The Official Website of New York Times Best-Selling Author John Locke, the 1st self-published author to sell a million eBooks on Amazon Kindle. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Exceed 'Worst Case' Scenario. © Nucho With a growing consensus among climate scientists that the unabated release of greenhouse gases will have dire effects on our planet's ecosystems by century's end, one might expect to see, at least, a leveling-off of global carbon output.
But despite our increasing awareness and discussions of climate change, the problem, it seems, is only getting worse. According to calculations released by the U.S. Department of Energy, global carbon output in 2010 wasn't just a little higher than the year before -- it saw the most dramatic jump ever recorded.
Ever. The Associate Press reports that in 2010 the world saw a spike signifying a whopping 6 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2009. Investment in U.S. Cleantech Up 73% This Quarter: $1.1 Billion Went to Clean Energy Projects. Langalex via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0 Venture capitalists have invested $1.1 billion in the cleantech sector this quarter.
That's up a remarkable 73% compared to the same quarter last year. In other words, no matter how many shoddy 'scandal-making' news segments the media tries to spin out, they can't bury the facts: The clean energy sector is one of most promising, fastest-growing industries in the nation, and investors remained undeterred to finance it. Singapore will soon become more garden than city. As a visitor there for a week—I didn't notice.
& I spit gum on the sidewalk with no consequence. Eco tour. What the eBook Revolution Means and How Copywriters Can Prosper From It. U.S. Congress to Turn 90% of its Trash Into Energy. Photo credit: Abeeeer via Flickr/CC BY The policies that Congressmen and women adhere to in their everyday lives occasionally act as a useful reflection of the political trends pulling at the nation in general. Minneapolis's Awesome Midtown Greenway (Video) The Steady Rise of the Solar PV Manufacturing Industry Signals a Bright Future. Jeremy Levine Design/CC BY 2.0 This post was written by J.
Matthew Roney, a research associate at the Earth Policy Institute. Solar photovoltaic (PV) companies manufactured a record 24,000 megawatts of PV cells worldwide in 2010, more than doubling their 2009 output. Annual PV production has grown nearly 100-fold since 2000, when just 277 megawatts of cells were made. Newly installed PV also set a record in 2010, as 16,600 megawatts were installed in more than 100 countries. . © Earth Policy Institute Made of semiconductor materials, PV cells convert solar radiation directly into electricity. There are two main types of PV—traditional crystalline silicon and newer thin-film PV.
Data provided to Earth Policy Institute by GTM Research show that Chinese manufacturers again dominated the global industry in 2010, with close to 11,000 megawatts of PV cell production. U.S. Solar Industry Now Employs 100,000 People, Grew 6.8% Since August 2010. Photo: david.nikonvscanon, Flickr, CC BYThat's a net gain 6,700 jobs in one yearDon't let the Solyndra talk fool you: The clean energy sector is still booming.
And even booming industries -- maybe especially booming industries -- see a fair share of once-promising companies go belly up. It's unfortunate that the Obama administration once touted Solyndra as an example of the fast-growing renewable power sector, but its bankruptcy is a poor reflection of the industry's health as a whole. In fact, renewable energy remains one of the few sectors to see consistent growth over the last couple years. A new report highlights that health, revealing that the solar industry employs over 100,000 people, and added over 6,700 jobs in the last 12 months alone.The 2011 National Solar Jobs Census brings the good news to a sector that could certainly use some. Renewable Energy World has the breakdown: Europe's Largest Engineering Company Quits Nuclear, Will Focus on Renewables. New York City Announces Bike-sharing System For April 2012. Mausoleum-Mounted Solar Panels Light Up A Spanish Town.
Solar Highways Turn Public Liabilities into Assets. Cars Published on July 18th, 2011 | by Aaron Fown.
Big News: Coal Electricity Drops Big Time. Photo: John Norton via flickr It's been a bad stretch recently for dirty coal, the country's largest source of global warming emissions.
First, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped up and contributed big time to the Sierra Club's fierce Beyond Coal campaign. And now news comes that coal's share of U.S. electricity production during the first quarter of this 2011 added up to its lowest amount in more than 30 years.The Energy Information Administration found that electricity produced from coal accounted for just 46 percent of domestic power, a drop that is 6% lower than the first three months of 2008.
"The decline in the share of generation provided by coal is offset by increased generation fueled by other energy sources, particularly natural gas. " Empowering students to help households save energy. • Students trained to help households conserve energy through PowerSeraya’s Responsible Energy Advocates Programme (REAP) • 3 households top 2010 pilot run to achieve energy savings of more than 10% 15 tertiary students from local polytechnics and universities, along with PowerSeraya, have helped raise awareness on responsible energy usage among households in Singapore.
Wind Turbines Today Produce 300X the Power as Those Made 15 Years Ago. Sony Meets Air Quality Targets, Cuts Emissions 31% Image: Ian Muttoo via flickr Electronics giant Sony announced today that since 2000, it has achieved a 31 percent reduction in global CO2 emissions.
The company boasts that means it surpassed its 2006 "Green Management" goal by 24 percent, but the original goal of 7 percent was not exactly ambitious. It did also achieve, though, a 54 percent reduction in waste generation (the goal was 40 percent) and a 41 percent reduction in water use at business sites (the goal was 20 percent). The announcement comes after a third-party analysis of data from Sony's facilities worldwide confirmed that the company met or exceeded several of the targets laid out in 2006 in its Green Management 2010 plan.