Is democracy the best societal avenue for humans to go down? That’s a question many of us in democratic countries don’t typically ask. The assumed answer is: “duh.” But democracy does indeed have its drawbacks. Tyranny of the masses is no small concern. That said, the underlying point of democracy is sort of straightforward: Humans
While the western world is lingering in a limping economy and a chaotic political scene, China has used that advantage to invest in clean technologies around the world. Today it is considered to be the leading force in International cleantech investments. China Takes the International Lead on Clean Energy Investment A PDF report by the
The China-based auto manufacturer BAIC Motor Corp is now aiming to cease sale of its self-developed and self-branded conventionally powered cars by 2025, China Daily has reported. “On the morning of December the 9th, 2017 at the inauguration of the Beijing New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Centre, the president of BAIC Group promised to end the sales
There are now more than 2 billion people worldwide who are overweight or obese, according to a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. So, to put that in a different sort of light, there are now roughly the same number of people in the world who are overweight or obese as
California Governor Jerry Brown this week signed an agreement with China’s Minister of Science and Technology that will strengthen ties between the two and increase cooperation on the development of green technology.
China targets 530 MWh of electricity generation from geothermal power plants by 2020; this should enable the country to offset use of 72.1 million tonnes of coal and 177 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
Global emissions have been essentially flat for the past three years even though total global economic activity has increased in each of those three years. That is about to change as Donald Trump wreaks havoc on US emissions policies.
An official of the Chinese government has called out Donald Trump, saying a wise leader would support the Paris climate change protocols. The implication is that Trump will be rather the opposite of a wise leader.
The IAE reports that half of all new electrical power capacity worldwide came from renewables last year. As the cost of wind and solar drops, renewables are replacing traditional sources of energy, particularly coal.
The National Energy Administration (NEA) of China has published its draft version of proposed 2017 feed-in tariff (FiT) levels for ground mount and distributed generation PV power plants. The lowered tariffs represent significant cuts to both sectors and overall curtailment of installations. According to PVTech, the Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory (AECEA) has estimated
Endorsing Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, two former EPA chiefs, both Republicans, are warning that Donald Trump’s energy policy “would set the world back decades.” William D. Ruckelshaus, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Presidents Nixon and Reagan, and William K. Reilly, EPA Chief under George H. W. Bush, signed the joint
The International Day of the Tiger is July 29, but there are still thousands of tigers living in captivity. The World Wildlife Fund has estimated there are about 8,000 living on farms, with only 3,900 living in the wild. Countries like Laos, Vietnam, China and Thailand may have about 200 tiger farms, and some of them
Under the new government of UK Prime Minister Theresa May, major changes involving the energy and climate change departments have taken place today. According to pv-tech, the two departments have been disbanded. The UK’s energy policy will now be decided by a new department headed up by former communities minister Greg Clark, now appointed secretary of
A letter signed by 34 European solar and renewable energy organizations has called on the EU to immediately remove trade measures which exist against imports of Chinese PV modules and cells. As reported by pv-magazine, these European solar and renewable energy organizations, led by SolarPower Europe, have requested the EU to take prompt action. “Representing the formalization
The Chinese government has finally acted to address the long pending issue of lack of transmission infrastructure in remote regions of the country. The National Development and Reform Commission has mandated grid companies to purchase electricity from wind and solar power projects so as to let them function a set minimum hours in a year.
Almost one year ago in its annual report, troubled Chinese solar panel manufacturer Yingli Green Energy told its investors the company was facing troubled times: “Facts and circumstances including recurring losses, negative working capital, net cash outflows, and uncertainties on the repayment of the debts raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a
Originally published on Sustainnovate. Electric vehicle sales and production will double in China in 2016, according to recent reports. This refers of course to both all-electric vehicles (EVs) and also to plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). This matches a similar claim made by BYD founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu in an interview with Sustainnovate right after BYD won
Among various solar energy technologies, one is referred to as concentrated solar power, or concentrating solar power. The acronym CSP applies to either. Worldwide CSP systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area. The concentrated heat is used to eventually spin a
Originally published on EV Obsession. Electric vehicle sales in China are continuing to grow, but much of this growth is caused directly by the myriad incentives on offer in the country, rather than organic demand driven by pure consumer interest. With the uptick largely being pushed by government action, it’s hard to say at this
If waves of cheap rhino horns 3D-printed with real rhino DNA are flooded onto the Asian markets, is this a form of rhino conservation or capitalistic exploitation? This critical question is gnawing at the root of a controversial business venture to use real rhino DNA in the commercial production of 3D-printed rhino horns. In a
Update: Solar Impulse 2 Has Been Diverted to Nagoya Japan (Video) “It’s going to be the moment of truth,” said Andre Borschberg, the solar airplane pilot ready for the flight of his life. “We’ve done a lot of tests, but we’ve never done this… I’ll tell you, the engineers are quite nervous.” Testing the nerves of
Fully funded by the Chinese government, Yingli Solar announced that Pakistan’s Parliament House in Islamabad will be powered by 1 megawatt (MW) of high-efficiency multicrystalline Yingli Solar panels. Inaugurated by the leaders of China and Pakistan on Tuesday, April 21, 2015, the new system is scheduled to be completed by the end of June 2015. Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE), also
University of Alberta Researchers identified remains of a dinosaur estimated to have been 50 feet in length, with about half of that in just the neck. A skull, vertebrae and tail were found by farmers near Qijiang city, China about nine years ago. (The farmers were digging for a fish pond.) The researchers carefully studied
As you may know from earlier coverage, the powerful G20 meeting this weekend in Brisbane didn’t go exactly the way its Australian planners intended when they drew up the agenda. However, it seems to have worked out as well as could be expected for the environment after all, considering the other glitches. The world leaders in
You may well ask why PlanetSave, a blog usually dedicated to positive developments and actions to save the earth, is reporting news about ExxonMobil and a Russian arctic oil well. The oil discovery appears to have nothing to do with solar or wind or most of our usual topics—we’re talking fossil fuels here, which have caused much
Thankfully, this headline does not single out the United States as the worst carbon polluter, although we have certainly done more than our part to choke the world in a gaseous greenhouse. No, the honor belongs to humans in general. If you’re wondering which countries have emitted the most carbon over the past couple of
Saying “the jury is still out” on the ramifications of electronic cigarettes would be a massive understatement. E-cigarettes* are designed to mimic tobacco cigarettes in both look and feel. Most of them have three basic parts: a battery-operated heating element; a replaceable or refillable cartridge containing nicotine; and an atomizer that converts the cartridge contents
Last week something rare and extraordinarily positive occurred on American television. Fortunately, through YouTube and 350.org, the rest of the world got to see it too. “Something positive?” a critic questions. “If climate change is as bad as you tree-hugger people claim it is, how can anything about it be positive?” The phenomenon tends to
This was reported by Elon Musk on Tesla’s last financial call, but it seems to have slipped under the radar. Reuters recently ran a short article on the news, which made me think I should as well. As Tesla moves into the European and Chinese markets more, the company is expecting to see about twice
Laying a pipeline across agricultural land (photo: eponline.com). Friday afternoon, and officials at the State Department are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief. The official public comment period on the northern extension of the $5.4 billion Keystone XL pipeline expired today. And the unofficial public comment that’s making the news is today’s release of
Beijing has been getting a lot of attention for its crazy bad/deadly air. However, a reporter at the New York Times has noted that Delhi’s air is often even worse. “Despite Beijing’s widespread reputation of having some of the most polluted air of any major city in the world, an examination of daily pollution figures
Winter brings darkness and poor air quality to Beijing again this year. A viewscreen in Tiananmen Square produces a synthetic sunrise (China Foto Press/Wang Jinghua). On Thursday, a gray murk of smog displaced the dawn in Beijing. This time, China implemented an unusual and futuristic way for citizens to watch the sun come up. Video.
A farm in Dafeng, China was the site of a greenhouse containing one million or more cockroaches. They were intended for use in traditional Chinese ‘medicine’, because of the belief extracts from them can be healing. However, the greenhouse was damaged and its contents loosed by a saboteur. Raising cockroaches for ‘medicine’ seems like a
The following items were reported in the past week: China is experiencing a massive, continent-wide record-setting heat wave. Several major cities across the country have recorded all-time high temperatures. Shanghai, for example, reached 105°F after setting century-old heat records each day for the previous week. Dozens of deaths are reported so far. Greenland recorded its highest temperature
The particle physics community is all stirred up by the potential discovery of an exotic new particle whose properties can best be explained if it were to violate one of the basic conventions of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD, a key component of the “Standard Model”), that is, the maximum number of quarks that nuclear particle can
We’re trying to get more solar energy stories going here on Planetsave. To catch readers up, I’m doing a short series on the top 50 solar energy stories of 2013 so far. Learning from the Top 33 EV Stories article I recently published, I’m splitting this one into 5 posts. Otherwise, the page would take forever to load.
We’re trying to get more solar energy stories going here on Planetsave. To catch readers up, I’m doing a short series on the top 50 solar energy stories of 2013 so far. Learning from the Top 33 EV Stories article I recently published, I’m splitting this one into 5 posts. Otherwise, the page would take forever to load.
Damming Chinese rivers has been in the public consciousness for many years now, if for no other reason than for the impact the construction of the Three Gorges Dam had on the surrounding region: the 400 mile long reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam has flooded 13 cities, 140 towns, 1352 villages, and 100,000 acres of China’s
A Chinese businessman has offered a reward to a government official to swim in a very polluted river. The reward is 200,000 yuan, which is about $32,000 American dollars. Many people might be very tempted to jump at this offer, but if you look at photos of the river filled with plastic and other repulsive
Global wind energy increased by nearly 20% in 2012, helping to boost maximum worldwide capacity to 282 gigawatts (GW), according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). Leading countries helping to increase global wind capacity included the United States and China, who were neck and neck in annual installations. Each country installed around 13 GW
Predicting when an ecosystem is likely to collapse has benefits for foretelling crises in agriculture, fisheries and even social systems, and scientists from the University of Southampton in the UK are pioneering a new technique that may be able to do just that. The research applies a mathematical model to a real world situation, in
Two hot “world’s largest marine reserve” stories have been swimming around the news over the last few months. A few days ago Australia announced it was going to create a massive network of marine reserves whose area would total 888,000 miles2. That’s nearly the combined area of Alaska and Texas… 931,000 miles2! However, back
The Chinese government takes its solar power industry seriously, and considers the best policies to support and improve the industry at large. A report on China’s solar power scenario shows that it is working to improve the environment for producers of solar power in the domestic market. Meng Xiangan, the deputy director of The
Electric vehicles are very different from gasoline-powered vehicles, as we all know. But one unique thing about electric cars that might not have crossed your mind is that the wheels of an EV could potentially receive their power directly from electric motors. Protean Electric, which has received tens of millions of dollars from Chinese and
The global solar power industry has experienced remarkable growth since the 2009 recession. The growth rate each year between 2007 to 2011 was around 70%. At the end of 2011, the total GW of solar panels installed worldwide was 62, divided between residential roofs, commercial buildings, and utility plants. With increasing pressure for the
China has given acquiescence to 2,000 MW of wind energy in its Hami province, which will cost approximately $2.5 billion. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has made a prolific move ahead by approving a 2,005-MW wind energy project in the Hami province of China, which is expected to create significant breakthroughs for
Ernst & Young released late August their quarterly global Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices report which showed that China is set to continue it domination of the global renewable energy market, as US elections and political support in Europe prevent other countries from keeping up. The Ernst & Young report “provide scores in 40 countries for national
At least 373 rhinos have been killed for their horns in South Africa during the first eight months of 2012, according to the country’s Department of Environmental Affairs. Of the total, 229 were massacred in the famed Kruger National Park. So far this year, 199 people have been arrested in South Africa for rhino crimes.
