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ALTERNATIVES

J.M. Korhonen: I’m no longer advocating for clean energy; here’s why

9th March 2018

We’re not going to get a decarbonized energy system by 2050. We’re going to fail the climate targets, probably by a large margin, and I suspect that a warming of about 3 degrees centigrade is going to be almost inevitable. It’s perfectly possible that self-amplifying feedback mechanisms under way will amplify this change even more….

ALTERNATIVES

Bookshelf: A Treatise On Solar Cookers by Ashok Kundapur

19th February 2018

In this informative book, the author, Dr. Ashok Kundapur, who has had the privilege of contributing scholarly articles to Enclyclopedia of Life Support System (EOLSS) of UNESCO and Wikia of Solar Cooker International, has distilled his experience of 35 years, to cover over 260 designs of solar cookers, in full color, designed around the World….

ALTERNATIVES

Dr. Amory Lovins on India’s ‘sustainable energy future’

11th January 2018

Amory Lovins, Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is one of the world’s leading energy experts and a key figure behind China’s ongoing transition to renewable energy. His appointment as a strategic advisor to NITI Aayog suggests that India’s top development policy agency maybe finally be rethinking the country’s present fossil fuel-based energy path….

Chief economic advisor Dr. Arvind Subramanian delivered the 16th Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture

ALTERNATIVES

Coal vs Renewables: An open letter to India’s chief economic advisor

28th December 2017

With the national energy policy about to be finalised, a recent lecture by Dr. Arvind Subramanian, India’s chief economic advisor, revealed the government’s thinking on the question of coal vis-a-vis renewable energy. This rejoinder by an energy expert flags crucial issues and suggests alternatives that are vastly more healthier for the country and the planet….

Michael Safi

CLIMATE CRISIS

How India’s battle with climate change could determine the planet’s fate

2nd December 2017

From The Guardian: Of all the most polluting nations –United States, China, Russia, Japan and the EU bloc– only India’s carbon emissions are rising: they rose almost 5% in 2016. India’s population and emissions are rising fast, and its ability to tackle poverty without massive fossil fuel use will decide the fate of the planet….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Global energy transition: Here’s why it’s India’s opportunity to leapfrog

27th October 2017

As India like the rest of the world shifts from fossil fuels to renewables, India should also launch a new initiative for this dramatic transition. One of the guiding principles for energy transition should be India’s civilizational value of “simple living and high thinking” and not to maximize gross national product as other countries do….

ALTERNATIVES

Reality check: Fossil fuel expansion crushes renewables

24th October 2017

Barry Saxifrage writes: What determines our climate fate is how much climate-polluting fossil fuels we burn. Renewables are great, but only if they actually replace oil, gas, or coal. Sadly, rising renewables haven’t stopped our fossil fuel burn. Instead, we keep expanding both renewables and fossil fuels at the same time, in a new business-as-usual….

Chief economic advisor Dr. Arvind Subramanian delivered the 16th Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture

ALTERNATIVES

India’s chief economic advisor is clueless about energy. And that’s worrying.

28th September 2017

A recent lecture by Dr. Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s chief economic advisor, offers clues on its thinking on coal vis-a-vis renewable energy, crucial for meeting its stated climate goals. In this stinging rejoinder to the lecture, energy expert Prof. Mahesh Bhave shows conclusively why mainstream economists like Dr. Subramnian simply do not ‘get’ energy….

An aerial view of Welspun's giant solar park in Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh

Conflict/Dispossession

India’s dispossessed confront a new threat: solar parks

10th August 2017

Frontline reports: Across the country, large tracts of land are being earmarked for exclusive solar power parks. The rocky terrain of Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district has emerged as the largest solar power-generating hub in India, but the nomadic communities that have lived there for generations find themselves dispossessed of land and reduced to abject poverty….

A hyper-image of a lanthanum carbonate, a rare-earth used in renewable energy generation

ZEISS Microscopy/Eco-business.com

ALTERNATIVES

The global crisis and the role of so-called renewable energies in solving it

29th July 2017

In this essay, a contribution to the‘Pathways to the Post-Carbon Economy’ symposium by Insurge Intelligence, the author argues persuasively that the much-hyped “renewable energy technologies” cannot play any role in solving the multifaceted global crisis of today; on the contrary, investing in them is a waste of time, effort, energy and, most important of all, scarce resources….

ALTERNATIVES

Google engineers say today’s RE technologies won’t save us. So what will?

22nd July 2017

From IEEE Spectrum: At the beginning, engineers at RE<C, Google’s now defunct renewable energy initiative, had shared the attitude of many environmentalists: They felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, society could stave off catastrophic climate change. They now know that to be a false hope—but that doesn’t mean the planet is doomed….

ALTERNATIVES

Solar power: Do the ends justify the means?

25th June 2017

From World Economic Forum: People often have an idealised view of solar as the perfect clean energy source. Direct conversion of sunlight to electricity, no emissions, no contamination, perfectly clean. This however overlooks the messy reality of how solar panels are produced, right from the extraction of materials to scaling up the power generation process….

CLIMATE CRISIS

China, India become climate leaders as West falters

27th May 2017

Climate Central reports: Two years after the Paris climate accord, climate policies are advancing in developing countries but stalling or regressing in richer ones. Here’s a trip around the world, assessing how pro-climate and anti-climate forces are faring in key nations and regions, showing how recent developments are affecting the languishing fight against global warming….

Amit Dave/Reuters

CLIMATE CRISIS

Why increasing India’s solar energy capacity won’t work

23rd April 2017

From The Wire: The planned ten-fold increase in solar energy will add on an average only 20% of the total capacity, making little difference to India’s emissions. The government has not reduced its coal output targets and plans to raise coal output from the current 550 million tonnes to nearly a billion tonnes by 2022….

ALTERNATIVES

How renewable energy advocates are hurting the climate cause

19th March 2017

Paul McDivitt writes: Making wind and solar seem like they’re doing better than they really are could come back to bite proponents —and the climate. If people think we are about to replace fossil fuels with renewables, they will be less likely to demand new policies and take actions to lower their own carbon footprints….

CLIMATE CRISIS

John Michael Greer: A sneak preview of the year 2017

9th January 2017

As 2017 dawns, in a great many ways, modern industrial civilization has flung itself forward into a darkness where no stars offer guidance and no echoes tell what lies ahead… We’re not discussing the end of the world; events like those that can be found repeated many times in the histories of other failing civilizations….

CLIMATE CRISIS

India charts a roadmap to achieve ambitious solar targets

9th September 2016

Katherine Ross reports: Last month’s release of India’s ambitious year-on-year solar energy capacity targets chart a roadmap for achieving the country’s 2022 goal. This sequence of yearly targets—as opposed to an assumed growth trend between current capacity and targeted capacity—shows that India is making concerted plans to reach its goals announced at the Paris talks….

ALTERNATIVES

SPICE: The world’s first solar farming cooperative

22nd May 2016

The Indian Express reports: Last week, a Solar Pump Irrigators’ Cooperative Enterprise (SPICE) was up and running in Dhundi, a village in Gujarat’s Anand district. Members of this cooperative —the first of its kind in the world— are using solar power not only to run pumps, but also sell their surplus energy to the grid….

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

5th September 2015

NASA: World ‘Locked Into’ at Least 3 Feet of Sea Level Rise Common Dreams New research underway indicates that at least three feet of global sea level rise is near certain, NASA scientists have warned. That’s the higher range of the 1 to 3 feet level of rise the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

20th August 2015

Parliamentary Standing Committee rejects TSR Subramanian report on environmental laws Down to Earth A Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) rejected a high-level committee (HLC) report that reviewed various Acts administered by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC). The committee precisely noted that some of the essential recommendations made by the HLC “would result…