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_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint The so-called “carbon bubble” is no longer a concept, it’s a reality, according to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who will oversee the crucial UN climate conferencein Paris in December. Investors who sunk their money into the fossil fuel sector are going to come up losers, she suggested, as plummeting oil prices have made new extraction projects too costly to continue to pursue and concerns about global warming have made them too risky. “A lot of the stranded asset conversations we’ve been having for a long time are now coming true,” she told RTCC, speaking from the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. “Those expensive oil projects —deep sea, Arctic, tar sands—those are actually beginning to be taken off the table because of the low oil prices.” That’s good news for the environmental groups that have long warned about “stranded assets”—coal, oil ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy On May 28 the European Commission published its energy security strategy. In the midst of sanctions and strong rhetoric on the need to reduce dependence on Russian gas, this was to be the first salvo in a long term plan to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas. Unsurprisingly, this will not happen any time soon. The ongoing crisis in Ukraine has confirmed two things: Europe continues to be divided on energy security issues , and the importance of energy related matters is modest compared to concern about the right and left wing drift of European politics. That last point only puts energy issues in perspective, which is probably good for many scholars and observers working on the topic, including this author. Energy Security in Europe Reaching European consensus on energy security was rarely successful, despite attempts to develop an overall su...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 IEA World Energy Outlook special report sees rising role of governments in shaping investment decisions. Meeting the world’s growing need for energy will require more than $48 trillion in investment over the period to 2035, according to a special report on investment released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as part of the World Energy Outlook series. Today’s annual investment in energy supply of $1.6 trillion needs to rise steadily over the coming decades towards $2 trillion. Annual spending on energy efficiency, measured against a 2012 baseline, needs to rise from $130 billion today to more than $550 billion by 2035. “The reliability and sustainability of our future energy system depends on investment,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “But this won’t materialise unless there are credible policy frameworks in place ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 In 2012, coal-fired and nuclear power plants together provided 56% of the electricity generated in the United States. The role of these technologies in the U.S. generation mix has been changing since 2009, as both low natural gas prices and slower growth of electricity demand have altered their competitiveness relative to other fuels. Many coal-fired plants also must comply with requirements of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and other environmental regulations. Some of the challenges faced by coal-fired and nuclear generators, and the implications for electricity markets if the plants are retired in significant numbers, are analyzed in this discussion. Of the total installed 310 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired generating capacity available at the end of 2012, 50 GW, or 16%, is projected to be retired by 2020 in the AEO2014 Reference case. Despite those projec...