Emissions

A Wake Up Call For COP 17

By


Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy released startling statistics. Not only did last year’s global levels of greenhouse gases jump by the biggest amount on record, but the output was also higher than the worst case scenario outlined by experts just four years ago. The world pumped about 564 million more tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That is a 6% increase.

Against this backdrop, November’s Conference of Parties 17 (COP17) in Durban – the last round of international negotiations ahead of the Rio +20 earth summit next year – could not come at a better time. South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, this year’s rotating president of the COP series, has stressed that COP17 will be a challenging meeting and seeks to focus the conference on two primary issues: first, how to finance the costs of combating climate change; and second, how to get 194 countries to agree to a second period of the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 29, 2011 at 9:00 AM

Renewable Energy To The Rescue, Says IEA

By


“The world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system” without an “urgent and radical change of policy direction,” the International Energy Agency’s Executive Director said recently.

The agency has been beating the drum for significant changes to energy policy since the appointment of Maria Van der Hoeven earlier this year, and the tone of the group’s analysis, meant to reflect input from and guide policy for the world’s developed economies, has grown increasingly aggressive in recent months. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 28, 2011 at 9:00 AM

Across Party Lines: AOL Energy Politics Year In Review

By


Energy politics have been more partisan than ever this year.

Republicans have been consistently supporting incumbent fossil fuel electricity generators–nuclear, coal and natural gas–while Democrats have been vocally supporting emissions regulations, renewables loan guarantees and tax incentives as well as increased taxes on oil and gas companies. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 28, 2011 at 6:00 AM

EPA Delays Yet Another Emissions Rule

By


With the 2012 presidential election looming, the White House seems to be postponing many of the hard decision in its environmental policy.

After delaying an EPA rule on ground-level ozone emissions from power stations in early September, and then delaying a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline this November, EPA said on Monday it will delay a mid-December deadline for greenhouse gas emissions rules on oil refineries. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 22, 2011 at 2:30 PM

More Than 100 Years Of Natural Gas

By


“Information sharing is important,” Clay Bretches says here, and he should know. The Andarko Vice President headed up the coordinating subcommittee of the National Petroleum Council as it prepared its first comprehensive study of the outlook for US energy since 2007 this year.

The NPC has a deep history of evaluating US energy risks and opportunities, as it has complied and released studies since the Second World War. Its latest update takes into account the huge changes wrought by new applications of technologies in the natural gas sector, and Bretches says in this video that the resulting increased reserves should “meet even our highest projections of natural gas demand.” Keep reading →

 /  Published November 22, 2011 at 6:00 AM

States Pass Feds In Encouraging Renewable Energy

By


State-based targets for green electricity generation have been so successful in developing renewable energy projects that any current proposals for a federal clean energy standard could require little or no additional capacity, according to a leading academic.

Ryan Wiser, a scientist specializing in electricity markets and policy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said recent data showed that any proposed federal RPS would require fewer additions than were seen in 2008-10 to meet state-based Renewable Portfolio Standards targets. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 22, 2011 at 6:00 AM

Shell Wants A Price On Carbon As It Races Toward Energy’s Future

By


For employees of a company built on oil, Shell’s top energy forecasters have an unexpected enthusiasm for electric vehicles.

While the rest of the world has been watching its competitors struggle to access oil reserves in competition with state-owned firms, Shell has become the world’s largest distributor of biofuels, a company that is on the verge of producing more natural gas than oil, and an advocate for pricing carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas associated with global warming. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 21, 2011 at 6:00 AM

Mitigating Climate Change From Wall Street

By


The potential for climbing costs in reacting to climate change are looking more and more bleak and it may be time for leaders outside the environmental community to do something about it, business leaders on a Ceres-sponsored call said on Friday.

The meeting was purposefully scheduled to start six hours after the release of a United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel report on climate change in Uganda. It warned global leaders that climate change is real and could have disastrous environmental and economics impacts. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 21, 2011 at 6:00 AM

Winds Of Change: AOL Energy Week In Review

By


The last few years have already seen a dramatic change in discourse on energy issues in the US and globally. But a complex present is laying the groundwork for a new, potentially cleaner, energy future.

Congressional deadlock is allowing two game-changing Environmental Protection Agency rules to pass into law, the Mercury & Air Toxics Standards (known as the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology, or MACT, rule) and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, CSAPR, which together will cost utilities and ratepayers billions of dollars. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 18, 2011 at 3:15 PM

#WindMade Pioneers are announced today! Meet our 15 Pioneers are here: bit.ly/tPXDTe

By

#WindMade Pioneers are announced today! Meet our 15 Pioneers are here: bit.ly/tPXDTe WindMade_NGO

 /  Published November 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM
Page 41 of 561...373839404142434445...56