Renewables

wind_solar_Fotolia_44797039_© Eyematrix

Whatever Happened to Renewable Energy?

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).

A tornado touching down in Kansas. Wind turbines are visible.

Tornado Power

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.

Dam © Belinda Pretorius - Fotolia

Hydropower and the Middle Ground

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 […]

Shoreline of the Shell Albian Oil Sands tailings pond, near Fort McKay. © Ian Wi

Battling Canada’s Carbon Addiction

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 […]

turbinebirds740

Killer Turbines?

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 […]