The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined, attendants heard at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance annual summit in New York on Tuesday. “The shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, compared with 141 gigawatts in new plants that burn fossil fuels. The shift will continue to accelerate, and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable capacity will be added.
“The electricity system is shifting to clean,” Michael Liebreich, founder of BNEF, said in his keynote address. “Despite the change in oil and gas prices there is going to be a substantial buildout of renewable energy that is likely to be an order of magnitude larger than the buildout of coal and gas.” [Bloomberg Business]
65 researchers from provinces across Canada have published a report, Acting on Climate Change, detailing how the country can decarbonize its electric grid. “The team unanimously endorsed putting a price on carbon pollution as a key strategy. Without a carbon fee, the price of electricity on the market doesn’t reflect its true costs to society.
This is a market failure that economists call an “externality,” where the costs associated with a product (in this case, damages incurred via climate change) aren’t captured in its market price. Instead they’re paid by taxpayers in what could be considered a massive subsidy to the fossil fuel industry.” [The Guardian]
A Natural Resources Defense Council report has criticized Microsoft for the amount of energy consumed by it’s new gaming console, the Xbox One. “It’s too early to know whether this will really end the $250 million worth of annual electricity waste due to be caused by the Instant-on feature.
The Xbox One uses 12.5 watts of power when it is in the Instant-on “sleep” (or “standby”) mode, primarily because it’s always listening to hear you say “Xbox On!” even if you may be asleep or away from home. The only way to change this is to go deep into the Settings menu and to select the Energy-saving mode, which few users will do as they are probably unaware of this option. We posted a blog highlighting this issue earlier this month and the media noticed, which apparently got Microsoft’s attention.” [NRDC]
