Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 2/29/2024 The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that renewable energy-generated electricity will surpass coal-generated power by the end of 2025. Further, the IEA predicts that by 2026, nuclear power and renewable energy combined will generate almost 50% of the world’s electricity. The report, titled Electricity 2024, is the current edition of … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 2/12/2024 Hot on the heels of COP28 (Was COP28 a Success? It Depends on Who You Ask | Zondits), two new reports are sounding alarms on climate change. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded—and that’s in 173 years of record-keeping. The … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 12/19/2023 Just as the Biden administration announced a new international effort to expand nuclear power generation (https://phys.org/news/2023-12-triple-nuclear-power-cop28.html), a key project toward reviving nuclear power in the U.S. has been canceled due to cost overruns. The Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), designed by NuScale Power, was to be the first of its … Read more
Emily Collins, Zondits guest, 12/12/2023 It’s fair to say that heat pumps have become a thing in the green energy ethos. In 2022, the U.S. Heat Pump Market was valued at 12 Billion USD and is anticipated to reach 165 Billion USD by 2032. The projection is staggering but not unrealistic. With more than 17 … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 11/7/2023 The Biden administration is making good on its pledge to invest billions in “clean” hydrogen, with the announcement of $7 billion in awards for regional hydrogen hubs. The funding was included in the 2021 Infrastructure Law to establish multiple regional hubs to produce hydrogen for fuel, agricultural, and industrial uses. … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 8/8/2023 Zondits has reported extensively on alternative transportation fuels. That reporting has focused on land and air transportation. But with the recognition that almost all internationally traded goods, including fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal, and liquid natural gas, are transported by sea. The United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 7/18/2023 “America is a bifurcated country. Half the people don’t want anything to change — ever — while the other half want everything to change, especially if change means eliminating the use of fossil fuels.” So begins an article in CleanTechnica, an online independent journal covering technical and policy issues affecting … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 7/11/2023 Zondits has published several articles regarding the difficulty of expanding U.S. electrical transmission and distribution networks to facilitate the rapid growth of large-scale solar and wind renewable energy projects. However, some encouraging news is coming out of the American Southwest. The Associated Press and multiple Southwest U.S. news outlets are … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 6/13/2023 If you listen to National Public Radio (NPR) or watch public TV, you likely have heard of Pew Research, as they are regular sponsors of educational programming. Public opinions on energy and environmental issues are regularly tracked by Pew. Their research results have a mix of good and bad news … Read more
Lucy Neiman, Zondits guest, 5/31/2023 Zondits and many other outlets have focused primarily on the transition to clean energy as the central path for addressing the challenges faced. Yet there is clear evidence that the transition away from fossil fuels alone cannot meet even the most conservative global climate goals that have been set. There … Read more