Energy

Bloomberg reports that wholesale solar energy costs are falling 8% a year and may already rival coal in sunny climes like the Middle East and Japan. They’re expected to be halved in the next decade. Bloomberg writes, “Installation of solar PV systems will almost double to 32.6 gigawatts by 2013 from 18.6 gigawatts last year, […]

Energy

Green Energy in 20-40 Years?

Juan Cole

All the power the world needs could be provided by alternative energy sources within 20-40 years if the political will could be found, according to Stanford researchers. Note that they do not include nuclear energy in their calculations. Part of their technique is to include ‘externalities’ of hydrocarbon fuels in their cost estimates, such as […]

Energy

What if? and the Meltdown Threat

Juan Cole

If the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been a bank of wind turbines, we wouldn’t all be on hanging on every item about radiation release. The talk would just be about rebuilding the turbines. Germany is hoping to replace its aging nuclear reactors with offshore wind farms… Euronews reports that reactor number 3 may already […]

Energy

Japan Nuclear Threat, Libya Oil Crisis, Highlight Need for Renewable Energy

Juan Cole

Fears over possible nuclear reactor meltdowns have complicated Japan’s attempt to recover from the tsunami that hit northern prefectures on Friday. Japan, which has no oil or gas of its own, gets about a third of its electricity from nuclear power as a result of a government push to build nuclear reactors after the energy […]

Energy

BP Platform Blow-Out was covered up in Azerbaijan: Wikileaks

Juan Cole

The Guardian reports from US State Department cables released by Wikileaks that the oil and gas giant, BP, experienced a platform disaster in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan in September, 2008, very similar to last summer’s Deep Water Horizon platform explosion. BP was reported to have covered up the details of the catastrophe even from […]

Afghanistan

Dec. 6: Top Ten New Wikileaks on Greater Middle East

Juan Cole

Here are this weekend’s top ten Wikileaks revelations for the Greater Middle East: The US and India wanted to slap United Nations sanctions on Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his group, Jama’at al-Da’wa, for terrorism. But Pakistan asked China to block this move at the UN, and Beijing complied. The Jama`at is widely considered a front […]

Energy

Google imagines an Atlantic Wind Grid

Juan Cole

One of the problems with new green energy installations is the need to funnel the power, facility by facility, into the existing electricity grid. Google is trying to resolve that problem on the Atlantic seaboard by starting with an “Atlantic Wind Connection” that “will be able to connect 6,000MW of offshore wind turbines.” Networking the […]

Afghanistan

Engaging the Muslim World Out in Paperback

Juan Cole

Today is the official publication date for the paperback edition of my most recent book, Engaging the Muslim World. Click here to purchase It is somewhat revised, taking some of the stories into 2010. Here is a link to David Sanger’s generous review of the book in the New York Times.

Energy

Worst Reporting on Green Energy of the Week

Juan Cole

This week’s award for bad environmental reporting goes to John Spear of the Toronto Star for his article on the cost of wind power in Ontario “when we don’t need it.” Spear manages to write the entire article as though the only comparison between wind power and other energy should be about the conventional pricing, […]