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 ...
Although technology change (usually involving an improvement in energy efficiency) is not inherently a geographic process, it does not occur uniformly over geographic space. Consequently, mathematical modeling and behavioral and innovation diffusion studies by geographers have improved our understanding of the pervasive phenomenon of technology energy efficiency change in energy markets. Similarly, creative government policies in Germany since 1990 have led to a faster rate of adoption of renewable energy sources, compared to the United States. (more…)
The development of the ‘‘new’’ wind and solar technologies is of great importance for the future contribution of RESs to energy sup ...
Renewable energy sources cannot run out and causes so little damage to the environment that its use does not need to be restric ...
In Europe, modern renewable energy sources technologies were explored thoroughly for the first time after the oil embargo/ price cr ...
Government expenditures on energy R&D, energy conservation have risen steadily over the past decade, but only two countries, Japan ...
"Spain has great potential but lack geothermal legislation and investment." Besides being clean, renewable and friendly, easily man ...
Although it is significant that many of the above four imperatives are qualitative, not quantitative, such new efforts have begun to add an elevated level of urgency to corporate environmental strategy. Whereas the Bhopal and Valdez tragedies may have precipitated the birth of Corporate Environmental Strategy, global environmental concerns, such as water shortages in China, the energy crisis and electricity grid problems in the northeastern United States, and especially the complexities surrounding the economic impacts and costs of climate change, have begun to add a new turn-of the-century urgency to the debates over Corporate Environmental Strategy. (more…)
Corporate environmental strategy (CES) involves the tools, management programs, processes, and product development choices that all ...
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 ...
As energy prices increase, industries are more and more aware that energy is an expensive commodity that has to be used effic ...
Although some scientists and critics still dispute that human caused greenhouse gases are causing climate change, the majority of scientists and climate experts assert that global warming is a serious problem that could have devastating consequences unless action is taken to reduce fossil fuel emissions. In 2007, for example, the Nobel Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body charged by the United Nations with summarizing the best climate science, concludes that evidence of the warming of our climate is “unequivocal.” (more…)
Still hotly debated by some, human-induced global warming is now accepted in the scientific community. Earth’s average yearly tempe ...
Since the early 1960s, climate change and air quality have become major and often controversial issues in many countries and am ...
Addressing global warming, however, is a highly complex and daunting endeavor. Many climate experts have urged the world to stabili ...
Earth’s climate is a complex system of interacting natural components. These components include the atmosphere, the ocean, and the ...
Options for dealing with the threats of climate change include both adaptation to inevitable changes and mitigation, or lessening, ...
Options for dealing with the threats of climate change include both adaptation to inevitable changes and mitigation, or lessening, of those changes that we can still affect. One possible adaptation would be to adjust our agricultural practices to the changing regional patterns of temperature and rainfall. Another would be to build coastal defenses against the inundation from sea-level rise. Only mitigation, however, can prevent the most threatening changes. (more…)
Earth’s climate is a complex system of interacting natural components. These components include the atmosphere, the ocean, and the ...
Scientists study Earth’s climate not just from observation but also from a theoretical perspective. Modern-day climate models succe ...
Although some scientists and critics still dispute that human caused greenhouse gases are causing climate change, the majority of s ...
Still hotly debated by some, human-induced global warming is now accepted in the scientific community. Earth’s average yearly tempe ...
Addressing global warming, however, is a highly complex and daunting endeavor. Many climate experts have urged the world to stabili ...
Tanker transportation and oil transport functions as an important link to facilitate the flow of oil and products from their limited sources of origin derived to its destination all over the world. This particular section of ocean shipping industry is the main component of the movement of seaborne cargo. Even though oil is transported through pipelines and tankers and tank wagons, these movements are relatively small and often restricted to national or in a few cases trough the intra-regional trades. The increment in oil demand came not only from the United States & Western Europe, however there is a rapid oil demand recovery in Japan, a country with no domestic oil reserves. (more…)
Oil tankers can be classified into two broad categories: crude oil tankers and product tankers. Crude oil tankers are typically ...
The operations on-board an oil tanker transportation are radically different from those on other types of ships, primarily due ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
Gasoline is used mainly by cars, motorcycles, and light trucks; diesel is used mainly by heavier trucks, buses, and trains. Togethe ...
For years it was out of desperation that observers have advised and viewed of American energy policy and geopolitical risks regardi ...
Endorsement labels indicate that the products carrying the labels belong to the ‘‘most energy-efficient’’ class of products or meet a predetermined standard or eligibility criteria. These labels generally consist of a logo or mark that indicates the products have met the standard and generally contains little or no comparative energy efficiency information (although this may be available through lists of endorsed products). These labels merely inform consumers that the products meet the required standard. Criteria for some schemes are updated on a regular basis; therefore, these labels may carry the year of qualification. Endorsement labeling programs are mostly of a voluntary nature. (more…)
Energy labeling is a policy tool that informs consumers about the energy performance of appliances and thereby encourages them ...
It is important to remember that labeling and MEPS programs aim to influence the selection of products by consumers at the poin ...
Interest in rating the real-life energy performance of buildings has increased in recent years, and the real life efficiency perfor ...
10 benefits of Solar Energy: No 1 Solar energy is renewable. We never have to worry about running out of sunlight or usi ...
A variety of information programs exist in the major automobile markets to assist potential purchasers of new cars in comparing fue ...
The age of industrialization came into full force through the modern exploration and use of fossil fuels. As one of its most striking phenomena, the rapid expansion of cities throughout the late 19th and the 20th centuries was a direct outcome of the fossil fuel energy economy as well. (more…)
The aim is to work with cities in advancing renewable energy technologies and systems and to help promote the renewable energy indu ...
The Solar City approach originally emerged from a new generation of International Energy Agency (IEA) energy research and developme ...
In the absence of useful and established patterns of practice, a search is under way for new means of reconciling local government’ ...
As a reaction to these historical perspectives, the building industry has witnessed a certain rise in design responses to regio ...
Climate change caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect is one of the most significant global environmental issues. Increased emiss ...
Designers in China have launched the first wind turbine levitating in the world of permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) in the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006.
Considered a key step in the evolution of global wind power technology and a notable advance in independent intellectual property rights in China. The generator was jointly developed by the Institute of Energy Research of Guangzhou in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Guangzhou Hengyuan Energy Science & Zhongke Technology Co., Ltd. (more…)
Renewable energy generators are devices that convert energy from its original form in the renewable energy source into electric ...
In 2001, there were 14,000 small wind turbines for home/domestic use in the United States. The market potential for national an ...
Wind is a natural and inexhaustible source of energy, wind does not have to be imported or mined from deep down the earth. Wind ...
The wind power potentially could produce 40 times more electricity than worldwide energy consumption annually, according to res ...
Germany is considered a world leader in wind energy deployment, with electricity production from wind having gone up more than eigh ...
Under both former President Bush and new President Obama, the U.S. government has vowed to reduce reliance on imported oil. The nation is encouraging development of a transportation fleet that uses biofuels, fuel cell vehicles and hybrid electric technologies.
Us Government Program To Reduce Reliance On Imported Oil
To that end, the federal government, in late 2008, put in place new incentives – and extended others – designed to create a strong up-tick in sales of unconventional vehicles. As a result, the U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipates that hybrid cars will grow from 2% of new light-duty vehicles sold in 2007 to 38% by 2030. (more…)
This latter form of new car taxes can actually serve as an impediment to higher fuel economy to the extent that increased energ ...
A number of countries have vehicle tax incentives programs designed to reward purchasers and owners of alternative fuel-efficient v ...
We know of no studies that have examined vehicle taxation incentives programs elsewhere in the world, but it seems likely that ...
Both state and federal funding is available for research and development of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEVs) and other alter ...
Economists have overwhelmingly favored fuel taxes over fuel economy standards as a means to reduce fuel or gasoline consumption ...