energy

Renewable Energy Around the World and At Home

By Yoram Bauman, Peter Fox-Penner, Richard Heinberg / On July 26th, 2016
Around the world, renewable energy is making headlines: last May, clean energy supplied almost all of Germany’s power demand for one day, while Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 107 hours straight. We asked some of our authors how these accomplishments will affect the way other countries think about renewable energy, and what this means for the US. Check out what they had to say below. 

Evolve or Perish: Lessons from Peabody Energy

By Pavan Sukhdev / On July 20th, 2016
On its way to bankruptcy, Peabody, along with four other major U.S. coal producers spent nearly $100 million over the last ten years on political lobbying to help protect federal tax-funded fossil fuel subsidies.

Heat or Eat? NYC Tackles Energy Costs and Climate Change

By Jennifer Miller, PhD / On July 14th, 2016
Heat or eat: that’s the stark choice faced by many low-income families during cold New York winters, according to Scott Oliver of PathStone, a non-profit group in upstate New York. But that could change. In January, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo launched a new $5 billion Clean Energy Fund that will sharply reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions while also lowering energy costs for low-income families.

Lessons Along the Path to 100 Percent Clean Energy

By Richard Heinberg / On July 6th, 2016
In early May of this year, Portugal ran on renewable electricity alone for four consecutive days. And later that same month, on May 15, Germany filled almost all its electricity needs with solar, wind, and hydro power.  This is good news: it tells us we’re making progress toward a zero-carbon energy system. But it also helps us see the challenges to a full renewable energy transition.

Tiptoeing Through the Renewable Energy Minefield

By Richard Heinberg / On June 21st, 2016
As just about everyone knows, there are gaping chasms separating the worldviews of fossil fuel promoters, nuclear power advocates, and renewable energy supporters. But crucially, even among those who disdain fossils and nukes, there is a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between those who say that solar and wind power have unstoppable momentum and will eventually bring with them lower energy prices and millions of jobs, and those who say these intermittent energy sources are inherently incapable of sustaining modern industrial societies and can make headway only with massive government subsidies.

#ForewordFriday: Our Renewable Future Edition

By Katharine Sucher / On June 17th, 2016
Around the world, renewable energy is making headlines: last month, clean energy supplied almost all of Germany’s power demand for one day, while Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 107 hours straight. Countries agree that we need to transition to a renewable world.

Turkey's Ill-Considered Rush to Coal Undercuts Emissions Progress

By Bruce Rich / On May 9th, 2016
Nearly all future growth in greenhouse gases will come from the world’s emerging economies, and preventing dangerous global warming depends on their reducing emissions growth. Thus it is troubling that Turkey, the world’s 17th largest economy, plans to as much as quadruple coal-fired electric capacity, building as many as 80 new plants by 2030. It could become the world’s third-largest operator of coal plants, after China and India.

Terrorism is Americans’ #1 concern. We have bigger problems

By Denise Fairchild / On January 21st, 2016
Tuesday night—in his final State of the Union address—President Obama asked us to face the future with hope, not fear. He spoke to a nation that has grown increasingly fearful: Since Obama’s last address, terrorism has emerged as Americans’ No. 1 concern, edging out perennial worries about the economy and jobs.

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