Affordable Renewal Energy

Author Archives for ENN: Energy

GE and Google Call for Clean Energy Policies


The recently announced alliance between technology giants General Electric and Google may provide the lobbying arsenal necessary for the U.S. to overhaul an outdated electric grid widely considered as a barricade to a low-carbon future.

Kicking oil habit harder than they say


Barack Obama and John McCain are promising voters a Tomorrowland of electric cars and high-speed trains and solar panels, a vision of American life without a drop of imported oil.

Cash incentives for choosing green energy


Being sensitive to the environment is all well and good, but there can be another good reason to use green energy: cash in your pocket.

Off-Shore Wind Power Set to Expand


In South Korea, wind power would be a likely resource to help the world’s tenth largest energy consumer meet government goals to lower fossil fuel dependency through greater investment in renewable energy.

An Exhausting War on Emissions


In 1991, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to impose a stiff tax on harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the country’s emissions should have dropped. Instead, they have risen by 15%.

Although the tax forced Norway’s oil and gas sector to become among the greenest in the world, soaring energy prices led to a boom in offshore production, which in turn boosted overall emissions. So did drivers. Norwegians, who already pay nearly $10 a gallon, took the tax in stride, buying more cars and driving them more. And numerous industries won exemptions from the tax, carrying on unchanged.

Northeast Puts on the Carbon Cap


For the first time, a carbon market is opening for business in the United States. The long awaited Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), takes effect on January 1, 2009. Utilities in ten states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont—will be required to purchase carbon emission rights or find themselves unable to operate.

Demand high for pollution credits


If the law of supply and demand holds true, then the nation’s first auction of pollution rights to combat global warming was a success.

New York state was not ready for the inaugural auction of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, but six other states sold off rights last week to about 12.5 tons of carbon dioxide, a known greenhouse gas.

Study eases fear about wind farm threat to birds


LONDON (Reuters) – Wind turbines do not drive birds from surrounding areas, British researchers said on Wednesday, in findings which could make it easier to build more wind farms.

Conservation groups have raised fears that large birds could get caught in the turbines and that the structures could disturb other species.

High stakes in Canada’s vast oil-sands fields


The relentless search for oil has led explorers to the boreal forest of northeastern Alberta, among the jack pines and black spruce trees an hour’s drive from the boom town of Fort McMurray. Kelly Hansen, operations manager at ConocoPhillips’s $1 billion Surmont oil-sands plant, holds up the prize: a beaker of sticky black “synbit,”ť a 50-50 blend of bitumen (a viscous, tarlike petroleum) and synthetic oil.

World Bank’s “green” energy funding up 87 percent


World Bank funding for efficient and renewable energy rose 87 this year to nearly $2.7 billion, reflecting the importance of moving to a low-carbon economy, the bank’s energy chief said on Thursday.