as humanity uses in a day.
Warren Karlenzig - Social media and collaborative technologies--layered with smart systems combining geo-location data with human experience--will make cities the driving sustainability force in a dawning planetary era.
You might think that as one of the world's top oil producing nations, the United Arab Emirates would have little use for solar energy. But that hasn't stopped the Middle East state from unveiling the largest concentrated solar power plant in operation anywhere in the world.
The 100-megawatt solar-thermal project in Abu Dhabi will power thousands of homes in the country and, it is hoped, displace approximately 175,000 tons of CO2 per year.
Los Angeles homeowners have been signing up for rooftop solar power installations in droves -- so much so that the overwhelming volume of applications threatened to overrun the program's budget and prompted the LA Dept. of Water and Power’s (LADWP) to actually shut the program down for five months last year.
Transformation of the ageing electric power grid in the US is inevitable and urgent; most people in the energy industry can agree on that.
In the absence of federal energy policy that will shape the electric power industry in the decades to come, utilities such as Duke are transforming the country's energy infrastructure from the ground up.
In 2007, Duke Energy received approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to build a cleaner-coal integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant at the Edwardsport site. Cost $2.595bn.
Althoug this is progress but with no country wide coordination, is this the the best solution - coal power plan at cost of $2.6 Billion? How many wind or solar plants we could develop in $2.6 Billion?
MORE than half the world's oil supply is used for transport, and three-quarters of the energy used in transport is spent on the road.
But without new policies to spur efficiency, the amount of fuel used for road transport will double by 2050, with severe implications for carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Most of the technologies needed to improve fuel economy are already available and cost-effective, so what is needed are policies that steer businesses and consumers in the right direction.
Fuel-economy standards, taxes, CO2-based vehicle taxes, and better product labelling are the four key policies recommended by the IEA. To judge the extent to which countries have adopted these, the IEA has created a fuel-economy readiness index (see map). Many advanced countries, especially in Europe and Japan, already have the right policies in place, whereas in North America there is still room for improvement.
An amazing 26-second video depicting how temperatures around the globe have warmed since 1880.
While temperatures have been blistering this summer, this video takes the longer historical view. It comes to us from our friends at NASA and is an amazing 26-second animation depicting how temperatures around the globe have warmed since 1880. That year is what scientists call the beginning of the “modern record.” You’ll note an acceleration of those temperatures in the late 1970s as greenhouse gas emissions from energy production increased worldwide and clean air laws reduced emissions of pollutants that had a cooling effect on the climate, and thus were masking some of the global warming signal. The data come from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures. As NASA notes, “in this animation, reds indicate temperatures higher than the average during a baseline period of 1951-1980, while blues indicate lower temperatures than the baseline average.”
Germany has transformed and innovated its Energy & Economy. We need to change our power sources away from polluting sources. The only reason we're not is because rich oil & coal interests lobby to block that. They don't want to lose their golden goose.
China has a habit of increasing its solar power targets. I think it's done so 3 times in the past year and a half. Its initial 2015 target of about 5 GW has been quadrupled to 21 GW in that time (see the link above for more info on that).
China is about to double its targeted installation rate for solar PV for the second time in as many months, and now expects more than 40GW to be installed by 2015.
What can rest of the world do to increase Solar and other renewable energy mix?
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