Is deep-sea mining eco-friendlier than land-based mining?
The International Seabed Authority will change regulations for deep-sea mining this year. The ocean floor is covered with potato-sized pebbles containing high levels of cobalt, manganese, nickel and copper – materials that could soon be in short supply as the energy transition progresses.
The raw materials needed for the European Green Deal
A team tasked by the European Commission with estimating the raw material requirements of the European energy transition found if global PV roll-out is high, and the component requirements of certain solar technologies don’t improve by a greater margin, some elements could end up in short supply.
Renewables and geopolitics: Who will ‘win’ the energy transition?
The losers in a world which no longer runs on fossil fuels are obvious but the dividend from shrugging off hydrocarbon dependency will be spread around most of the world so it is the nations which are winning the cleantech manufacturing and intellectual property race which appear best positioned for the future.
Renewables deals dwarfed by oil and gas at UK-Africa Investment Summit
The scale of fossil fuel deals signed between African governments and U.K. oil and gas interests reportedly amounted to more than 11 times the volume of renewable energy commitments as Britain scrambles for post-Brexit financial opportunities.
A clean energy world would support millions of new jobs
A study from Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology has predicted solar and other renewables can provide a global energy jobs revolution – just as four European operations revealed recent struggles.
What to expect for solar from the US-Iran crisis?
Three days after the drone attack ordered by the U.S. which killed Iranian power broker Qassem Suleimani, energy forecasting service AleaSoft said the price of Brent was rising again today. The potential shake out of rising oil costs for the solar industry is difficult to predict.
Solar-plus-storage will start to make big inroads in the year ahead
By this time next year we may be able to wave goodbye to that old chestnut about renewables endangering security of supply. Elsewhere, the price of lithium – and the products it goes into – could go either way after tanking this year.
Fossil fuel dependence and poor governance? Fasten your seatbelts
A study of the after-effects of the energy transition has assessed 156 nations and ranked a surprising winner. Here, energy expert Indra Overland discusses the findings of the GeGaLo Index as part of our interview examining renewables and geopolitics.
