8 mars

UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies

Het wereldwijde gebruik van fossiele brandstoffen bereikte in 2023 een nieuw record. Dat blijkt uit een rapport van het Energy Institute, de Britse beroepsorganisatie voor werknemers in de energie-industrie. Ook de uitstoot van de energie-industrie was nog nooit zo hoog.

This essay takes up and extends an analysis of the ambitions of the energy transition presented during the conference entitled “L’erreur fondamentale de la transition”, held in Lausanne in December 2022, at the annual Switzerland ShiftersDay. The intervention questioned the conceptualization of energy transition, given possible inaccuracies, or errors in the categorization of reality. It is not certain that the energy contained in the wind, solar radiation, or atoms is equivalent to hydrocarbon energy for human societalneeds. Although all energies are theoretically convertible into one another, the assumption that any type of energy can always be replaced by another is likely to prove false. An energy transition based on the substitution of energies would then be inconceivable.

Le Premier ministre Alexander De Croo était l’invité de Maxime Binet sur LN24 ce jeudi 21 mars 2024. A l'occasion du premier "Nuclear Energy Summit" en Belgique, il a insisté sur la présence du nucléaire dans un mix énergétique décarboné en Belgique.

Global investment in the clean energy transition grew by 17% in 2023, showing resilience despite geopolitical tensions, high interest rates, and inflation. But was it enough to keep the world on track to hit net zero by 2050? To answer this question, we compare 2023 clean energy investment by sector with what’s annually needed to reach net zero by 2050, in partnership with the National Public Utilities Council.

A new record high, but is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Le navire-laboratoire Energy Observer, premier navire capable de produire son propre hydrogène, fait escale cette semaine en Floride, dans le sud-est des États-Unis, dernier pays qu'il visitera avant de revenir en France pour achever un tour du monde entamé en 2020.

Here are the real reasons we’re not building clean energy anywhere near fast enough.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) have been the subject of endless hype in recent years but in fact, no SMRs have ever been built, none are being built now and in all likelihood none will ever be built because of the prohibitive costs. SMRs are defined as reactors with a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) or less with serial factory production of reactor components (or ‘modules’). No SMRs have been built, but dozens of small (<300 MW) power reactors have been built in numerous countries, without factory production of reactor components.

L'énergéticien allemand Siemens Energy a annoncé jeudi être en discussions avec l'Etat allemand pour obtenir des garanties afin de l'aider à surmonter ses problèmes dans l'éolien, ce qui a provoqué un plongeon du titre en Bourse.La direction du groupe "mène des discussions préliminaires avec diverses parties, notamment les banques (...) et le gouvernement fédéral" en vue d'obtenir "un volume croissant de garanties", a-t-il indiqué dans un communiqué.

Forecast downturn still ‘nowhere near steep enough’ to limit temperature rise to 1.5C, says watchdog

Energy return on investment (EROI) is a biophysical and ecological economics concept that is useful to think about how organisms, ecosystems and societies must obtain enough surplus energy returned from energy gathering activities to live, reproduce, and thrive. EROI can help us overcome the false dualism between nature and society. EROI is a useful metric for economics because it is based on immutable physical laws rather than sometimes arbitrary human preferences. It is essential for assessing useful power, energy trade-offs, efficiencies (and inefficiencies), resource depletion trends, resource quality, and surplus potentials of different fuels and technologies that power, or might power, our socio-economic systems. Apparent inconsistencies in the literature can generally be reduced or eliminated by paying careful attention and explicitly stating boundaries and definitions. We argue that proper use of EROI is critical to understand the interconnections among the environment, energy, and socio-economic deve

A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative.

News of fusion has the effect of temporarily permitting people to shed the anxiety and embrace the dream all the more strongly.

L'énergéticien allemand Siemens Energy a réévalué lundi à 1,6 milliard d'euros le coût des charges dévoilées en juin, lié aux défaillances dans des composants d'éoliennes produits par sa filiale Gamesa, ce qui se traduit par une perte record de 3 milliards d'euros au troisième trimestre."Les coûts attendus pour remédier aux problèmes de qualité (des éoliennes ndlr) ont été pris en compte au 3ème trimestre, les charges pour dépenses futures s'élevant à 1,6 milliard d'euros", a indiqué le groupe dans un communiqué lundi.