California report links emissions reductions to economic growth

Tesla PowerpacksA new report on pollution, economic growth, and renewable energy in California sheds new light on the link between emissions regulations and economic growth ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco next month. The report released Thursday shows that even as the state implemented stricter emissions standards than other states and...

Solar investment falls in midst of erupting trade war

Tesla and SolarCity solar farm on Ta'u, American SamoaElectric cars and solar power fit together like a hand in a glove. Charging with solar power, electric cars can drive using almost no non-renewable energy. Now according to a report in Bloomberg New Energy Finance last week, solar investment has dropped by 19 percent worldwide in the second quarter following a trade war between China and the U.S...

Trump promised to save the coal industry; it hasn’t happened

Coal trains by Flickr user Kimon Berlin (Used under CC License)You may recall that President Donald Trump made some ambitious and audacious campaign promises about his plans to revive America's dwindling coal industry. Two weeks ago, The Washington Post fact-checked the president's delivery on those promises after his first year in office—in multiples of "Pinocchios," its measure of untruthfulness for...

World Bank will stop funding oil, gas exploration in 2019

Coal-fired Nanticoke Generating Station, Ontario, Canada, now being converted to 44-MW solar farmIt's not just the world automotive industry that's grappling with rapid changes brought about by the need to reduce the effects of climate change. The world's fossil-fuel extraction, refining, and delivery industries are also faced with the reality that two centuries of burning their core products hurts the planet and has already exacerbated...

NASA looking at geothermal energy from Yellowstone supervolcano

Iceland's Fimmvorduhals erupts. Image: Henrik ThorburnAlthough claims of imminent volcanic eruption are likely exaggerated, any eruption of what's known as the Yellowstone Supervolcano would cause global chaos. Through intense monitoring programs, scientists have a clear idea of the Yellowstone volcano's behavior. Now NASA scientists are exploring a radical idea that could one day neutralize the...

Two-thirds of world’s new energy capacity in 2016 was renewable: IEA

Tesla Kauai solar-energy generation and storage project  [photo: The Verge]For years, renewable energy has been cast as the most expensive option to reduce emissions and the world's reliance on fossil fuels. But 2016 may have marked a turn for the renewable energy sector, with solar energy in particular rising significantly in output. For the first time in history, renewable energy sources accounted for fully two-thirds...