geothermal

The Climate Show #23: Durban and the return of the electric car

by Gareth December 21, 2011

Grab some holly, deck your halls, heat up some mince pies, and then settle down to the last Climate Show of 2011. We look at the outcome of the Durban conference, discuss heavy rain in New Zealand and record-breaking weather extremes in the USA, and ponder the implications of news of more methane erupting from [...]

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Alley’s documentary: upbeat and optimistic

by Bryan Walker April 18, 2011

Richard Alley’s book Earth: The Operators’ Manual, which I reviewed recently, was written as a companion to a PBS documentary of the same name. The documentary has recently screened in the US and is now available for viewing here. The broad themes are the same as those of the book. They’re not complicated: taking our [...]

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Here comes the sun: 100% renewables by 2050

by Bryan Walker February 7, 2011

Is a fully sustainable global energy system possible by 2050? It’s hard to imagine a more important question if we entertain hopes of avoiding the worst effects of climate change. It is the question addressed by a new and substantial report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the sustainable energy research and [...]

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Renewable Energy: The Facts

by Bryan Walker December 14, 2010

Germany is a country which has attracted much attention for taking renewable energy technology seriously, not least because it has gained significant economic advantage in doing so. That lends interest to the publication of an English translation of the book, Renewable Energy: The Facts, by German writers Dieter Seifried and Walter Witzel. The authors write [...]

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Ramping up renewables

by Bryan Walker August 26, 2010

There may be conflicting reports as to whether renewable energy can replace fossil fuels in time to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and there are still plenty of people in positions of authority, like our own Energy Minister, who see little reason to hurry the process. The heavy lobbying influence of big oil and coal [...]

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Brownlee’s energy strategy: dig and burn

by Bryan Walker July 26, 2010

The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (PDF, web) is a winding back of the clock from the substantial statement released under the previous government only three years ago. When announcing early in his term as Minister that a new strategy was required Gerry Brownlee complained of the old one: “You need only read the [...]

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A sustainable energy future for NZ (without all the hot air)

by Phil Scadden November 30, 2009

This is a guest post by Phil Scadden, a regular commenter at Hot Topic (bio at the end of the post). Phil’s interested in energy issues, and has spent a considerable amount of his personal time developing an overview of New Zealand’s energy issues, inspired by the approach used by Cambridge physicist David MacKay in [...]

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Plan B (not from outer space)

by Bryan Walker October 12, 2009

I hadn’t expected to be doing a Hot Topic review of Lester Brown’s book Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, since he writes about a variety of sustainability issues. However the 90 pages or so he devotes to climate change were irresistible for their sensible optimism and I report them here. The Plan B books [...]

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