The New York Times: Plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recycling most “foreign garbage. “…as part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import “foreign garbage.” Since Jan. 1 it has banned imports of various… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Energy
Demand for electric vehicles will rise significantly – McKinsey
“Demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is primed for the passing lane. While EVs accounted for only about 1 percent of global annual vehicle sales in 2016 and just 0.2 percent of vehicles on the road, McKinsey estimates that by 2030 EVs (including battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids) could rise to almost 20 percent of… Continue Reading
DOE Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit
“The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit is an update and expansion of the Eastern Wind Integration Data Set and Western Wind Integration Data Set. It supports the next generation of wind integration studies. The WIND Toolkit includes meteorological conditions and turbine power for more than 126,000 sites in the continental United States for the… Continue Reading
Ireland’s Open Data Portal
Ireland launches the third version of their national data portal DATA.GOV.IE – Promoting innovation and transparency through the publication of Irish Public Sector data in open, free and reusable formats. “A new and improved version of the national Open Data portal, data.gov.ie was recently launched. It is the third iteration of the portal now using… Continue Reading
Every one of America’s 57,636 wind turbines, mapped
Washington Post: “California’s Kern County, home to the city of Bakersfield, bills itself as the “Wind Capital of the West.” But a Washington Post analysis of a massive new U.S. Geological Survey database of over 57,000 commercial wind turbines suggests that the county is being overly modest: It is, in fact, the wind capital of the… Continue Reading
These 20 Water-Stressed Countries Have the Most Solar and Wind Potential
World Resources Institute: “Most power generation consumes water, whether to cool steam in thermoelectric plants or power turbines for hydropower. And the global demand for both water and electricity will continue to increase substantially in the coming decades. Although growth is generally a good thing for the economy, it challenges nations—particularly ones that are water-stressed—to… Continue Reading
Map of all Nuclear Reactors in the world and the history of their decline
FastCompany – This Map Of All The Nuclear Reactors In The World Is A Reality Check: “There are fewer nuclear reactors than you may realize. And by the time more are financed and built, the Arctic ice will be all gone anyway…A new map from Carbon Brief shows the location of every reactor ever built… Continue Reading
Emails Suggest Interior Dept. Prioritizing Fossil Fuel Interests Over Wildlife Well-Being
Pacific Standard – Records reveal that, following requests by fossil fuel industry groups, a top official at the Department of the Interior appeared to take credit for helping to delay new federal protections for a once-endangered species. “The Texas hornshell is a sleek green-gray mussel that once thrived in the Rio Grande watershed, its habitat… Continue Reading
Report: Boosting Energy Efficiency Would Bring Vast Health Benefits
Environmental Working Group: “A new report estimated the sweeping public health benefits that a 15 percent reduction in energy demand would yield in one year. The February report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or ACEEE, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, or PSR, found that the savings from modestly cutting energy demand in… Continue Reading
The Smart Grid: Status and Outlook
CRS report via FAS – The Smart Grid: Status and Outlook. Richard J. Campbell, Specialist in Energy Policy. April 10, 2018. “The electrical grid in the United States comprises all of the power plants generating electricity, together with the transmission and distribution lines and systems that bring power to end-use customers. The “grid” also connects… Continue Reading
The World’s Wilderness: Going, Going and Soon Gone?
Outside: Recent studies have arrived at the same blunt conclusion: the world’s last, big wildlands are disappearing at an alarming rate. Is there anything to be done? ““We are running out of wilderness,” James Watson, director of the science and research initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told fellow scientists last summer at the International… Continue Reading
Study: wind and solar can power most of the United States
The Guardian – John Abraham: “In order to combat climate change, we need to rapidly move from fossil fuel energy to clean, renewable energy. The two energy sources I am most interested in are wind and solar power; however, there are other sources that have great potential. Some people doubt how much wind and solar… Continue Reading
