Entries from Byline Portal tagged with 'Energy'
Time for Big Green to Go Fossil Free
by Naomi Klein, The Nation, USA - The movement demanding that public interest institutions divest their holdings from fossil fuels is on a serious roll. At last count, there were active divestment campaigns on 305 campuses and in more than...
Woodland Heists: Rising Energy Costs Drive Up Forest Thievery
by Renuka Rayasam, Der Spiegel, Germany - With energy costs escalating, more Germans are turning to wood burning stoves for heat. That, though, has also led to a rise in tree theft in the country's forests. Woodsmen have become more...
Ground-Breaking Solar Agreement between LA and Nevada Tribe
by Mary Anne Hitt, Grist, USA - This Moapa Solar project is one of two long-term solar purchasing agreements that, along with the CLEAN LA Feed-in-Tariff solar program, are designed to replace power from Arizona’s Navajo Generating Station coal plant...
Why I'm Standing up to TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline in East Texas
by Daryl Hannah, Guardian, UK - Don't buy the tale that this tar sands oil will make the US energy-independent. It's export for profit, even as spills poison our water....
5 Issues This Election Should Be About, and One to Drop
by Sarah van Gelder, Yes!, USA - Cutting through the campaign rhetoric and attack ads, here are five issues we believe should be at the center of the 2012 election, plus one that has no place in the public sphere....
From Plutonium to Power: Russia To Produce Electricity with Former Nukes
by Kerstin Brandt, Der Spiegel, Germany - Russia is planning to destroy plutonium used in thousands of soon to be decommissioned nuclear warheads by using it as fuel in a special new atomic power plant. The reactor is set to...
Light-Bulb Ban Casts Shadow over EU Democracy
by Michaela Schiessl, Der Spiegel, Germany - Beginning Saturday, it will be illegal to import or produce traditional incandescent light bulbs in EU member states. The move has upset consumers and many environmentalists, but it serves to highlight the EU's...
'Russia Is Not Naive, It Knows Assad Will Soon Leave'
by Barcin Yinanc, Hurriyet, Turkey - Moscow did not want a regime change in Damascus because it doesn’t want Syria, to become a transit route for oil and gas. A quick Google search will let us remember that only two...
The Real Reason the Military is Going Green
by Natalie Pompilio, Yes!, USA - Big Oil is a big risk for national security. Can our military—the world's No. 1 oil guzzler—change the politics of climate change?...
Sand County, the Sequel
by Sandra Steingraber, Orion, USA - Last January, my hometown newspaper brought word that the LaSalle County board has approved strip mining for frack sand along the boundary of Starved Rock State Park, which is a marvel of sandstone outcroppings...
Navajo Community Banks on Proposed Solar Array
by Susan Montoya Bryan, Native American Times, USA - With tens of millions of acres held in trust for tribes, experts say Indian Country has the potential to supply more than four times the nation’s electricity needs with solar. Wind...
The Real Cost of Water and Electricity Will Shock You
by Laura Collins, The National, UAE - Few people open a bill without feeling something. Whether it's a flutter of surprise or the cold thud of shock, it is hardly unusual for the bottom line to elicit a response. What...
Solar Panels Reflect Bright Future for Rural Papua New Guinea
by Catherine Wilson, IPS, Italy - In Papua New Guinea (PNG), which has no national power grid but large river systems and abundant sunshine, renewable energy has tremendous potential to transform remote rural lives with clean and sustainable electricity....
The Legality of Sanctions
by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - This news of possible sanctions arrived in the shadow of renewed efforts to mend the US-Pakistan relationship. The mending and bending of US relations with Pakistan is a worn subject. In this latest case,...
World Water Forums Expose Large Dams as ‘Unsustainable’
by Cléo Fatoorehchi, IPS, Italy - Numerous non-governmental organisations used the World Water Forum (WWF) held in Marseille last week as an opportunity to remind the international community about the serious global impacts of large dams all over the world....
Erdoğan to Obama: You Left Iraq in Iran's Hands
by Lale Kemal, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Erdoğan was reflecting his displeasure over Iran's influence in Iraq growing after the US withdrew its troops from the country....
How Boulder Freed Its Electric Company
by Valerie Schloredt, Countercurrents, India - The city of Boulder, Colo., has won the right to take its power supply—and carbon emissions—away from corporate control. The change for Boulder came in November when voters passed two ballot measures that allow...
German Village Becomes Model for Renewable Energy
by Renuka Rayasam, Der Spiegel, Germany - The tiny village of Feldheim, some 60 kilometers southwest of Berlin, was catapulted by chance to the forefront of the renewable energy movement. Now visitors from around the world are flocking to this...
An Environmental Occupy Fracks Corporate America
by Ellen Cantarow, Tomdispatch, USA - This is a story about water, the land surrounding it, and the lives it sustains. Clean water should be a right: there is no life without it....
Fracking Bans that Can Stand
by Maura Stephens, Yes!, USA - In New York, judges are standing up for communities' rights to say no to corporate drilling....
'American-Made Energy': The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
by Stefanie Penn Spear, Common Dreams, USA - Obama wants to generate American-made energy and set a clean energy standard that encourages investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Good. But Obama continues to tout extreme fossil fuel extraction as...
Need Of The Hour: Green Investments In The Marine Sector
by Marianne de Nazareth, Countercurrents, India - The report, Green Economy in a Blue World, argues that the ecological health and economic productivity of marine and coastal ecosystems, which are currently in decline around the globe, can be boosted by...
Building on Melting Ground
by Nadezhda Petrova, Russia Beyond the Headlines, Russia - Between 60 and 70 percent of Russia’s vast landmass is covered by permafrost, and most of Russians known mineral reserves lie in frozen ground. Developing oil and gas fields ultimately present...
Henry Red Cloud: Solar Warrior for Native America
by Talli Nauman, Yes!, USA - “Our ancestors made a treaty with the U.S. government,” Red Cloud recounts. But they also made “a pact with the Creator for seven generations”—hearkening to a well-known prophecy that they would suffer if they...
Indian College Teaches Solar Lessons to Women
by Prena Suri, Al Jazeera, Qatar - As world leaders debate solutions at the UN climate change conference in Durban, a college in the Indian state of Rajasthan is teaching communities how to harness solar energy....
'Alternative' Energy Fuels Central Asia
by Farangis Najibullah, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - In some parts of Central Asia, "alternative" doesn't necessarily mean clean burning or eco-friendly. In Uzbekistan, cheap is the operative word, and that means things can get downright, well, earthy....
Thoughts on Why Energy Use and CO2 Emissions Are Rising as Fast as GDP
by Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World, USA - World industrial production has self-organized in a way that assigns different roles to companies operating in the three country groups, as a way to minimize manufacturing costs. Over the long term, this...
South Africa’s First Local Wind Turbine Manufacturer to Create Hundreds of Green Jobs
by Miriam Mannak, Business Live, South Africa - With COP17 around the corner, the debate around green versus carbon energy is heating up. Some say that if the South African government would genuinely commit to renewable energy, it could kill...
How Does Energy Efficiency Create Jobs?
by Casey Bell, Grist, USA - There are also ways we can streamline our energy use and alter our spending patterns to free up additional funds to support higher levels of employment overall, as well as promote a healthier and...
Sheep Graze in Pastures as UN Goes Greener
by Lucia Walton, World Radio Switzerland, Switzerland - With the United Nations advising the world on how to save resources they’ve also been trying to lead by example in their own backyard in Geneva. In a bid to save energy...
The Six Natural resources Most Drained by Our 7 Billion People
by Camila Ruz, Guardian, UK - For how long can we realistically expect to have oil? And which dwindling element is essential to plant growth?...
Francafrique Goes Democratique?
by Khadija Sharife, Pambazuka, Kenya - Did France intervene in Libya out of desire to promote democracy, or simply to secure its business interests?...
New Battlefront Opens Up in Gas Debate
by Tracey Ferrier, The Age, Australia - The battle to protect Australia's terrestrial environment from feared effects of coal seam gas mining is at fever pitch....
With Pakistan Supply Route In Doubt, Washington Looks To Uzbekistan
by Daisy Sindelar, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - As ties between the United States and Pakistan continue to sour, speculation is mounting that Uzbekistan may become a new ally of convenience in the U.S. war on terror...
Solar Sister: Empowering Women with Light and Opportunity
by Katherine Lucey, Making It, UK - More than 125 years after Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, 1.6 billion people – a quarter of the world’s population – still rely on kerosene lanterns and candles for light....
The Women Bringing Solar Power to Sierra Leone
by Meena Bhandari, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - An Indian college is training 12 Sierra Leonean women to become solar engineers as part of a drive to bring electricity to rural communities....
Can Communities Reclaim the Right to Say “No”?
by Mari Margil, Yes!, USA - Many communities trying to keep fracking, drilling, or big box stores out are finding they don’t have the legal right to say no. Their response? Take on the very structure of law....
The Myth of Mountaintop Removal Mining
by Beth Wellington, Guardian, UK - Big Coal says it's a tough choice: we can have prosperity and jobs or a pristine environment, but not both. That's a Big Lie....
Why So Much Is Going Wrong Everywhere at Once and How Life Teaches Us to Fix It
by Olga Bonfiglio, Energy Bulletin, UK - Already we are seeing five symptoms of Critical Mass occurring in both rich and poor countries, including our own: hyper-urbanization, joblessness, poverty, dislocation and disease....
Croatia's Green Energy Depends on Investments
by Ksenija Jurkovic, Southeast European Times, Serbia - Croatia's potential for the development of renewable resources is vast, but still underused, at least when it comes to solar, wind or geothermal sources. The situation, however, has been changing in recent...
US Solution to Oil Crisis Simulation: Drill More
by Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, UK - "We are reaping the harvest of our dependence on petroleum and the fact that the countries that produce it are either unstable or hostile to our interests," lamented Stephen Hadley, who reprised his real-life...
Europe Sees U.S. Experience With Shale Gas As Cautionary Tale
by Heather Maher, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - As European countries grapple with how -- and in some cases, whether -- to exploit their own natural-gas deposits, the U.S. experience with the relatively new technique of hydraulic fracturing, or...
When Cowboys Cry
by Sandra Steingraber, Orion, USA - In today's Wild West, energy corporations are the new outlaws....
Renewable Energy Hits a Roadblock with Ugly Power Lines
by Svenja Pelzel, Deutsche Welle, Germany - With the German government's phaseout of nuclear energy, renewable sources like wind power are expected to fill the void. But new power lines are desperately needed to keep up with demand, and no...
Chile: HidroAysén Dam Project Dividing Communities
by Susana Segovia, Tierramérica, Italy - In the heart of the southern Patagonia region, in the valleys of the Ñadis River, 45 kilometers south of the town of Cochrane, live 14 families who will have to be relocated because the...
Power Rationing Strikes China early
by Olivia Chung, Asia Times, Hong Kong - Rationing of electricity is not unusual in China as demand in the fast-growing economy outstrips demand, but this year shortages have began well ahead of the summer peak when blackouts usually occur....
Renewable Energy Can Power the World, Says Landmark IPCC Study
by Fiona Harvey, Guardian, UK - Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power....
Watts in it for Me?
by Tusha Mittal, Tehelka, India - Thermal. Hydro. Nuclear. Every kind of power project brings its own set of detractors....
How the Bicycle Economy can Help Us Beat the Energy Crisis
by Elly Blue, Grist, USA - The bicycle economy exists, meanwhile, on a human, mostly local scale. It's something each of us can concretely take hold of, in our own way and for our own reasons. It offers real freedom...
Farmers Say 'No Fracking Way' to Shell
by Fiona MacLeod, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - South Africa has the world's fifth-largest shale gas reserves and oil giant Shell, which reported profits of $18,6-billion last year, is one of several companies preparing extraction applications....
Algae Could Make Biofuel Cheaper than Oil
by Megan Detrie, The National, UAE - The UAE's sunshine and sea could make it the perfect place for the slime to grow....
Green Energy in the Caribbean
by Elke Opielka, Deutsche Welle, Germany - Theoretically, the islands could meet all their electricity needs with geothermal energy and hydropower. Slowly but surely, that switch is happening, thanks partly to an online social networking site called ‘Welectricity’ which helps...
Chernobyl: The Unreadable Sign
by Sonja Zekri, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany - We are changing - from a civilisation of fear to a civilisation of catastrophes. Progress has become dangerous, for both humankind and nature....
Dirty Energy's Dirty Deeds
by Ellen Cantarow, Tom Dispatch, USA - Energy is ugly. Some forms more so than others, as nuclear near-meltdowns in Japan, the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and deaths in a West Virginia Coal Mine explosion have driven...
Armenia-Turkey Rapprochement and Gas
by Amanda Paul, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Of all the topics that are currently being batted around as possible post-election foreign policy priorities of Ankara, the issue of Turkey-Armenia rapprochement is surfacing again and again....
German Government Discovers the Risks of Nuclear Power
by Nina Werkhäuser, Deutsche Welle, Germany - The Japanese nuclear crisis has spread to Germany where the government has declared a moratorium on extending the lifespans of nuclear power plants. Deutsche Welle's Nina Werkhäuser says the reason is all too...
Climate Change Could Happen Much Faster than Previously Thought
by Louise Gray, Telegraph, UK - Humans are in danger of making large parts of the Earth uninhabitable for thousands of years because of man made climate change, according to new evidence based on geological records....
Globalising Economic Apartheid
by Khadija Sharife, Pambazuka, Kenya - Sanctions-busting was a game perfected by the apartheid regime, but modern-day corporates are also adept at finding ways to exploit Africa's minerals....
Tonga Turns to Alternative Energy
by Stephanie Scawen, Al Jazeera, Qatar - Tonga's government aims to have 50 per cent of its power generated by renewable sources by 2012....
The Arctic: The New El Dorado
by Huguette Young, Americas Quarterly, USA - Just 50 years ago, the Arctic was one of the world’s most remote and inhospitable regions, largely populated by indigenous peoples who hunted musk-ox and caribou and supported themselves with fishing, much as...
The Whole Fracking Enchilada
by Sandra Steingraber, Orion, USA - I have come to believe that extracting natural gas from shale using the newish technique called hydrofracking is the environmental issue of our time. And I think you should, too....
Mini Turbines Help Bring Winds of Change to Poor Regions
by Nele Jensch, Deutsche Welle, Germany - However modest a mini wind turbine may look, it has the potential to supply clean energy to remote rural regions unconnected to the grid in developing nations....
Diary of an Oil Spill
by Rebecca Solnit, London Review of Books, UK - The whole region has become something like the Western Front, a place where you might run into pockets of poison gas, except that this wasn’t a battlefront: it’s home, for...
Not So Green After All
by Esther Bijlo, Trouw, The Netherlands- Forests are often cut down to make room for biofuel production, which is why it can hardly be termed a “sustainable” energy source. In an effort to remedy the situation, the European Commission...
Ethiopia’s Thirst for Water Power Threatens Survival of Tribes
by Kate Eshelby, Herald Scotland, UK - ‘It’s better to kill us first,” Olikoro says, naked apart from a piece of cloth slung over his shoulder. An AK 47 rests by his side as he stares at the Omo...
Where Energy Development Puts Rivers at Risk
by Heather Rousseau, Circle of Blue, USA - Natural gas development, outdated flood management and dams are the biggest threats to the 10 most endangered rivers in the U.S....
Obama Uses Gulf Oil Disaster to Promote Climate Bill that Boosts Offshore Drilling
by Sue Sturgis, Facing South, USA - Why would the U.S. want to boost offshore drilling given the obvious safety failures and the catastrophic consequences they have for the ecology and economy?...
Is there Rehab for this Oil Overdose?
by Carolyn Baker, Carolyn Baker, USA - Corporate culture, media, politicians, and the misguided American public are all failing to grasp the issue, and I suggest, are behaving like enablers responding to an addict's fatal overdose, as well as failing...
Obama's Nuclear Giveaway
by Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones, USA - Buried in the budget is a plan to underwrite the nuclear industry’s revival....
Nuclear Power Regaining Favor
by Judy Pasternak, The Real News, Canada - The Obama administration may soon guarantee as much as $18.5 billion in loans to build nuclear reactors to generate electricity, and Congress is considering whether to add billions more to support an...
Energy, Both Central and Poorly Governed
by Ann Florini, Daily Star, Lebanon - Energy lies at the heart of the world’s most pressing global challenges....
French Nuclear Power Fed by Uranium from Niger
by Khadija Sharife, Pambazuka News, Kenya - Niger exports enough uranium to France to generate 80 per cent of the latter’s electricity supply. But ordinary Nigerians reap little benefit from France’s control of their country’s uranium resources....
Is This the End for Coal?
by Christine MacDonald, E. Magazine, US - Momentum is building to block new coal-fired power plants and end mountaintop removal mining. Is there enough political will to make the break?...
Carbon Trading: Colonising the Atmospheric Commons
by Khadija Sharife, Pambazuka News, South Africa - Despite cheap available solar and wind options, the World Bank’s portfolio of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in Africa focuses on hydropower, methane-capture and other toxic investments. Unpicking the links between energy,...
Era of Cheap, Easy Oil Is over, Warns Study
by Louise Gray, Telegraph, UK - The world could start to run out of oil in the next ten years, sparking soaring energy prices and a rush for even more polluting fossil fuels, an influential new study by the UK...
Coal Ash: 130M Tons of Waste
by Lesley Stahl, CBS 60 Minutes, USA - If coal ash is safe to spread under a golf course or be used in carpets, why are the residents a Tennessee town being told to stay out of a river where...
Blue Energy: A New 'Green' Power source
by Marnie Chesterton, Radio Netherlands, Netherlands - The IJsselmeer is a feat of Dutch engineering. The largest lake in Western Europe, it was created by building the Afsluitdijk, a dyke closing off a vast expanse of water from the North...
Chernobyl Reactor Still a Threat 23 Years On
by Shona Bhattacharyya, France 24, France - Twenty-three years ago, 4,000 people died after one of the reactors of Chernobyl's atomic plant exploded. A new steel sarcophagus, built in part by French company Bouygues, is due to cover the damaged...
Electronics Firms Urged to Boycott "Blood Minerals"
by Marina Litvinsky, IPS, Italy - The world’s mass consumption of cell phones, laptops and other electronics fuels widespread sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a new study released Wednesday by the non-profit Enough Project...
Impoverished Bolivia Is Sitting on a Heap of Gold
by Luisa Fernanda López, Radio Netherlands, Netherlands - Some see Bolivia as the Saudi Arabia of Latin America: the country's lithium reserves are estimated to make up around 40 percent of the global supply....
Coal Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
by Kate Sheppard, Grist, USA - Anti-coal activists get a boost from Tennessee ash spill and other mishaps...
Cape Whales Face New Threat
by Yolandi Groenewald, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - PetroSA's plan for a liquid natural gas mooring facility in a known whale-breeding site on the Western Cape coast has stirred up an environmental hornet's nest....
Recycling Used Cartridges to Save the Environment
by Jane Nafula, Daily Monitor, Uganda - The oil from cartridges thrown away in one year would cover over 24,000 miles on land. A significant part of the cartridges are also made of plastics and it is estimated that 4...
Bulgaria and Russia: A Cold Marriage
by Irina Novakova, openDemocracy, UK - Bulgaria's energy dispute with Russia is a bitter reminder of the country's long and costly dependence on a partner it can neither love nor leave....
Authors and SFBG talk saving the earth
by Amanda Witherell, San Francisco Bay Guardian, USA - Natural processes created the environment for life and we take that for granted -- but we should not....
As Europe Shivers, Kyiv And Moscow Stay Warm, For Now
by Claire Bigg, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - Russia's decision on January 7 to cut all gas supplies to Ukraine, a key transit route for Europe, has left more than a dozen countries scrambling to cope with an exceptional...
A Northern Neighbor Growls, and Azerbaijan Reassesses its Options
by Sabrina Tavernise, International Herald Tribune, France - "Azerbaijan is doing a dance between the West and Russia," said Isa Gambar, an Azeri opposition figure. "Until now, there was an unspoken consensus. Georgia was with the West, Armenia was an...
Finding Energy to Beat a Recession
by Tatyana Mitrova, Moscow Times, Russia - As a global economic recession looms, the medium-term development prospects for the world's energy sector will change substantially....
The Vicious Circle: Russia, Europe and Energy
by Tatiana Mitrova, International Herald Tribune, France - At the time of the First World War, Winston Churchill formulated the fundamental principle of energy security as follows: "Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone."...
HOME
| About
| Authors
| Contact
| Partners
| Privacy & Security
| Terms of Use
| The WIP RSS News Feeds
| Archives
| Donate
Copyright © 2011 THEWIP.NET
