Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next 50 years. However, we expect to see significant differences between the last 50 years and the next. The past increase was stimulated by relatively “cheap” fossil fuels and increased rates of industrialization in North America, Europe, and Japan; yet while energy consumption in these countries continues to increase, additional factors are making the picture for the next 50 years more complex. These additional complicating factors include the very rapid increase fuel economy in energy use in China and India (countries representing about a third of the world’s population); the expected depletion of oil resources in the not-too-distant future; and the effect of human activities on global climate change. (more…)
The relationship of gross national product per capita to energy consumption per capita for most countries of the world correlat ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns ...
The development of the ‘‘new’’ wind and solar technologies is of great importance for the future contribution of RESs to energy sup ...
To determine the effects of past climate trends on global energy consumption, the econometric equations providing the degree day el ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term projection puts forward three scenarios for the next 30 years with GDP growth rates of roughly 2.5, 1.5 and 0.5% p.a. The highest value corresponds to slightly less than the 1948 - 72 average, the central value is close to the long-run average over the last 80 years, and the lowest figure is similar to the performance during the current recession since 1973. (more…)
Following the recent completion of three nuclear power plants, there is now some 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in the United Kingd ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
Energy is consumed by various segments of the economy, including households, commercial establishments, manufacturing enterpris ...
World energy use has increased steadily over the past several decades. Much of the growth in world energy consumption has been ...
Following the recent completion of three nuclear power plants, there is now some 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in the United Kingdom. The nuclear share of electrical output, which has stood at around 13% for many years, should rise to around 20% when this capacity is in full operation. A further two reactors are currently under construction which will increase the British nuclear capacity to more than 12 GW by the late 1980s, which could bring the nuclear share of electrical output to around 25%. (more…)
Geographers researching the development of nuclear power have shifted emphasis from commercialization, cost, risk, public acceptanc ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Nuclear fission and fusion Research and Development continues to account for nearly half of the total spending by IEA countries, al ...
Sir Arthur Eddington’s general address on subatomic energy at the 1930 World Power Conference in Berlin stirred the imagination of ...
For years it was out of desperation that observers have advised and viewed of American energy policy and geopolitical risks regardi ...
More than 48% of the raw material fiber used for paper production (chemical pulp or mechanical pulp) in the United States in 2002 was recovered or reclaimed, with recovered paper contributing 37.7% and wood residues 10.6%. The total has been more or less constant, with the percentage of recovered paper increasing and that of wood residues declining recently due to their increased use in oriented strand board and composite panels. Primary fibers are a renewable, domestic resource, much of which is currently supplied by tree plantations. Short-rotation forestry can be used to further increase the productivity of these plantations. (more…)
Most discussions of energy use in paper production and papermaking are confusing because of a failure to define exactly what is mea ...
Agricultural and forestry residues provide the largest proportion of biomass used for the production of biomas bioenergy. Some esti ...
The evidence on the environmental Kuznets curve indicates that national environmental policies differ between high-income and low-i ...
Another large source of renewable carbon supplies is waste biomass. It consists of a wide range of materials and includes munic ...
Another large source of renewable carbon supplies is waste biomass. It consists of a wide range of materials and includes munic ...
Energy quality is the relative economic usefulness per heat equivalent unit of different fuels and electricity. One way of measuring energy quality is the marginal product of the fuel, which is the marginal increase in the quantity of a good or service produced by the use of one additional heat unit of fuel. These services also include services received directly from energy by consumers. Some fuels can be used for a larger number of activities and/or for more valuable activities. For example, coal cannot be used directly to power a computer whereas electricity can. The marginal product of a fuel is determined in part by a complex set of attributes unique to each fuel: physical scarcity, capacity to do useful work, energy density, cleanliness, amenability to storage, safety, flexibility of use, cost of conversion, and so on. But also the marginal product is not uniquely fixed by these attributes. (more…)
Statistics on national production levels and indicators of environmental pressure have been collected during the past few decad ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Energy is consumed by various segments of the economy, including households, commercial establishments, manufacturing enterpris ...
In terms of aggregate health effects, household solid fuel use is currently the most important source of indoor air pollution i ...
From prehistory until the Industrial Revolution, most energy sources used by humans were localized (i.e., available within 5–10 mil ...
Corporate environmental strategy (CES) involves the tools, management programs, processes, and product development choices that allow a firm to pursue competitive advantage through environmental management strategies.
Management scholars such as Deming and Juran spent several decades after World War II making sure that quantity and quality processes entered the plans of corporate strategy, along with the classical concerns of price, technical quality, and distribution matters. In a similar but often more diffuse manner, the proponents of corporate environmental strategy began, in the l970s through the l990s, to alter the standard decision models of corporate strategy to include externalities that challenged the future growth of corporations, such as new environmental regulations or irregularities in energy markets and pricing. (more…)
Although it is significant that many of the above four imperatives are qualitative, not quantitative, such new efforts have begun t ...
In the pursuit of superior cars, electronic products, and computing, several leading multinational corporations began in the last q ...
There are several options that, ultimately, must be integrated when attempting to realize a change in corporate culture: the legal ...
In this new century, there is considerable pressure on the top six automakers to reduce their environmental and ecological footprin ...
Whatever the actual motivation, American policymakers perceived a need after 1973 to restrict automobile and light truck cons ...
There are various and somewhat complementary reasons to foster the growth of renewable energy sources in Europe. A major incentive for renewable energy sources policies in the past two decades has been to reduce the environmental impact of energy use both locally (e.g., pollutant emission reduction) and globally (e.g., greenhouse gas and carbon emissions reduction). In some countries, concerns about the safety of nuclear power generation have motivated the search for renewable energy sources. Another motivation for replacing foreign fossil and nuclear fuels with domestic renewable energy sources relates to security issues and Europe’s growing dependency on foreign energy sources. (more…)
In Europe, modern renewable energy sources technologies were explored thoroughly for the first time after the oil embargo/ price cr ...
Renewable energy sources cannot run out and causes so little damage to the environment that its use does not need to be restric ...
The development of the ‘‘new’’ wind and solar technologies is of great importance for the future contribution of RESs to energy sup ...
World energy use has increased steadily over the past several decades. Much of the growth in world energy consumption has been ...
Over the last decade, the number of countries researching the potential of biomass and bioenergy for energy services rose rapid ...
It is a rare company prospectus that begins with a quotation from Goethe: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” But Lovins is not a normal entrepreneur, as anyone who has met this eccentric and disheveled but unmistakably visionary thinker knows. The founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a leading green think tank based in Old Snowmass, Colorado, thinks the car industry’s incremental approach to cutting emissions and improving fuel efficiency will never amount to much. He wants a complete redesign of the automobile, from the bottom up, and intends to show the big boys how it should be done. (more…)
The leading automotive brands are being focused to produce electric vehicles because they believe they represent a harmony to the e ...
Mercedes-Benz presented at Geneva Style F800 Concept (the F stands for Mercedes: technology, design and art), a prototype that ...
Under both former President Bush and new President Obama, the U.S. government has vowed to reduce reliance on imported oil. The ...
This latter form of new car taxes can actually serve as an impediment to higher fuel economy to the extent that increased energ ...
There are different types of vehicle propulsion systems and the transportation fuels that have been studied for their potential ...
Japan has the largest Photovoltaic installed capacity in the world as a result of the sustained investments made by the country through carefully coordinated Photovoltaic R&D and deployment, leading to a ‘‘virtuous cycle’’ among R&D, market growth, and price reduction. By the end of 2000, the total installed capacity in the country was 317 MW, of which on-grid distributed generation accounted for more than 252 MW. In 2000, Japan produced 128 MW of PV cells and 136 MW of modules, both of which were well over half of the global production. (more…)
Germany is considered a world leader in wind energy deployment, with electricity production from wind having gone up more than eigh ...
Government expenditures on energy R&D, energy conservation have risen steadily over the past decade, but only two countries, Japan ...
Photovoltaic solar energy once part of industrial phase are absolutely necessary to cut down its production costs for meaningfu ...
The broad range of home solar energy systems are mostly known as Photovoltaic Systems (PV) or Thin Film Solar Technology. The s ...
Not surprisingly, most Energy Research and Development takes place in industrialized countries where both the public and private se ...
Germany is considered a world leader in wind energy deployment, with electricity production from wind having gone up more than eightfold—from 670 to more than 5500 GWh—between 1993 and 1999. In 1999, Germany had more than 4000 MW installed capacity. The prices also declined substantially over this period, indicating a learning rate of approximately 8%, and it is estimated that for each deutschemark (DM) spent by the government in subsidizing learning, market actors provided 2.1 DM. Furthermore, the manufacturing base for wind energy technologies, including indigenous firms as well as joint ventures, continues to expand in Germany. (more…)
In 2001, there were 14,000 small wind turbines for home/domestic use in the United States. The market potential for national an ...
Designers in China have launched the first wind turbine levitating in the world of permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) in the Wi ...
Japan has the largest Photovoltaic installed capacity in the world as a result of the sustained investments made by the country thr ...
Although technology change (usually involving an improvement in energy efficiency) is not inherently a geographic process, it does ...
In 2006, total world wind generating electricity capacity was around 72,000 MW, producing some 160 terawatt-hours (TWh) per yea ...