The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was formed in 1998 by a joint initiative of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the World Bank (WB) after a historic meeting of leading dam proponents and opponents in Switzerland, with proceedings reported by Dorcey and others. The WCD was asked to discover the truth about the hydropower energy facts, hydropower energy pros and cons, cost, effect, and benefit of large dams and it functioned independently for 2 years at a cost of $10 million. The money was well spent, and at the end of that period the WCD produced a comprehensive report and numerous support documents, and then dissolved itself. The report and support documents remain on the Internet available to all, and they have changed forever the debate about dams. (more…)
The water levels of most of the world’s rivers fluctuate with seasonal rains, melting snows, or droughts, and in the arid zones ...
Hydropower, also known as hydroelectric power, is the use of water to produce power. Harnessing water to perform work has been ...
The winners in hydropower and other large dam projects are those who gain electricity, domestic water supplies, sanitation, dro ...
Up to around 1980, hydropower research and development (R&D) efforts focused mainly on improving turbine efficiency, reducing c ...
Some of alternative fuel sources are by no means new. For centuries people have harnessed the power of running water for a vari ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns as it is a significant source of CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants, and it is almost totally based on oil as its energy source. An important aspect of future changes in transportation depends on what happens to the available oil resources, production and prices. At present, 95% of all energy for transportation comes from oil. (more…)
Under both former President Bush and new President Obama, the U.S. government has vowed to reduce reliance on imported oil. The ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
From prehistory until the Industrial Revolution, most energy sources used by humans were localized (i.e., available within 5–10 mil ...
Do we have the resources? Rudolf Diesel developed the diesel engine which ran on biodiesel vegetable oil in the late 1800s. At the ...
One study that does address the peak-oil scenario directly is a 2005 report conducted for the National Energy Technology Labora ...
Smoke from biomass and coal combustion contains a large number of pollutants with known health hazards, including particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur oxides (mainly from coal), formaldehyde, and polycyclic organic compounds (e.g., carcinogens such as benzo[a]pyrene). The concentrations of each of these pollutants vary among the different forms of solid fuels, with animal dung and crop residues having some of the highest level emissions to environment of particulate matter, one of the important indicator pollutants for health effects. (more…)
Exposure to indoor air pollution from the combustion of solid fuels has been implicated, with varying degrees of evidence, as a ...
Important research over the past few decades has illustrated that indoor air pollution and indoor smoke from solid fuel poses i ...
Indoor air quality (IAQ) research deals with the presence, levels, health effects, and control of physical, chemical, and biologica ...
In terms of aggregate health effects, household solid fuel use is currently the most important source of indoor air pollution i ...
Exposure to air pollutants and air pollution problem are very high in indoor environments in developing countries. Smith has es ...
Recently, attention to energy efficiency has been gaining momentum. The attention given by policy maker is mainly due to concerns about climate change emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Particular attention has been paid on how the role of technological improvements in energy efficiency can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. (more…)
Another possible non-market-failure explanation for the energy efficiency gap is associated with the fact that even if a given tech ...
Not surprisingly, most Energy Research and Development takes place in industrialized countries where both the public and private se ...
Beginning at the end of the technological change process, research has consistently shown that diffusion of new, economically ...
Energy efficiency is defined here to mean energy services provided per unit of energy input (for example, gallons of water hea ...
Energy performance ratings tell what the energy performance of a building is, but if the energy performance of a building is to be ...
One of the main benefits from future use of biofuels would be the reduction of greenhouse gases compared to the use of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, is released into the air from combustion. Twenty-four percent of worldwide energy-related carbon emissions in 1997 were from the United States. Carbon and due to rising energy consumption, are expected to increase 1.3 percent per year through 2015. (more…)
The future development of energy crops, to the level at which they would replace residues as the major bioenergy fuel source, will ...
In Bonn met world leaders at the UN Conference on Biodiversity. As we here at The Green Blog world's biodiversity is seriously ...
Advances in biomass feedstock production are extremely important. These advances have the potential for reducing the final cost ...
We had expressed our disagreement with Biofuels and tell them also that the European Union also wants to distance themselves from t ...
Estimation of the future technical potential of biomass as an energy source is dependent on assumptions with respect to land av ...
The first step in categorizing potential benefits and costs is determining the relevant scope of the analysis. We have concluded that, at this level of analysis, it is appropriate to limit the scope to the benefits and costs associated with the types of electricity generation that offshore wind, waves, and ocean currents might be displacing. Therefore, we consider externalities associated with offshore alternative energy plus those associated with coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and conventional hydroelectric power. (more…)
10 benefits of Solar Energy: No 1 Solar energy is renewable. We never have to worry about running out of sunlight or usi ...
Public acceptance (PA) clusters are defined by a number of rather intangible commonalties dealing with social values and public ...
If water is put on the floor on a cleaning operation, it tends to dry rapidly after a short time. In this position, we say that ...
Natural gas is found mainly in underground reservoirs and in coal beds. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that consist primarily of ...
Extensive insulation repairs are usually done by contractors having the specific skills and equipment appropriate to the type o ...
All of today’s hydrogen conversion products, demonstration models, and prototypes possess some deficiencies; they cannot yet provide, at an affordable cost, the level and quality of energy services, and hydrogen delivery system demanded by a broad base of consumers. While fuel cell technologies have generated much excitement, they are still in various stages of maturity. Most have not been manufactured in large quantities and numerous performance issues—including durability, (more…)
Hydrogen has many applications when it comes to fuel. It can be used both in internal combustion engines and hydrogen fuel cells. ...
The issues of hydrogen storage run through the hydrogen production, hydrogen transport, supply and demand for end use of hydrog ...
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity, heat and water to produce. ...
Fuel cells are typically classified according to type of electrolyte. While many varieties of fuel cells have been demonstrated ...
The commercialization prospects for fuel cell vehicles depend not only on their performance and cost, but also on how well th ...