Canada's Environmental Voice
An international debate over the relative pros and cons of bioenergy has intensified between environmental organizations, governments and climate change leaders in recent years. This lively discussion has been dragging out by the delayed release of the European Union’s sustainability requirements for solid biofuels (originally expected in early 2012).
Warm air meets cold, spurring a rush of rotating air, which gathers speed, churning and whistling one hundred metres into the air. The vortex becomes self-sustaining, feeding itself energy as it whips itself into a deadly frenzy. Now a full tornado, it has sublime destructive ability.
Powering the world entirely through renewable energies is going to bring about some logistical challenges, as technological change always does.
The Greeks invented the watermill sometime around the 3rd century BC and until very recently the basic design of a wheel and cogs has been used throughout the world to harness modest water flows and power machinery. Modern technology has moved on a little bit since ancient Greece, but we’re […]
Muskrat Falls is getting a hydroelectric project. Against the objections of local environmental and Inuit-Metis groups, the Federal Court has given the southern Labrador project a green light. There’s some cognitive dissonance involved in watching environmental allies struggling against a form of renewable energy, but hydropower seems to occupy something […]
To celebrate the new year, many people have made resolutions – which ultimately may or may not be successful. The nations of the world made their own resolution shortly before the holidays, and what we can expect isn’t entirely clear. What is clear is that climate change is accelerating, and […]
The floor of the North Sea is about to be disturbed by a 2 billion Euro high-voltage undersea cable, stretching from Germany to Norway. Like old friends splitting a bar tab, the two countries are sharing the cost of the cable which will carry electricity from renewable energy back and […]
Medicine Hat, Alberta, is branching out. The city has approved a proposal to install the country’s first concentrated solar power (CSP) project. CSP typically employs an array of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a single point, often at the top of a central tower. The concentrated light quickly becomes heat, […]
It turns out Ontario is not the only jurisdiction getting cold feet about offshore wind development – in the Great Lakes, at least. In October, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo released a new energy blueprint – known as The Energy Highway – that inadvertently put a wet blanket over plans […]
I like birds, on the whole. I can’t identify more than one or two (maybe just chickens and ducks), but I’m happy to listen to some cheerful chirping in the morning. Certainly I would prefer to listen to a singing bird than to watch it fly, squawking, into the churning […]
