 Your new post is loading...
* Article: Of solar collectors, wind power, and car sharing: Comparing and understanding successful cases of grassroots innovations. By Michael Ornetzeder and Harald Rohracher, Linköping University Post Print, 2013 From the Abstract: “Grassroots activities so far have not been sufficiently appreciated as sources of innovation. Transition processes towards more sustainable socio-technical energy, transport or production …
The town now has 60 new companies, 1,500 new jobs, and annual revenues of $17 million due to energy sales, all resulting from the growth of the renewable energy sector. The downtown has been rebuilt and young people picture themselves staying there in the future. And other areas are following Gussing’s lead. More than 15 …
The Women and Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy Project (WEREP), an initiative by Green Energy Africa, aims to turn Kajiado County to solar power by training women as solar installers and encouraging them to market the clean energy concept to fellow pastoralists. The solar energy drive began in around November 2014, and so far about 2,000 …
This looks like a project well worth supporting: We are crowdfunding to connect communities, entrepreneurs & makers with the world’s most powerful energy source, by releasing free construction methods and guides. Free the Sun! The energy from the sun is free, with free construction guides to build high-powered solar concentrators, anyone, anywhere could tap into …
Excerpted from the ‘GE Look Ahead’ series: ““First has been the improvement of efficiency of LEDs of 10,000% in the past 13 years,” says Russell Sturm, ?head of Climate Change Advisory at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group. “Batteries have improved 90% with the whole revolution around lithium and it’s …
100% renewable electricity is not just a dream anymore
* Book: Crossing Over: Making the Energy Transition from Fossil Fuels to Renewable Electricity. Roberto Verzola.
Original article here. The Crash Course has provided millions of viewers with the context for the massive changes now underway, as economic growth as we’ve known it is ending due to depleting resources.
As our civilization runs into limits to growth, there are several ways to analyze the situation, all with some validity in their own ways. One might for example think of limits in relation to ecosystem services, pollution and climate change, and these are certainly major challenges that I don’t mean to trivialize. But surely the fatal limit we are likely to run into first is worthy of the most attention? If Gail Tverberg is right, our most immediate limitation might be described as “peak finance.” She believes the financial aspect of our predicament is capable of bringing the whole system down long before anything else and probably will very soon.
Soon you may be able to buy your electricty from your neighbor.
“People centered” means that control of infrastructure, access, distribution, resources, and co-governance are now on the scale of the individual person. When an individual person with this empowerment reaches their individual carrying capacity to operate, they will tend to reach out to others who are operating like them, and a connection-based network will emerge. Economic development here targets individuals operating as self-employed independents who network together. Independents, small businesses, community groups, working together, with government, higher education, and larger business are the new economic driver. The more control people have an on individual scale of infrastructure, access, distribution, resources, and governance, *and* the more connectivity there is between those people, the that more growth happens in “people centered economic development”. When control of infrastructure, access, distribution, resources, and co-governance are now on the scale of the individual person, a new way of coopertive co-managing of existing resources, and surpluses of production tends to emerge. That new way of co-managing is known as “Resource Sharing”."
“Since the direct production process is the one that defines distribution, the single most important innate advantage of P2P production is that it ensures, on a long term and on a stable basis, a fairer and more equal distribution of wealth. In distributed production, argues George Papanikolaou, the largest part of the energy produced is intended for individual consumption, limiting the field of the market to exchanges of energy. A network that allows, without the mandatory intervention of a third party, the reversal of energy flows between peers, delimitates even more the sphere of the market and the official monetary circulation.”
“Several discourses on environment and sustainability are characterised by a strong confidence in the potential of technology to address, if not solve, the ecological impacts resulting from physically expanding systems of production and consumption.
|
Status report excerpted from Nicky Ison and Ed Langham: (the original article has many links) “Here in Australia, while the community energy sector is still new, a recent baseline assessment found that there are now 19 operating community energy projects, which have as of the end of 2014 generated 50,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy – …
Open Oil is a public domain reference source in textual terms for extractive industries Johnny West writes that: “wWe are working on putting contracts from the world’s oil and mining industries into the commons with the necessary analysis to make them accessible for public debate … We are co-developing a model to factor the effects …
Excerpted from Jeffrey Barbee: (not exactly a distributed energy strategy, but still largely good news) “Although still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, South Africa has been quietly creating one of the world’s most progressive alternative energy plans. Solar, biomass and wind energy systems are popping up all over the country and feeding clean energy into …
“The actions of the new government suggest that Syriza is ready to take steps to implement key aspects of the platform adopted at its first Congress in July 2013. Syriza is committed to “a new paradigm of social, environmental and economic development” and for the “ecological transformation of the economy.” Syriza says it will pursue …
“In California, that radical shift is happening. Marin Clean Energy (MCE) supplies renewable power to 165,000 customers across four northern California counties, and shaved $6m off consumers’ bills last year. More than 20 cities and counties statewide are pushing to establish CCA programmes – from Napa, Alameda and Santa Clara counties in the Bay Area, …
"As of January 2008, 11 citizens' wind turbines were in operation in Japan. The first wind power plant built with citizen funding, known as Hamakaze-chan, or "beach wind," with a rated output of 990 kilowatts (kW), was installed in Hamatonbetsu in Hokkaido, northern Japan, in September 2001. Since then, citizen-funded wind turbines have become popular not only in Hokkaido but also in the prefectures of Aomori, Akita, Chiba, and Ibaraki. The total output of these 11 wind turbines has reached 15,790 kW, and their annual power generation is roughly 40 million kWh, enough to serve the equivalent of 10,700 households, and estimated to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by about 24,000 tons.
In this short video, Richard Heinberg asks – and attempts to answer – “can we keep growing the economy and avoid diminishing returns by switching energy sources?” As we move beyond the age of fossil fuels and toward a future powered largely by renewable energy, we’re about to discover an important truth: how we use …
We live in a world with limits, yet our economy needs growth. How can we expect this scenario to play out? My view is that this problem will play out as a fairly near-term financial problem, with low oil prices leading to a fall in oil production. But not everyone comes to this conclusion. What were the views of early researchers? How do my views differ?
The Chief Executive of Taunton Deane Borough Council, in the UK, asked two transitioners, Chrissie Godfrey and Paul Birch, to work with the council on a series of workshops that would enable workers and elected officials to create their vision of the borough in 2026.
First, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) changed the rules under which energy co-operatives could be established. As a result of the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act passed into law last year, the model that has proved so successful in Germany has been deemed ineligible here. The FCA has been rejecting attempts to establish new energy co-ops.
To intuitively understand why deflation is the endgame of our civilization, divide people into miners and everyone else.
|
Scoop.it!
