Nov 28th, 2011 by Richard Kaloust
| Written by Megan Treacy on 28/11/11 |
The European Union is requiring member countries to have no more than 35 bad air days per year by 2012 or the countries will face fines of around $450 million. In order to clean up air pollution to meet the EU’s standards,London is turning to glue. Well, a glue of sorts. The English capital is applying a calcium-based adhesive to streets to trap particulate air pollution and, believe it or not, it’s working.
The city’s street sweepers have applied the adhesive to air pollution hot spots around the city and particulate levels in those areas have dropped 14 percent. The project has cost the city $1.4 million so far, which is pretty expensive, but 14 percent is a pretty substantial reduction from glue alone and a far cry from a payout of $450 million if they didn’t meet the standards.
London will be taking other action to reduce air pollution, including rolling out cleaner buses, retiring the most polluting taxis, enforcing stricter emissions standards and planting trees.
via Grist
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Nov 25th, 2011 by Richard Kaloust
| Written by Megan Treacy on 29/11/11 |
For the first time, investments in renewable energy projects surpassed those in fossil fuel power plants, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Last year, $187 billion was invested in renewable energy installations, while $157 billion was invested in new natural gas, oil and coal plants.
The increase in investments in the sector, even while in a down economy, has led to price drops in equipment and renewable energy power, making solar and wind power far more competitive with coal power.
Renewable energy subsidies deserve a lot of credit for the spending increase: about $66 billion in subsidies were handed out last year.
It’s a great bit of news as another round of global talks on the climate crisis is likely heading nowhere as we speak.
via LA Times
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Nov 23rd, 2011 by Richard Kaloust
| Written by Megan Treacy on 30/11/11 |
A new map of geothermal energy potential released by Southern Methodist University is the result of years of research funded by Google.org. The map (click here to download and view in Google Earth) shows that there are enough viable geothermal resources in the U.S. to replace the current coal power capacity ten times over.
Last year, SMU gave us a sneak peak of the research they’ve been doing by releasing a geothermal energy potential map for West Virginia. Surprisingly, the state is a hot spot for geothermal energy recovery, a wonderful development in an area where coal power has dominated for a long time.
The study limited its analysis to the top 6.5 km of the earth’s crust to accurately portray what was actually drillable, recoverable energy. When the researchers applied limits to depth and excluded areas that were inaccessible due to being in large urban areas or national parks, the technical potential versus theoretical potential for geothermal energy production was revealed. The technical potential was about 14 percent of the theoretical potential, yet still enough to crush our current coal power capacity ten times over.
via Climate Progress
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