In the lead-up to the UN leaders’ summit on climate change, China is shifting up a gear in its drive towards national emissions trading. Yet for carbon pricing to be effective, market reform in China’s…
Mexico must manage its reserves well to transition to a sustainable energy future.
EPA/Pemex
Following President Lázaro Cárdenas’ expropriation of foreign oil company assets in 1938, the oil industry has been a symbol of Mexican sovereignty. This made the state oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex…
As early as 2015 China’s use of thermal coal for electricity could peak.
Bret Arnett/Flickr
China’s use of coal for electricity could peak as early as next year, then decline until 2020 in a turnaround of “global importance”, according to economist Ross Garnaut in a lecture presented at the Melbourne…
The cat that got too fat. But let’s talk about you.
Yukari
Our understanding of fats – including which ones are actually good for us – is evolving. We know for example that red meat and meat products, cakes and biscuits, which are rich sources of saturated fatty…
Big may be beautiful but it’s also inflexible and expensive.
Andrew Parsons/PA
Take a hard look at the painful process of de-carbonising the UK’s electricity supply, and it’s clear that the options on the table are not great. From the outset, changes to the system generate further…
You spin me right round, and power the lights too.
Simon Syon
For all the huge, hulking buildings of concrete and steel that house coal, gas or nuclear power stations, or towering 100-metre-tall wind turbines, generating electricity is in fact a very precise and…
Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
As with the previous Russia-Ukraine gas disputes in 2006 and 2009, how we describe the current stand-off between the two countries is a matter of semantics. Those earlier disputes found solutions based…
Britain’s energy-hungry population is highly dependent on oil and gas, which powers around two thirds of the UK’s energy needs. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) projects that by 2030…
Plenty of gas in Siberia just found a market.
Dariusz Delmanowicz/EPA
After ten years of negotiations, Russia’s Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) have announced they have signed a 30-year gas contract. Russia will from the end of this decade supply…
Methane hydrates - fire ice from deep under the sea.
Wusel007
Last year Japanese scientists announced they had for the first time extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate, an ice-like substance made of natural gas (methane) trapped inside water crystals…
It depends if the price is right, it seems.
Peter Byrne/PA
There has been an anxious search for new sources of fossil fuels, and shale gas appears to offer Britain a key national resource. But the nation’s new-found hydrocarbon wealth has met with far from universal…
Many long-promised renewable and low-emission energy programs have been scrapped or cut back in the Coalition’s first budget.
Lukas Coch/AAP
There are billions of dollars of broken promises in the Abbott government’s first budget for low-emission and renewable energy programs – and wiggle room to break even more in the next few years. Among…
Solar cells previously manufactured with lead can now be made using tin. Researchers at Northwestern University have developed…
Automatically labelling people as NIMBYs if they have concerns about local power projects is not a constructive way to proceed.
Grahamec/Wikimedia Commons
From coal seam gas to wind farms, new resource projects seem to be pitting communities against corporations, and people against their neighbours. We often see, in such cases, community concerns labelled…
Better appliances and energy-efficiency rules saved Australians more than A$3 billion on electricity last year alone.
Shutterstock
The latest review of Australia’s energy-saving appliance scheme has delivered a rare trifecta: a good news story for the economy, the community and the environment. According to my estimates from data…
Both the Scottish and UK governments have published new contributions on the energy and independence debate in recent days. Energy Secretary Ed Davey visited Edinburgh to coincide with the Department for…
Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Gazprom’s decision to hike the price of the gas it sells to Ukraine came as no surprise as it was flagged more than a month ago. At that time the company’s website showed the Russian prime minister, Dmitry…
The rapid escalation of the situation in Crimea has led us faster than we might have thought to consider if and how Russia might unleash energy policy as part of its geopolitical strategy. President Vladimir…