healthier, happier and richer

According to the US Department of Energy, global energy use and carbon emissions are set to increase more than 50% by 2025. Demand in China and India is expected to escalate a combined 91%, with other developing countries close behind. Industrialised states’ needs’ are expected to grow by approximately one-third. Governments’ efforts to curb the resulting environmental effects are generally met with low expectations. Are SMRs a solution to this?

The UK government is strongly supportive of biomass as a means of increasing energy security. It also regards biomass as a major contributor to meeting the UK’s EU renewable energy target, and as an important contributor to carbon reductions – though it has stressed that not all biomass is sustainable.

Comments on Jonathon Porritt’s arguments against nuclear power.

The Centre for European Reform (CER) has now published my short report on what the EU should do about nuclear power after the events at Fukushima.

Questions about pollution from biomass combustion and the efficiency of heat pumps, from Allessandro de Maida

Question: Would OTEC – ocean thermal energy conversion – be a great solution for harnessing the stored solar power in the oceans?

Fachina

Question: Just curious, but how expensive is a widespread district heating network for, say, 100,000 inhabitants?

Alessandro De Mida

With around 95% of its electricity generated from coal, Poland comes up higher in coal statistics than Australia, the US, South Africa or even China. The coal intensity of electricity generation in Poland is not only a legacy from the past, but also a conscious choice of consecutive Polish governments. As the most abundant energy resource in the country, coal is considered an important pillar of Poland’s energy security. And yet, despite the central position of coal for the energy sector and the environmental pressure from Brussels, there is little enthusiasm for CCS technology among Polish decision-makers and energy sector stakeholders.

Even if silicon is actually the industry common semiconductor in most electrical units, which includes the cells that photo voltaic (PV) panels utilise to convert sunshine into energy, it is hardly the most cost-efficient product on the market.

Have you ever looked at “alternative” nuclear technologies, for example molten salt reactors (or liquid fluorides as today are termed)?

Allessandro De Maida