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reprint Investors who have dumped holdings in fossil fuel companies have outperformed those that remain invested in coal, oil and gas over the past five years according to analysis by the world’s leading stock market index company, MSCI, which runs global indices used by more than 6,000 pension and hedge funds, found that investors who divested from fossil fuel companies would have earned an average return of 13% a year since 2010, compared to the 11.8%-a-year return earned by conventional investors. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ The figures indicate that if a major charitable institution or foundation with £100m in funds had divested from fossil fuels in November 2010 they would be around £7m better off today than if they had maintained their holdings in coal, oil and gas companies. In total, a portfolio of shares with fossil fuel companies included has grown in value by 62.2% since 2010,...

reprint Renewables are finally becoming a globally significant source of power, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March by Frankfurt School UNEP Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Driven by rapid expansion in developing countries, new installations of carbon-free renewable power plants in 2014 surpassed 100,000 megawatts of capacity for the first time, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report. It appears that renewable energy is now entering the market at a scale that is relevant in energy industry terms – and at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels. The numbers are compelling. Renewables such as wind, solar and biomass generated an estimated 9.1% of the world’s electricity in 2014, up from 8.5% in 2013, according to the report. These sources made up the majority of new power capacity in Europe, and also brought electricity to new markets. They also caught the eyes of investors: in 20...

reprint UPDATE -- The debate about the future use of coal to generate power gathered steam in Germany after the country recently saw greenhouse gas emissions rise. The government’s Climate Action Programme foresees additional emission cuts from the power sector and the federal grid planning agency now assumes there will be one third less coal in the power mix in the future. By summer 2015, the Ministry for Energy wants to present legislation that specifies how and when coal power generation has to be limited. Power generation from coal has long served German industry, and despite Germany’s reputation as an ecological role model, the cheap, carbon-intensive, fossil fuel has recently seen a revival. After many scientists, activists and politicians, including the Environment Minister, warned that Germany would miss its target of cutting CO2 by 40 percent by 2020 (over 1990), the government adopted a plan to cut the share of coal in the mix . The Climate Action Pr...

reprint A major new Deutsche Bank report has predicted that energy storage – the “missing link of solar adoption” – will be cheap enough – and technologically ready – to be deployed on a large-scale within the next five years. The solar industry report, published on Friday, said that while costs for the greater majority of available battery technologies remained prohibitive, economically competitive batteries were the “killer app” and the “holy grail” of solar penetration. But with many costs already lower than published literature would suggest, Deutsche Bank believes this ultimate solar and renewable energy goal might not be far out of reach. “Using conservative assumptions and no incentives, our model indicates that the incremental cost of storage will decrease from ~14c/kWh today to ~2c/kWh within the next five years,” the report says. “When overall system cost decreases are considered, we believe solar + batteries will be a clear financial choice in ma...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com ▶ TOP NEWS : Alpiq starts new business: Dismantling of Nuclear Power PLants. reprint Existing nuclear power plants are extremely valuable societal assets. Shutting them down in the absence of compelling economic or technical reasons is folly. It sometimes feels like this statement is so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be made and yet you don’t have to look far to see governments which appear not to care. subscription : rss-reader index : all reprints here In Europe, Germany and Belgium have implemented arbitrary caps on reactor lifespans as part of their phase-out policies. Green party pressure in Sweden may yet result in tax hikes which make the ongoing operation of nuclear plants there next to impossible. In Spain the Garoña plant closed due to the impact of a new tax law (the government is now in fact seeking to resurrect the plant...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint The global rebirth of nuclear power was meant to be well under way by now, writes Jim Green. But in fact, nuclear's share of world power generation is on a steady long term decline, and new reactors are getting ever harder to build, and finance. The only real growth area is decommissioning , but that too has a problem: where's the money to pay for it? The UK's planned Hinkley C nuclear plant is looking increasingly like a dead duck - or possibly parrot.  As the Financial Times reports today, Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has abandoned plans to examine the 'value of money' Hinkley C offers taxpayers - because no deal has been reached and none is expected before the general election in May. In other words, all that bullish talk about Hinkley C launching Britain's ' nuclear renaissance ' has melted away like a spring...

-- a _kt75 | reprint _NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here Denmark, a tiny country on the northern fringe of Europe, is pursuing the world’s most ambitious policy against climate change. It aims to end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050 — not just in electricity production, as some other countries hope to do, but in transportation as well. Now a question is coming into focus: Can Denmark keep the lights on as it chases that lofty goal? Let anyone consider such a sweeping transition to be impossible in principle, the Danes beg to differ. They essentially invented the modern wind-power industry, and have pursued it more avidly than any country. They are above 40 percent renewable power on their electric grid , aiming toward 50 percent by 2020. The political consensus here to keep pushing is all but unanimous. Their policy is similar to that of neighboring Germany, which has spent tens of billions pursuing ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint _NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here The ECOWAS Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Status Report, produced collaboratively by REN21 and ECREEE with lead authorship from the Worldwatch Institute, provides a regional perspective on the renewable energy and energy efficiency market and industry development in West Africa. Launched on November 10, 2014, the report concludes that renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies have rapidly become cost effective solutions for overcoming the diverse energy challenges facing the ECOWAS region (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo). "It is clear that the ECOWAS Member States acknowledge the enormous potential that renewables and energy efficiency bring to accelerating energy access and meetin...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . The German government has committed the country to an 'Energiewende', in which at least 80% of electricity production and 60% of primary energy needs are to be supplied by solar , wind , and other renewable energy sources by 2050. A big open question is how the intermittency of renewable energy sources like wind and sunshine can be reconciled with the need to reliably supply energy whenever and wherever it's needed, whether to heat homes, fuel trucks and trains, or power electrical equipment. 'Power-to- gas ' and 'power-to-liquids' could be the answer, according to engineers and researchers who spoke to a packed hall at the third annual conference of the Power to Gas Association in Berlin on Wednesday (2.7.2014), hosted by the German Energy Agency (DENA) . Michael Sterner, a professor at East Bavarian Technical University in Reg...

-- 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 There is a boom in renewable energy sources coming online worldwide, but the predominant types – solar and wind – are problematic due to their variable nature. For most regions of the world, the sun cannot be expected to shine nor the wind blow when required. What is needed is a way to capture that energy when available, perhaps in the middle of the night, when demand is low, and then store it until it can be used when demand rises. But this is not a trivial problem to solve. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ According to the European Wind Energy Association , at the end of 2013, the UK had 10.5GW of wind turbine capacity installed, with more in planning and construction. As the percentage of energy generated from renewables increases, the intermittency problem becomes more acute, as has been ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 Today's wind industry, even with the necessary batteries and other grid-scale storage, is energetically sustainable, Stanford scientists say. - However, storing stochastic renewable-based energy is the key challenge that hasn't been solved at all. The worldwide demand for solar and wind power continues to skyrocket. Since 2009, global solar photovoltaic installations have increased about 40 percent a year on average, and the installed capacity of wind turbines has doubled. The dramatic growth of the wind and solar industries has led utilities to begin testing large-scale technologies capable of storing surplus clean electricity and delivering it on demand when sunlight and wind are in short supply. Now a team of Stanford researchers has looked at the "energetic cost" of manufacturing batteries and other storage technologies for the electrical grid. At issue ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 When Ergon Energy began a Solar Cities program on Magnetic Island to try to make the isolated community as efficient and self sustaining as possible – and avoid an expensive new cable to the mainland grid – one of the first things it did was to remove all the old bar fridges. It filled up more than a shipping container and took them off the island. Bar fridges, explains Ergon Energy CEO Ian McLeod, are usually old, and terribly inefficient. Roofs on the island were also painted white to dissipate the effects of the sun’s heat on household interiors. Solar was installed and the new cable deferred for nearly a decade. Now, with storage about to be installed on Magnetic Island, the new cable will probably never be needed. This is now becoming the model for regional and isolated communities around Australia . Inefficient appliances like old bar fridges are being replaced, local gene...