Category: Energy & Climate

The energy of the future: renewable energy communities

Since its beginning in February, the tragic war in Ukraine has monopolized the news. And with Russia being one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, the energy issue soon became part of the discussion. Especially now that winter season is approaching and especially in Europe, which largely depends on Russian exports, the debate […]

Russia and European energy independence: the REPower EU Plan

Since its outbreak on February 24, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia has altered the political, social, and economic balance of the world and, above all, of Europe. At a geopolitical level one of the main hot topics is the energy question. Indeed, Russia is the main exporter of natural gas and crude oil to […]

No Easy Path to Economic and Political Stability in Africa

From Decolonization to Neocolonialism in Africa Africa is not a country, it is a continent formed by different countries hence different people who respectively have different histories and through their history have accumulated different forms of success and distinct sets of issues. That being said Africa as a whole cannot be examined entirely but rather […]

The Roots of our Petroleum Addiction and the Future Possibilities of a World Detached from Oil

Oil is power, and until we move away from this very notion then we will be addicted to oil for an unseeable future and suffer the great consequences that arise from fossil fuel consumption. Dominion over oil means dominion over democracy. We must find a new dependency in order to prosper. What lurks in the shadows? What is our way out?

Is a hybrid Solar PV & W2E Renewable Energy System Feasible for Ghana?

Article and Pictures by Nicholas George Donovan Grazia The volant migration of the Arcadian population in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), in search of a better life in metropolitan megapolis, has culminated in the profuse and irrepressible growth of the urban centers. Due to this monumental expansion of the population in SSA, a major public perturbation has […]

CARBON LEAKAGE: CURRENT CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

Carbon based emissions are now proven to be a harmful by-product to humans and the environment. An excess of CO2 in the atmosphere, in addition to an increase in the average global temperature with catastrophic consequences already experienced today, affects the health of the individual in several ways: blood acidification, lower cognitive performance, muscular tremor […]

Reviewing: “A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change”

From the USA withdrawing from the Paris Agreement to the European Union enforcing its Emission Trading System, to China powering with new Coal Plants its green revolution in BRI countries, to other developing countries suffering as front-liners the consequences of the climate crisis: World Countries are individually (or in clusters) facing The Emergency with several […]

Imperialism and Dependency Theory: Challenges for an African-European Sustainable Partnership

The protests striking in the US after centuries of oppression, both explicit and tacit, against the black community call for immediate action in the short term while might foresee structural changes both in Europe and in its relationship with the African States. Most European Nations are dealing with a rising outbreak of “national pride” at […]

The power of algae as biofuel

How Danish researchers use seaweed to turn on a car Being sustainable also means thinking outside the box. This is what the researchers of the Danish group MacroFuels did, by experimenting with alternative methods to fossil fuels to create biofuel. Following extensive research, they focused on ocean resources, particularly microalgae (commonly known as seaweed). Why […]

Pros and cons of Daylight Saving Time: do we still want that?

Daylight Saving Time (DST) has a long and controversial history. After being introduced in an essay by Benjamin Franklin, the idea was adopted in 1916 by Britain and Germany. The goal was to reduce the domestic consumption of coal and to give factories daylight hours to work, in order to aid the war effort. The […]

Morocco polishes up its energy sector

Just 200 kilometres away from Marrakech, between the sight of Atlas Mountains and the beginning of Sahara desert, Morocco’s greatest effort to introduce renewable energy takes shape. The project to construct a thermosolar plant called Noor (“light” in Arabic) in Morocco got selected in 2011 as part of an investment package from Desertec, with the […]

Gorona Del Viento has the wind on its sails

The Island of El Hierro (Canary Islands, Spain) covered its whole electricity demand between the 25th of January and the 12th of February of this year on a 100% with renewable resources, avoiding the use of pollutant energy sources for over more than 560 hours in 2018, and a total of almost 2.000 hours since […]

How far EnergieWende has come?

Since 2010 Germany has paved its road to be a clean and sustainable country. The transition is supported by the Energiewede project, German for Energy transition, an ambitious plan to switch to a low carbon and environmentally sustainable economy. The main goals are the reductions of GHG of 80% by 2050; increase the energy supply […]

A Liter of Light: how an invention can help the world change.

Solar Flying

This Sunday the Green Column is celebrating an inspiring and good event. This Thursday, the 23rd of June, Solar Impulse, an aircraft solely powered by solar energy, completed its first transatlantic flight: 71 hours zero emission cruising from New York to Seville! What is Solar Impulse? It is an innovation-driven project, whose founders are the […]

Look at the stars… Whoops we can’t!

You may find yourself looking at the sky during these summer nights, but where are the stars at? Light pollution in our cities is a serious issue. In a recent study conducted by an Italian and American research team, it has been found out that more than 83% of the world’s population experiences light-polluted night […]

Exotic Renewable Energy Plants: Tidal Energy

Tidal Energy power plants are definitely some kind of an exotic form for energy production. That’s because most tidal power plants are just pilot projects that are only build for research purposes and do not create a very big amount of energy in their lifetime. Tidal energy is one form of hydropower energy that gets […]

Paris Summit 2015 – Each country’s pledge

Carbon Brief has been following each country’s pledge towards the Paris 2015 summit. Here on this post you will find more details on how each country pledged in the upcoming summit. While for some countries, the pledges seem a big task however it will be interesting to see if they manage to achieve the target. […]

Wind Hybrid Power System

Few days ago my colleague and a friend Max wrote a piece about Wind to hydrogen possibility. It was an interesting article. It got me thinking about other possibility so in this post, I am going to write some different ways of creating energy and storing through Wind/Solar. Hybrid power describes the combination of a […]

Wind-to-Hydrogen: A possible solution to store energy?

If you follow our blog than you might know that one of the topics we discuss most is how to create energy in a sustainable way and how we can store that energy. When electricity gets produced it has one big disadvantage: it has to be consumed when it gets produced. It is very difficult […]

Biogas, the underrated renewable energy source!

Renewable energy sources are becoming crucial for a sustainable energy supply in the next decades; the only way to reach more independency from fossil fuels is a good mix between all the different possibilities that we have as solar, wind, water, and geothermal power sources. But one source is quite often forgotten: Biogas from Anaerobic […]

Energy Seeping Ignorance

Few weeks ago my friends and I were talking about electricity saving and I mentioned that my ex-flatmate used to leave this TV light on all the time. I mean he would switch off the TV but not completely off from the plug or his mobile charger was always plugged even though the phone wasn’t […]

Tesla revealed batteries for your home

For sure you heard about Tesla, the US American producer of the very successfully selling electric car Tesla Model S. And if you find their revolutionary approach in the car sector as interesting as I do, you will definitely appreciate the latest news from Tesla. On April 30, they announced at a press conference in […]

LifeGate, an italian network for environment and sustainability

Today I would like to share with you an italian website that defines itself with the slogan “people planet profit”: LifeGate.it! LifeGate is one of the biggest italian networks for environment, energies, and sustainability. On their website you can find a lot of information regarding the topics i mentioned above, it is always up-to-date and […]

What is emission trading and what is it good for? Part 1 of 2

Today I would like to write about an issue that is so wide that I decided to divide it in two parts: Emission Trading. As you might know (or not) there are some instruments that policy makers can use to reduce emissions of pollutant gases, especially impactful greenhouse gas emissions. Tradable emission permits are one […]

RESD’s student heading to Gotenburg, Sweden for a week for Environmental Symposium 2015

The EuroEnviro student symposium was created in 1995 in Born, Germany. Originally known as BiB, Born-in-Born, it was later to be renamed EuroEnviro. The aim was to exchange opinions with other students on environmental sciences and ecopolitical issues. Over the years the focus has expanded from mainly environmental issues to also include social and economic sustainability. […]

Play the Sustainability Game online

Teaching people of any age is a crucial step for a more sustainable world. While stumbling across the Web I found this very nice flashgame for children up to 14 that tries to teach in an interactive way what sustainability is, how the extraction of resources affects the environment and what would be the best practice […]

Smart Cities – The Cities of the Future

The WHO stated in 2014 that 54% of global population is living in cities, and in the following 5 years they estimated an expected urban population growth of 1.84% per year. This trend makes it crucial to make cities less impactful on the environment, and one step to reach that goal could be the so […]

A Map of World’s energy use

This is a very ineresting map of the energy use per capita divided by countries. Take a look at it! (click on it to zoom in) Source: http://burnanenergyjournal.com/how-much-energy-are-we-using/ How much energy are people using in your country? Take part in our survey below! [polldaddy poll=8752185]