Uruguay lies between Argentina and Brazil on the Atlantic Ocean and is home to about 3.5 million people. But this small country has made it to the top 5 in wind and solar energy producers worldwide. Rebecca Bertram reports
Year: 2020
Geothermal Has to Step Up to Keep Europe Warm and Hit Climate Targets
Long renewable energy’s black sheep, this multitasking energy source has a bright future but only if geothermal developers can dispel the myths around it while lowering the risks to development. While wind and solar continue to gain in popularity, a new project in Bavaria is showing that heat from the Earth’s core can lead the way. Paul Hockenos shows us how.
Fracking chaos: As debt-ridden gas producers go bankrupt, who’ll be left to clean up their mess?
Though fracking enabled the U.S. to finally re-achieve the long held conservative dream of energy independence, the ever-increasing volume of fracked fossil gas flowing out of the U.S., has led to an international glut as prices continue to fall. Now neck-deep in debt and historically unprofitable, pure play gas frackers are starting to struggle. Mass bankruptcies, shut-ins, and layoffs are likely. But Trump’s evisceration of environmental protection laws combined with ludicrously low liability bonds virtually ensures the public will be stuck with the clean up bill. Michael Buchsbaum explains.
Electrifying Africa from the Bottom Up: Will Patient Capital Bring Change?
The shooting-star solar provider Mobisol claimed that the private sector could do what US presidents, the UN, the EU, and hundreds of aid organizations had failed at: namely bringing electricity to all of Africa. But last year it filed for insolvency. The French energy giant Engie, however, has stepped in, and wants to make good on Mobisol’s dream. Paul Hockenos reports
German wind and renewables overpower filthy lignite and hard coal in 2019
Preliminary figures conclusively reveal that renewables produced over 40 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2019. Combined with offshore production, wind energy overtook both filthy lignite and hard coal, and has now become the nation’s largest energy source. But as fossil gas prices fall and the ruling government’s fragile coalition stumbles its way through the Energiewende it created, 2020 will likely prove a make or break year for the clean energy transition. Only the future will reveal if 2019 will actually be remembered as the year renewables really powered past coal in Germany. L. Michael Buchsbaum explains.
Ecuador: Where David slew Goliath
Latin America has a long and bloody history of extractivism. The rivalry over natural resources, such as sugar, copper and oil has for many years pitted large multinational corporations – usually backed by state authorities – against local communities, often indigenous groups. It is not difficult to guess who won most of these struggles. That is why it is so newsworthy that an oil drilling project in the Amazon was recently abandoned due to indigenous protests. Rebecca Bertram reports
Australia’s Infernal Wildfires Have a Name: PyroCbs.
Australia’s catastrophic, out-of-control wildfires constitute a stark, prophetic message from the future: a warning to the world about our fate on a planet that is growing hotter, faster than anyone predicted. And they aren’t unique to the Land Down Under. By end of the century, the fire-triggered thunderstorms could make vast swathes of the Earth uninhabitable. Paul Hockenos explains.
Wind-wreck: Germany’s Grand Coalition derails the turbine train
While ostensibly trying to craft policy that both transforms Germany’s energy sector to 65% renewables by 2035 and protects the security of Germany’s 20,000 coal workers, the Grand Coalition Government’s halting energy policies have just cost the jobs of over 30,000 workers through the wind sector. Facing the worst domestic slowdown in 20 years, manufacturers spent much of 2019 hemorrhaging jobs, going bankrupt or heading into reconstruction. As 2020 begins, L. Michael Buchsbaum brings us up to date.
Grassroots drive for climate justice is central to a just transition
Building a climate-resilient South Africa calls for a grassroots drive that addresses the systemic inequality resulting from decades of colonialism and capitalist development. A new Climate Justice Charter has just been unveiled here, which gives a roadmap for how citizens can roll up their sleeves and help bring about a just transition to a post-carbon society. Leonie Joubert reports