Mercury

Source: International Energy Outlook 2017 – EIA In the past days the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released the 2017 issue of the International Energy Outlook (IEO). Of course this should not be confused with the World Energy Outlook (WEO), which is produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA)… although the very similar acronyms may really be misleading! The WEO is normally considered the most authoritative publication in the energy sector, however the IEO is an important publication as well,…

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Source: Science envoy spells out “impeach” in resignation letter – CNN My UC Berkeley Supervisor, Prof. Daniel Kammen, resigned from his position as a US State Department science envoy… and he did it quite publicly! His decision derives from the recent comments by President Donald Trump on white supremacist violence in Charlottesville and, more in general, it originates from his profound disagreement with the new White House climate and environmental policies. The fact has had a huge echo in these…

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Source: US power grid passes a test as eclipse reduces solar generation – Financial Times So apparently everything went well with the solar eclipse (see my previous post): the plans prepared by the grid operators were effective and people could enjoy the show without any power outages or similar problems. By the way, the article that I posted reports an insightful chart: it gives a very clear idea of the extent of the issue that especially California had to face.

Source: Solar eclipse on August 21 will affect photovoltaic generators across the country – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) As many of you know, a total solar eclipse will take place across the United States on Monday, August 21. Unfortunately I will not be there to enjoy this magnificent natural event, even if it must be said that the Bay Area is not within the path of totality (the sun coverage will be about 75%). Now,…

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Source: Coal falls as gas rises: World Energy balances in 2016 The World Energy Balances publication by the International Energy Agency always provides a complete overview of the energy scenario worldwide. The article that I link here is an excellent summary. As you can see, this year’s key message is expressed with very few words in the title. By the way, this reminds me of one of my very first posts, when I reported an article discussing the relationship between…

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On 7-8 July, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker met with other Group of Twenty (G20) leaders for a summit in Hamburg, Germany. This was the first such global meeting following the announcement by the US Administration of its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Source: G20 Summit confirms that the Paris Agreement is irreversible – European Commission Good news: it is fundamental that the most important countries in the world…

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In 2016, nuclear power saw the highest capacity additions since 1990 (10 GW gross). New construction continued to fluctuate, with 3.2 GW commencing in 2016, down from 8.8 GW during the previous year, and averaging 8.5 GW over the past ten years. Capacity additions of 20 GW per year are needed to meet the 2DS targets. Source: Nuclear power – IEA This page follows up on the Clean Energy Progress assessed by the IEA that I reported in the previous post in the News section,…

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Source: Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2017 Very interesting infographics by the International Energy Agency showing how well different energy technologies have been performing on the route towards the 2°C targets. It is meaningful that electric vehicles, energy storage and solar PV & onshore wind, i.e. substantially the technologies which are the subject of my research, are the only three technologies assessed on track (among the 26 analyzed in the study). The full report is linked in the webpage.

Source: Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement – The New York Times When I drafted my Marie Skłodowska-Curie proposal, i.e. some months before the COP21 in Paris in 2015, I decided to include the study of scenarios which would consider different levels of participation of world regions in climate policies led by the European Union. The intuition was on the one hand that the EU would certainly continue playing a leadership role in climate action, and on the…

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Source: IEA finds CO2 emissions flat for third straight year even as global economy grew The stop in the global emissions growth appears consolidated at this point: now the goal is to reverse the growing trend of the past decades and start decreasing as soon – and as fast – as possible.