ENERGY-TANZANIA: Charcoal A Dirty Trade-Off
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Jessie Boylan
DAR ES SALAAM, Nov 19 (IPS) – The sun is setting slowly over Dar es Salaam’s Tabata Changombe neighbourhood. Ameenah and Skukulu Juma lean against the corrugated iron walls of their makeshift charcoal shop.
The earth is black. Charcoal layers every surface and crevice. Shawls over their [...]
ENERGY-DENMARK: Samsø Island, Beyond Fantasy
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Julio Godoy* – Tierramérica
TRANEBJERG, Denmark, Nov 15 (IPS) – On the Danish island of Samsø, a model of energy self-sufficiency, even cow’s milk helps reduce emissions of climate changing gases.
Samsø has an area of 114 square kilometres with just over 4,000 people, located in the Bay of [...]
ENERGY-SPAIN: Windfall for the Grid
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Tito Drago
MADRID, Nov 9 (IPS) – Wind energy notched up a new record in Spain on Sunday, when it generated 53 percent of total electricity demand nationwide for part of the day, according to official figures announced Monday.
Powering the grid at up to 10,170 megawatts, wind turbines [...]
Taxes curb Danish oil use, promote energy independence
worldfocusonline
November 5, 2009
Producer John Larson reports from Copenhagen, Denmark on how changing lifestyles, taxing energy and subsidizing alternative technologies have reduced the country’s dependency on oil and created tho…
CHINA: Tide of Opposition Swells as Largest Dam Nears Completion
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING, Oct 30 (IPS) – Fifteen years after dynamite blasts first shattered the peace of China’s breathtaking Three Gorges, the Three Gorges Dam—the pride of China’s engineering progress—is nearing completion. But the cannonade of criticism bombarding the world’s largest and costliest dam in history is far [...]
MIDEAST: ‘France, U.S. Pushing Arabs Into Nuclear Race’
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
By Fareed Mahdy*
ISTANBUL, Oct 25 (IPS) – The decision by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to build nuclear reactors has unleashed frenetic, politically backed competition between giant corporations from France, the U.S., Japan and South Korea to win contracts estimated at more than 40 billion dollars.
This may [...]
MOZAMBIQUE: Watching the Water Flow Away
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Zenaida Machado
MAPUTO, Oct 23 (IPS) – Less than 100km from the second-largest dam in Africa, women walk with their babies strapped on their back, water pails balanced on their heads.
They walk slowly, their bodies tired. And as night falls, and darkness hits the red sand of the [...]
THAILAND: Renewable Energy Not So Clean and Green After All?
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Nantiya Tangwisutijit* – IPS/IFEJ
PICHIT, Thailand, Oct 23 (IPS) – The view from Bhorn’s window in this northern province is as picturesque as one can find in rural Thailand. The Nan River flows majestically through the Gulf of Thailand, located 300 kilometres to the south. Mango and banana trees [...]
ENVIRONMENT: Pipeline Renews Debate on Sea-Dumped Chemical Weapons
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Matthew Berger
WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (IPS) – On Sep. 24, a beachgoer near Swansea, Wales reported a piece of military equipment washed up on the shore. Three days later, the two members of the team that had showed up to dispose of the shell developed symptoms compatible with mustard [...]
ENERGY: Crisis Has Hurt Investment in Renewables
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Emilio Godoy
LEÓN, Mexico, Oct 10 (IPS) – In Latin America, Brazil is the leader in the development of renewable energies, while nations like Mexico, Peru, Chile and Argentina are taking slow steps to change their energy mix.
”The transition process towards renewable energies is slow, because it faces [...]
POLITICS: Nuclear Agency Demanding Iranian Missile Blueprints
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Gareth Porter*
VIENNA, Sep 19 (IPS) – Iran stopped meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency last year over Western allegations of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work because the nuclear agency was demanding access to the designs for its Shahab-3 missile and other secret military data, according to both [...]
ENERGY: To Fly Around the World – Without Fuel
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Stephen Leahy* – Tierramérica
DÜBENDORF, Switzerland, Sep 16 (IPS) – A solar-powered aircraft will take flight next month from Switzerland with hopes ultimately to circle the Earth in 2012, without fuel, and stopping every five days only to change pilots.
”I’m intrigued by the vision of perpetual flight,” mechanical [...]
BRAZIL: Green Challenges Posed by Black Gold
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 16 (IPS) – Brazil’s discovery of vast offshore oil and natural gas reserves raises the question of how to tap the newfound wealth without causing severe environmental impacts and without leaving aside the development of clean energy alternatives.
Two years ago, the government [...]
SWAZILAND: Sunshine Brings the Gift of Water
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Mantoe Phakathi
SITSATSAWENI, Swaziland, Sep 15 (IPS) – It is break time. A handful of pupils of Sitsatsaweni Primary School are crowded around a 25-litre bucket to wash their hands before tucking into a meal of samp and beans.
Only nine months ago, washing their hands in copious amounts [...]
DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Question World Bank’s Clean Energy Roadmap
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Mary Tharin
WASHINGTON, Sep 15 (IPS) – The World Bank’s 2010 World Development Report (WDR), released Tuesday, calls on the developed world to lead global efforts to cut carbon emissions, but some civil society groups remain highly sceptical of the bank’s role in brokering climate finance.
The report sets [...]
ENERGY-VENEZUELA: Great Business for Good Friends
Posted by editors on September 18, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 17 (IPS) – While Spanish energy giant Repsol and Italy’s Eni reported finding huge deep sea reserves of natural gas in the Gulf of Venezuela, a consortium of Russian companies agreed to pay the Venezuelan government one billion dollars to secure access to the oil-rich [...]
Filed under Commentary, Energy, Geopolitics, Latin America · Tagged with Oil, Venezuela