European Union

Portugal Opens Floating Solar Array on Europe’s Largest Artificial Lake as Floatovoltaics Expand Globally

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Europe’s high methane gas prices caused in part by the Russian war on Ukraine are hurting consumers even in countries like Portugal, which don’t import gas from Russia. Shortages are putting the price up for everyone. Portugal has made enormous strides toward greening its electricity grid in recent years. Wind […]

Belgium

Dumping Russian Gas: 4 European countries seek 65 GW Offshore Wind by 2030, as EU Pledges $314 bn. for Green Energy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Anyone who follows the climate emergency and extreme weather events would think the serial catastrophes of the past couple years would be enough to put the governments into crisis mode in moving swiftly to green energy. It turns out that for Europe, at least, it took the Russian invasion of […]

African-Americans

Tucker Carlson’s “Great Replacement” Theory Comes From an Anti-US Nazi French Thinker who considered all Americans Negroes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A hate-filled 18-year-old murdered 10 and wounded 3 African-Americans in Buffalo on Saturday, having penned a rambling screed about replacement theory. The most common version of this whiny idea, imported from the more hysterical fringes of the French Right wing, holds that Jewish capitalists are importing cheap immigrant labor to […]

Climate Crisis

Renewables provide 50% of German electricity in 1st quarter ’22 as Berlin Seeks Escape from Russian Gas

Clean Energy Wire

By Edgar Meza | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Renewable energy sources accounted for 50 percent of electricity consumption in Germany in the first quarter of 2022 – around nine percentage points more than in the same period last year, according to a report by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research […]

Displaced and Refugees

Ukraine: Migrants Locked Up Near Front Lines: Free Migration Detainees; Allow Them to Leave Country for Safety

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Berlin) – Migrants and asylum seekers locked up in a migrant detention center in Mykolaiv on the edge of the front lines in southern Ukraine are in danger and should be released, Human Rights Watch said today. Ukraine should urgently release the dozens of migrants and asylum seekers arbitrarily detained in […]

Climate Crisis

Could Europe Install a Terawatt of new “Freedom Solar” by 2030 to Escape Russian Gas?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – John Ainger at Bloomsberg reports that a coalition within the European Union is pressing Brussels to set a goal of 1,000 gigawatts of new solar capacity by 2030 as a way of escaping dependence on Russian methane gas for electricity generation. The European Union is seeking to boycott Russian goods […]

European Union

A Failure of Western Diplomacy: Russia’s long journey from partner of the west to pariah

The Conversation

By Anna-Sophie Maass, Lancaster University | – Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine two months ago, the world has grown used to the sight of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky’s diplomatic initiatives, initially from hiding in the besieged capital, Kyiv, and more recently in open meetings with a range of world leaders, have made […]

Climate Crisis

Could a European Union boycott of Putin’s Oil, with Qatari and UAE help, Crash the Russian Economy?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The breaking news is that the German Minister of Economy and Climate Robert Habeck, who is also the Vice-Chancellor has just announced that Germany is all in on a European Union plan to boycott Russian petroleum. Germany has already reduced its imports from Russia from 35% to 12% in only […]

Climate Crisis

Germany reduces dependence on Russian Oil from 35% to 12%, aims to End Imports

Kerstine Appunn

( Clean Energy Wire ) – Germany has reduced its dependence on Russian crude oil from 35 to 12 percent and will take steps to replace the remaining deliveries to the Russian-operated Schwedt refinery within the next days, said the economy and climate minister. As Gazprom stopped supplies of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria […]