Archive by category | Business

From greed to green?

Is the global financial crisis good or bad for green issues? The ongoing controversy over the European Union’s ambitious climate and energy package suggests the latter might be the case. But political and economical analysts seem to be increasingly confident that the current crisis might give rise to environmentally healthier policies and investment decisions.  Read more

EU Parliament backs climate plan

EU Parliament backs climate plan

The European Parliament’s environment committee yesterday voted largely in favour of the ambitious European climate action plan (subscription) proposed in January.  Read more

Damn, a trillion dollars would have come in handy

Commuting in this morning on the boat, I was struck by a Guardian article on a new McKinsey report (pdf) about carbon capture and storage:

The study shows that such plants could be economically viable by 2030 at the latest. But it would require substantial public subsidies to get 10-12 plants running by the EU target date of 2015…McKinsey said that, with coal still likely to make up 60% of EU power generation by 2030, CCS could be a vital solution to ensuring security of energy supply and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It could reduce emissions by 400m tonnes a year by 2030, or a fifth of planned European savings.

Solar cells: thin is in

Solar cells: thin is in

Thin-film solar cell technology is starting to get hot. This week in Science, a paper by Marc Baldo and friends at MIT applies thin films, stuffed with organic dyes, to a piece of glass. This concentrates the light to just the edges, where small amounts of expensive PV materials can soak up the rays as much as they like. (see Nature news story)  … Read more

Oil heirs mutiny at Exxon

Oil heirs mutiny at Exxon

With much of the corporate world competing to be ahead of the decarbonization curve, it’s not uncommon to see investors actually begging governments for more regulations, as a prominent group in the US did this week. More remarkable is witnessing oil goliath Exxon Mobil torn by a climate-driven shareholder revolt and its backlash.  Read more

Royal Society to fund carbon capture and renewables ventures

In the race to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, the Royal Society now plans to back promising new technology with venture capital as well as intellectual clout. The Society announced Thursday it will sink its first-ever investment fund into businesses developing carbon capture and renewable energy, along with water purification and other world-saving innovations (Financial Times).  Read more