Renewable Energy future for Africa
Read recent Guardian article on Africa’s energy future
Financing is critical to power availability
Breakthrough Energy Ventures – 5-point strategy
BEV is a billion-dollar fund to finance breakthroughs in energy technology. Speaking in Paris recently Bill Gates described their strategic focus.
Bill Gates: “Energy transitions take a long time, but there’s more urgency than ever to prevent the worst impacts of climate change,” said Gates, in a statement. “We need new models of investment and new partnerships between governments and a broad network of investors, companies, and energy customers. Breakthrough Energy is designed to help facilitate those partnerships and bring more energy products from the lab to the market more quickly.”
Trends towards Renewables
Recent articles mark the trend towards renewables:
Read about Shell – less of an oil company moving forward. In Australia, “Banks warned of ‘regulatory action’ as climate change bites global economy”. And Canada promises legislation in 2018 to punish carbon polluters.
Wind Energy Gains
Tamil Nadu’s share of renewable energy (wind, solar, biomass and small hydro) in its total energy mix hit 20% in the first five months (April-August) of fiscal 2017, according to a report by research firm Elara Capital. Read article
Evaporation as a major Renewable energy source?
“In the first analysis of using evaporation as renewable energy, Columbia University scientists have found that evaporation-to-power devices on lakes and reservoirs could generate 325 gigawatts of electricity—about 70 percent of current U.S. production.” (more…)