Pursuing Clean Energy Equitably
In: UNDP-HDRO Occasional Papers No. 2011/03
In: UNDP-HDRO Occasional Papers No. 2011/03
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The EU Clean Energy Package sets the EU energy efficiency and renewable energy ambitions for the 2030 horizon. It also updates the rules that govern the functioning of the internal electricity market and the transmission and distribution grids. The package, proposed by the European Commission in November 2016, includes 8 legislative proposals on the electricity market and consumers, Energy Efficiency and Energy Efficiency of buildings, Renewables & bioenergy sustainability as well as governance of the Energy Union. The Council agreed on its negotiating position for four legislative proposals of the EU Clean energy package in December 2017. For the different topics selected for this report, we will present the Commission proposals as well as the Council position included in the electricity Directive and Regulation. The positions of the different stakeholders of the EU electricity sector will also be stated at the end of each discussed topic.
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In: Springer eBook Collection
I. The Approaching Energy Disaster -- 1. What Is Energy? -- 2. What Part Does Energy Play in Our Lives? -- 3. How Do We Get Our Energy Right Now? -- 4. Shall We Run Out of Energy in Our Time? -- 5. How Long Does It Take to Develop and Build Up a New Technology? -- II. Alternatives: What Could Replace Our Exhausting Fuels? -- 6. The Dream of Cheap, Clean Atomic Energy -- 7. Fission Reactors-What Can Go Wrong -- 8. Dreaming About the Future: Abundant Clean Energy from Atomic Fusion -- 9. The Most Available Energy Source: The Sun -- 10. Converting Solar Energy to Useful Fuel -- 11. Household Energy from the Sun -- 12. Transport and Industry Run On Electricity and Hydrogen -- 13. Tides, Geothermal Heat, and the Big Winds -- 14. Energy Storage and Transmission -- III. The Hydrogen Economy -- 15. Methods of Mass-Producing Hydrogen -- 16. The Storage of Abundant Clean Energy -- 17. Beyond the Hydrogen Economy: Some Futuristic Ideas -- IV. Extrascientific Considerations -- 18. The Politics of Survival -- 19. Answers.
Blog: Blog - Adam Smith Institute
Eight years ago in 2015, I published "Britain and the World in 2050," setting out my predictions for the world ahead of us. It was widely covered in the media, with journalists going to town on the recreated woolly mammoths and dinosaurs, not revived from mosquitos preserved in amber, but by back breeding and genetic manipulation of flightless birds.Some also picked up and covered my remarkable prediction that the cost of energy would have dropped dramatically by 2050. I wrote:"Energy costs will by 2050 be a fraction of their present-day costs. For most consumer uses, energy will be effectively free."The cost of energy has witnessed several spikes since then, and is now more expensive than it was. Partly this is down to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with some contribution made by a go-green agenda that shuns the cheaper sources in favour of more expensive ones. Nonetheless, I remain convinced that my prediction will come about. The fossil fuel we'll still be using will be gas, but nuclear will take a larger share, particularly with the new small reactors coming on line. Solar will be making a major contribution, as ways are found to increase the efficiency of photo-voltaic cells by combining ultra-thin surfaces on the silicon.There are several new technologies that could be game changers. There are vast reserves of natural hydrogen beneath the Earth's surface, more than previously supposed, and more accessible. The US Geological Survey concluded in April that there is probably enough accessible hydrogen in the earth's subsurface to meet total global demand for "hundreds of years". Currently, the effort to extract it commercially resembles the early days of fracking, with 'wildcatters' setting the pace. It portends cheap and clean generation of electricity, bypassing fossil fuels and emitting no greenhouse gases.Another possible technology involves the use of thin layers of materials flecked with nanoholes. The pores are essentially small enough (100nm) that the molecule's electrical charge can pass through them and be harvested to generate electricity. Water molecules pass through, generating a charge imbalance that produces harvestable electricity plucked not from thin air, but from naturally moist air.The device is called an Air-gen and can operate at all times despite the weather conditions because moisture is always in the air. When scaled up, it offers low-cost, clean electricity.A newer technology from scientists at the University of Rochester uses semiconductor nanocrystals for light absorbers and catalysts and bacteria to donate electrons to the system. The system is submerged in water and driven by light. Bacteria interact with nanoparticle catalysts to make hydrogen gas more cheaply than can be achieved by electrolysis. It is not that any of these might necessarily be the magic bullet that gives us cheap, clean energy. It is that some of them, in combination with yet more ingenious ways still to be developed, will give us the energy we need at a price we will be prepared to pay. And that price will be very low. We won't use less energy; we'll just produce it more cleverly.
In: Arendt , D , Arndt , C , Miller , M , Tarp , F & Zinaman , O (eds) 2017 , The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions . WIDER Studies in Development Economics , Oxford University Press . https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198802242.001.0001
The 21st Conference of the Parties (CoP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shifted the nature of the political economy challenge associated with achieving a global emissions trajectory that is consistent with a climate. The shifts generated by CoP21 place country decision-making and country policies at centre stage. Under moderately optimistic assumptions concerning the vigour with which CoP21 objectives are pursued, nearly every country in the world will set about to design and implement the most promising and locally relevant policies for achieving their agreed contribution to global mitigation. These policies are virtually certain to vary dramatically across countries. In short, the world stands at the cusp of an unprecedented era of policy experimentation in driving a clean energy transition. This book steps into this new world of broad-scale and locally relevant policy experimentation. The chapters focus on the political economy of clean energy transition with an emphasis on specific issues encountered in both developed and developing countries. Lead authors contribute a broad diversity of experience drawn from all major regions of the world, representing a compendium of what has been learned from recent initiatives, mostly (but not exclusively) at country level, to reduce GHG emissions. As this new era of experimentation dawns, their contributions are both relevant and timely.
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In: Africa research bulletin. Economic, financial and technical series, Band 60, Heft 12
ISSN: 1467-6346
In: Africa research bulletin. Economic, financial and technical series, Band 59, Heft 6
ISSN: 1467-6346
In: Environmental policy and law: the journal for decision-makers, Band 35, Heft 2, S. 92-94
ISSN: 0378-777X
In: Oxford review of economic policy, Band 27, Heft 1
ISSN: 1460-2121
In: Oxford review of economic policy, Band 27, Heft 1, S. 92-116
ISSN: 1460-2121
In: CESifo Working Paper No. 10828
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This book is the first of two volumes that review various approaches and instruments that have been tried, tested, and utilized to scale up clean energy development in Asia and the Pacific. This volume examines clean energy investment needs and financing gaps in the region and reviews existing financing options and approaches, including examples of how these have been applied. Innovative solutions for mobilizing private finance and managing risks associated with clean energy investments are also discussed.
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The energy is omnipresent and it can neither be created nor be destroyed. The energy can be changed from one form to another form. Some forms of the energy is used by the human being for his daily needs. One such form is the electrical energy. Man depends on the traditional methods to generate electricity like Thermal energy, hydro electricity, atomic energy etc. The availability of such form of electrical energy is very much possible in the cities where population is more concentrated. The power supply companies under the control of the government/private sector is responsible for the energy production. The distribution of this electrical energy is done by the department like KPTCL in Karnataka which is under the control of the state government. This department finds it easy to distribute the energy to cities where population is more for a given area. But the people living in the rural places are finding it difficult to get the benefit of such facility because the department is either not showing interest in providing the service at rural places or the cost incured in providing such facility is more than the return out of it. This leads to a lot of problems to the people living in the villages in getting the service from such companies. An alternative arrangement for such people is the use of clean and green energy by using the freely available solar energy. In this paper a small village called Mala is taken as a sample village. This paper gives the geographical structure of Mala, the various waste products that can be reused to maintain clean environment. This paper also gives a cost difference in using traditional energy system and renewable energy system and time required to recover the investment done for installing renewable energy sources.
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