The shift to renewable energy options and low-carbon technologies, in response to the concerns over energy security and climate change, is proceeding more slowly than many would like. The usual argument against rapid deployment of new technologies is the costs imposed on the economy, commonly...

A new business model for accelerating the introduction of electric vehicles into private transport systems involves the provision by an Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) of an intelligent rechargeable network in advance of the vehicles themselves. The ERGO business model creates a market...

How are biofuels to be certified as produced in a sustainable and responsible fashion? In the global debate over this issue, one party to the proceedings seems rarely to be mentioned--namely the commodities exchanges through which a global biofuels market is being created. In this contribution,...

Current Kyoto-based approaches to reducing the earth's greenhouse gas problem involve looking for ways to reduce emissions. But these are palliative at best, and at worst will allow the problem to get out of hand. It is only through sequestration of atmospheric carbon that the problem can be...

It has been argued by some that the substitution of biofuels for gasoline could increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, rather than reduce them. The increase is attributed to the indirect land use change effects of planting new grain and corn crops around the world to replace those...

While uptake of renewable energies as a solution to climate change is widely discussed, the issue of public vs. private financing is not yet adequately explored. The debates over the Kyoto Protocol and its successor, culminating in the COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December...

Although Argentina came late to the biofuels revolution, a series of measures taken recently at federal and provincial government level have created new opportunities. New federal laws on biofuels promotion have sparked an investment boom. The main activity has been in the biodiesel...

China's industrial transformation of the past thirty years, when its GDP has been increasing by an average of 10% per year, has been underpinned by an energy industrial revolution. Electrical energy is the driver of this transformation, with China utilizing latecomer advantages in building an...