BEIJING – The boldest plan to achieve the targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement comes from China. The Paris accord commits the world’s governments to keeping global warming to well below 2º Celsius (3.6º Fahrenheit) relative to the pre-industrial level. This can be accomplished mainly by shifting the world’s primary energy sources from carbon-based fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) to zero-carbon, renewable (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, ocean, biomass), and nuclear energy by the year 2050. China’s Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) offers a breathtaking vision of how to achieve this energy transformation.
His policies promote energy independence and balance between France and Germany.
The Trump administration is turning out to be a blessing in disguise for the European Union. While many of the president’s rhetorical statements offend European sensibilities, and while dramatic acts like the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord prompt talk of a “crisis” in trans-Atlantic relations, the actual consequences of the administration’s policies are shoring up Europe’s foundations in surprising ways.
A year ago, fears that an allegedly pro-Russia Trump administration would ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and throw Europe to the wolves had delicate Europeans trembling. These days those fears seem quaint. But few in Europe have yet grasped how anti-Russian and pro-European the Trump foreign policy is at its core.
Indien, China, Russland und Südkorea haben bereits angekündigt, den Handel mit Kryptowährungen wie Bitcoin zu beschränken oder gar zu verbieten. In Island droht den Bitcoin-Schürfern, die via geballte Computerpower gezielt Bictoin erschaffen, dagegen Ungemach der anderen Art.
Denn Island hat sich in den letzten Monaten zu einem wahren Hub für die Kryptowährungsindustrie entwickelt. Das hat zur Folge, dass laut Nachrichtenagentur AP in Island heuer wohl erstmals mehr Strom für die energieintensive Gewinnung von Bitcoin und Co. verbraucht werden wird als für alle Haushalte des Inselstaates zusammen.
August 1, 2017—Seventy-seven-year-old Heinz Spahn—whose blue eyes are both twinkling and stern—vividly recalls his younger days. The Zollverein coal mine, where he worked in the area of Essen, Germany, was so clogged with coal dust, he remembers, that people would stir up a black cloud whenever they moved. “It was no pony farm,” he says—using the sardonic German phrase to describe the harsh conditions: The roar of machines was at a constant 110 decibels, and the men were nicknamed waschbär, or “raccoons,” for the black smudges that permanently adorned their faces.
China’s reemergence as a coal importer has boosted the fortunes of U.S. producers who are now shipping more coal abroad than any time in the last two years.
The trend has helped solidify a business that at the beginning of last year was suffering through a spate of bankruptcies and threatened with more. Revenue at publicly traded U.S. coal companies grew 19% in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year ago, and the biggest gains came at companies helped the most by exports, according to data compiled by Doyle Trading Consultants, a coal-market-analysis firm.
AFTER the events of March 11th 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami led to a meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan, you might be forgiven for concluding that atomic power and seawater don’t mix. Many engineers, though, do not agree. They would like to see more seawater involved, not less. In fact, they have plans to site nuclear power plants in the ocean rather than on land—either floating on the surface or moored beneath it.
X engineers work on designs for an energy system that stores electricity as thermal energy in high-temperature molten salt and a low-temperature liquid. X is a “moonshot” research and development lab under Google’s parent, Alphabet.