Global public subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry total $5.3 trillion a year, according to a May report from the International Monetary Fund. That’s $10 million a minute to feed our oil, gas and coal habit. The report, “How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies?”, calculates not only the cost in tax breaks and other direct public...
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Trendpost
Two trend lines coincide in this report: stagnating economies and the continuously falling cost of renewable energy. Populations, even in the developed world, are increasingly restless as income growth stalls while politicians continue lavishing favors on already-rich industries. Rising nationalist and populist movements, together with the accelerating movement among institutions to divest fossil-fuel investments, leaves...
Google recycles aging coal plant
As old hydrocarbon-fired electric-generating plants shut down, they may find new lives in a digital world. Google has announced that it will take over Alabama’s Widows Creek coal plant when it closes by October and refurbish it as a data center. The miles of transmission lines that have been sending fossil-derived power into the...
Fossil fuels: $6T in worthless assets?
The international Group of 20 – the alliance of countries, known as the G20, with the world’s 20 largest economies and banks – reportedly has commissioned a study of the looming plight of fossil-fuel companies and its ground-shaking impact on the global economy. The International Energy Agency, a 29-country membership organization, has estimated that two-thirds...
Energy’s next challenge
The world’s energy future is painted in pictures of solar panels and fuel cells, but the story will be told in the language of storage — the cylinders, tanks and boxes where we can put the energy these evolving technologies will produce in abundance. Right now, the demand for energy storage outstrips supply. It’s even...
Trendpost
Various hydrogen-storage venues are being tested for a range of uses. In Italy’s INGRID project, an industrial consortium is using magnesium hydrides to store hydrogen to balance grid loads and store production from renewable-energy installations. On the island of Corsica, the MYRTE project (shown at left) is testing the practicality of using sun-generated energy to...
Dominant energy
An unprecedented diversity of energy sources and players will come to market this year, reflecting the underlying, long-term trend of the world’s shift away from fossil fuels. A hundred years ago, coal was dominant. Since then, it’s been oil. But this year, energy markets will be marked by innovations that improve the value of traditional...
New energy goes mainstream
An unprecedented diversity of energy sources and players will come to market in 2015. This breadth of sources reflects the underlying, long-term trend of the world’s shift away from fossil fuels. In US oil and gas, the focus is still on shale development. Producers are beginning to open up the Utica Shale, several thousand feet...
New age for new energy
The coming year will see the greatest diversification of energy sources yet as the trend away from fossil fuels accelerates — and energy alternatives on multiple levels dominate. Long relegated to theory, political rhetoric or wishful thinking, new energy is becoming mainstream. These new forms of energy progressively will replace fossil fuels in the same...