Tag Archives: Investment

Impact Assessment: Self-Inflicted Genocide and the Toronto Principle

In the beginning of November I got an email from a student at the University of Pennsylvania that said the following: My name is Richard Ling, a student at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the Fossil Free Penn … Continue reading

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COP21: Industry Commitments to Sustainability and Using Consumer Pressure to Keep Promises

Last week’s blog looked at Unilever’s CEO’s attempts to make his company sustainable. Unilever is not alone in promising to be more environmentally friendly in the long term. One of the less discussed achievements of COP21 was the mobilization of … Continue reading

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What Do I Think of the World Bank Data? What Do You Think?

If you look at the World Bank database’s website, there is a section under Data called Indicators. Scrolling down that page gets us to the section on those that apply to climate change: Climate Change Access to electricity (% of … Continue reading

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany – Storage

As I have mentioned before, electric utilities must necessarily store electricity in order to keep up with the fluctuations in consumer demands (July 29 – August 12 blogs). For example, all around the world (where people are connected to electrical … Continue reading

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany – Producers

As I discussed in the in the last blog, the feed-in tariff that was introduced as a key element in the German energy transition has resulted in the Germans paying among the highest electricity rates in the world. It was … Continue reading

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany – Consumers

The German Renewable Energy Act (German: Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG) was designed to encourage cost reductions based on improved energy efficiency from economies of scale over time. The Act came into force in the year 2000 and was the initial spark behind … Continue reading

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Guest Blog: John Morgan: The Catch-22 of Energy Storage and EROI

As I mentioned in my blog on October 21st, I have invited John Morgan to post a guest blog about EROI. This week, he has generously agreed to re-post the article that I mentioned, with an added postscript addressing questions … Continue reading

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The World and Me

As I mentioned in my last blog, it’s been a busy month. Among other events, the semester started, and there was an enormous climate change march in Manhattan (paired with others globally) in anticipation of the United Nations special session … Continue reading

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“My Way or the Highway” Can Be a Problem With the Best of Intentions

I am an old guy. My wife is younger but also past her official retirement age. Like everybody else, we try to prepare for retirement times by investing our savings. She is also an academic so we share the responsibilities. … Continue reading

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Conflicts and Navigation

The perspective of sustainability that I have advocated in the last three blogs was aimed toward the horizon and focused on maintaining equilibrium with the physical environment. I proposed reaching this equilibrium through a combination of recycling our resources, a … Continue reading

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