Carl Pope, chairman and former executive director of the Sierra Club, has served on the boards for the National Clean Air Coalition, California Common Cause, and Public Interest Economics Inc. A...
Manana Kochladze is a campaigner at CEE Bankwatch Network, an NGO that monitors international financial institutions active in Central and Eastern Europe. She is the winner of the 2004 Goldman...
Diplômé de l'Ecole Centrale Paris, Philippe Bihouix a été ingénieur conseil pendant plus de 10 ans dans différentes industries (énergie, chimie, matériaux, transports, télécoms...). Il travaille...
Gregory Spanoudakis est Président des Opérations Européennes de Canadian Solar. Cette entreprise s'est engagée dans la recherche sur le recyclage des panneaux solaires au travers de PV Cycle.
H. T. Goranson is the Lead Scientist for Earl Research and was a Senior Scientist with the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand is a famous photographer. He has always had a passion for the animal world and the natural environment. In 1991 he founded Altitude, the world’s first aerial photography agency...
Bjørn Lomborg is an associate statistics professor at the Copenhagen Business School and former director of the Environmental Assessment in Copenhagen. He discussed his thesis of “environmental...
Andy BLACK is the owner of “OnGrid Solar performing Solar Financial Analysis & Purchaser’s Consultations”, specialising in electronic solar energy proafitability. He obtained a Masters in...
New Scientist was founded in 1956, this internationally-focused weekly British magazine aims at giving readers exhaustive information on recent worldwide developments in science from a scientific,...
Hermann SCHEER became a Social Democratic member of the German parliament in 1980. He is General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and President of the Eurosolar association....
Given an expected sharp rise in energy needs, the announced end of the oil era and climate change, several types of renewable energy are becoming as competitive as fossil fuels.
The question of how efficient solar, water-based, geothermal, wind, and biomass energy can be is now at the centre of the energy debate.
In an article published in the French monthly Monde Diplomatique,1999 Alternative Nobel Prize winner Hermann Scheer says he is convinced that renewable energy sources alone are capable of solving energy problems. According to the General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), “direct and indirect use of solar, wind, water, biomass and wave-based energy could provide the planet – daily – with fifteen times more energy than we actually use”. In Scheer’s view, these energy sources are the key to developing energy efficiency, economic results and environmental benefits. In Germany, the renewable energy sector has already created 170 000 jobs and eliminated an additional 7 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.
In an article published in late 2007 by The New Scientist, Bennet Davis reports that solar energy is making progress despite the high costs of developing the technology and a persistent lack of necessary investment. As is, PV cells are far less efficient at producing energy than other methods, and, according to an article in the French daily Le Monde in November 2007, solar energy is one thousand times more expensive than nuclear. Surprisingly however, PV cell energy efficiency is expected to reach 50% in the near future, with decreasing costs providing people greater access to the technology. Germany, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels (Le Monde, December 2007), has become the world’s leading PV cell producer with 55% of the market. Davis hopes that an increase in world demand for solar energy based on trends in Germany will stimulate further development and lead to higher energy efficiency rates.
Strangford - Royaume- Uni : un chaland tracte une éolienne retournée de 37 mètres appellée "SeaGen" dans l'embouchure de Strangford Lough en Irlande du Nord le 31 Mars 2008. © AFP photo Peter Muhly.
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