Aerial view of Kariba dam.
Dmitriy Kandinskiy/Shutterstock
Zimbabwe has a severe energy crisis because its major sources of electricity are struggling to keep up with demand.
Goskova Tatiana/Shutterstock
A nanotube innovation using waste plastic could help solve one of the world’s energy problems.
Powering up.
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Electricity consumption will grow as more people switch to electric cars – but this could drive up emissions, unless power is sourced from renewables.
Solar has lit up remote communities. The next step is to link these communities to an energy market.
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South Africa could become a test bed of technologies that enable households, especially in remote areas, to join electricity trading markets.
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Almost 80 million Nigerians do not have access to electricity and its erratic supply is costing the economy an estimated $29 billion annually. Nigeria’s abundant sunlight could be the solution.
This sounds like a good idea at first, but it’s not very practical.
Image Credit: NASA/Mark Vande Hei
Even fridge magnets have magnetic fields approximately 200 times stronger than Earth’s.
On the hook: California utility PG&E declared bankruptcy due to liabilities linked to power lines and wildfires.
AP Photo/Ben Margot
The electric utility is seeing rapid changes and threats that affect consumers, from more wind and solar to wildfires. How they react depends in large part on regulators.
Phosphorene nanoribbons.
Oliver Payton/University of Bristol
Phosphorene nanoribbons are like tagliatelle, but carry the potential to boost battery capacity by 50%.
There are plenty of economic reasons to change our gas-guzzling habits.
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The transport sector is the fastest growing contributor of greenhouse gases. Electric vehicles are a cost-effective solution.
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There’s mounting evidence that increased lighting has a range of negative effects.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has six pumped hydro projects on his list, and most are better taxpayer investments than the already announced Snowy 2.0 project.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Twelve power projects are in the running for federal government dollars: six pumped hydro, five gas and one coal. It’s clear which one shouldn’t be on the list, for economic and environmental reasons.
There’s not enough sustained electricity investment in Africa.
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In sub-Saharan Africa there are more people with mobile phones than access to electricity, and their data could be useful.
Romanian electric power transmission lines.
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The blockchain is creating new opportunities for the electricity sector. The December 2018 Energy Market Barometers looks at where experts think the technology is heading.
In some provinces, families that heat with wood will pay no carbon tax but still get a refund.
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Canadians will start paying for their carbon emissions this year, but the cost will depend on where they live.
Keeping South Africa’s lights on will come at a cost.
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Eskom, South Africa’s power utility will be unbundled and receive financial support from national treasury. These are the next steps.
Most Norwegian road-worthy cars are conventional despite its EV boom.
Reuters/Alister Doyle
There are precedents regarding power generation and ethanol but no nation has ever achieved as comprehensive and dramatic this fast.
A thunderstorm builds over the Karoo in South Africa.
Sean Nel/Shutterstock
Why is thunder so loud? It’s because the amount of electrical energy that flows from the cloud to the ground is so enormous.
There’s no painless way for South Africans to deal with the power utility crisis.
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There’s no easy way for Eskom to claw its way out of the crisis it’s in.
Is change finally on the horizon for South Africa’s power utility?
Gavin Fordham/ flickr
South Africa’s president has committed to structural reforms in the energy sector.
Blackouts are common in Haiti. In this February 2006 photo, Haitian electoral workers count ballots by candlelight during a routine blackout in Port-au-Prince.
(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
For many Haitians, blackouts do not just signal a political crisis; they also symbolize feelings of their loss of political power.