Another day, another billion-dollar renewable energy deal. That has been the story of the past few weeks as a raft of companies have made eye-catching solar and wind-power investments. US private equity group, KKR, swooped on Spanish solar developer Gestamp. Germany’s Siemens won a huge wind-turbine order from Denmark’s Dong utility.
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A new rule mandating the first-ever federal limits on power-plant carbon emissions aims to change the way Americans make and consume electricity, accelerating a shift already under way toward cleaner fuels, renewable energy and consumer-generated power.The regulations, which will be unveiled by President Barack Obama at a White House event Monday, are part of a broader push by the administration to position the U.S. as a leader in tackling climate change.
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Two options for dealing with climate change — reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a global agreement, and geoengineering proposals such as injecting sulfur into the stratosphere — tend to dominate current thinking. But there is a “third way” that is almost entirely neglected in political negotiations and public debate. It involves capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it or using it to create things we need. Because of the scale of the climate problem, I believe that in coming decades third-way technologies will become a major focus of activity.
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La précieuse horloge du carbone 14 va-t-elle être détraquée par l’augmentation phénoménale des émissions humaines de CO2 ? C’est ce que suggère un article paru dans la revue PNAS le 20 juillet, où la biogéochimiste Heather Graven (Imperial College de Londres) décrit l’impact à court terme d’un « vieillissement artificiel de l’atmosphère » lié à ces émissions.
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In one of this country’s most popular novels for young readers, the nuclear reactor on the edge of this Bavarian town melts down, spewing a radioactive cloud that threatens all of Germany and robs a 14-year-old girl of her family and her hope for the future. Last month, that nuclear power plant in Grafenrheinfeld, responsible for meeting the energy needs of industry-heavy Bavaria since 1981, came to a less dramatic but equally symbolic end.
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The new papal encyclical on the environment is a ringing call to action, a critique of consumerism and a prophetic warning about the dangers of ignoring what Pope Francis calls “the ecological crisis.” But amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right? The short answer from climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts.
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