This weekend the main Chinese legislature adopted an amendment to the renewable energy law, requiring that utilities buy all the electricity produced by renewable energy generators. Power enterprises refusing to buy power produced by renewable energy generators would be fined up to an amount double that of the economic loss of the renewable energy company.
Here’s an opportunity to wisely spend some of the $100 billion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised at Copenhagen to cut the greenhouse gases of developing nations by aiding in the development of renewable energy infrastructure to by-pass fossil fuel dependence.
Apparently one in four Chinese cities and seven out of 10 counties are without sewage-treatment plants, according to the People’s Daily.
When the 30% tax credits as cash grants were instituted with the American Recovery Act, I was doing solar estimates for a small start-up in California. I was surprised to find that the 30% tax credit (available as a cash grant for businesses) for solar, was applicable to solar thermal only if it was not used for swimming pools.
Here’s some more good news about our renewable energy future. Another nation has reduced greenhouse gas emissions, while not taking an economic hit. Canada’s top 10 industrial greenhouse gas emitters reduced their emissions by 9% in a year, while the economy grew in the meantime by 0.5%.
Solar arrays can provide energy to pump water to watering troughs for cows, improving water quality on remote pastures and saving money too. Farmers can more sustainably manage their pastures if cows are not all clustered around small creeks, eroding the banks.
In a post-Copenhagen move; the US Dairy industry announced today that it is partnering with the US Department of Agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 by greatly ramping-up the use of anaerobic digesters. [social_buttons] While cows have been with us since at least 2020 BC, now that … [continued]
A very beautifully designed interactive map via the AP Climate Pool shows which countries were naughty and which countries were nice when it comes to their greenhouse gas emissions, and also shows each nation’s pledges to do better in the future.
The Amazon really is a giant planetary utility, performing a service that makes possible billions of dollars worth of industrial energy and food production, by releasing 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere every day.
Shouldn’t we invest in this giant utility, just like we’d invest in any other utility?
In a blow to the deal struck between the Obama administration and India during pre-Copenhagen visits, in which the President arranged for the transfer of innovative new clean coal technologies; Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) might be removed from the list of technologies that industrial countries can invest in to … [continued]
Over 100 million homes in the poorest villages of India are currently without electricity. Villagers like these might be in the path of airplanes coming in for landing overhead, but in their thatched roofed dwellings they still fire up kerosene lamps at night so their kids can do their homework after dark.
