Earth Wise

Europe has embraced offshore wind power as a major contributor to its electricity needs for a long time.  As of June, there was a total of 3,344 offshore wind turbines with a combined capacity of over 11.5 gigawatts of power connected in European waters in 82 wind farms located in 11 different countries and providing […]

Poor air quality is a serious problem.  Exposure to air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of an estimated 6.5 million people every year.  This makes air pollution the fourth largest threat to human health.  Only high blood pressure, dietary risks, and smoking are a bigger danger.  According to the World Health Organization, more […]

Investment companies like to talk about the disruptive nature of technologies and how they change industries while simultaneously changing our lives.  The growing emphasis on a low-carbon economy has spotlighted a number of technologies as being disruptive in their industry sectors.  One hears this frequently when discussing wind and solar power.  Clearly, these two technologies […]

These days, many of the foods we buy, such as meat, bread, cheese and snacks –  come wrapped in plastic.  We end up with lots of non-recyclable, non-biodegradable waste.  And thin plastic films are not even that great at preserving food because oxygen still gets through them. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are […]

In 2008, Israel was on the verge of catastrophe.  A decade-long drought in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East was scorching the area.  Israel’s largest source of fresh water, the Sea of Galilee, had dropped to within inches of the so-called black line at which point irreversible salt infiltration would flood the lake and […]

The traditional model of the electricity grid is one where centralized large power plants send power through transmission lines to substations and then on to homes and businesses.  As localized renewable energy sources, energy storage systems, and efficiency systems proliferate throughout the system, a new concept is emerging:  that of the virtual power plant. A […]

The boom in natural gas drilling by conventional methods and by fracking has led to a spike in methane emissions from pipelines, storage tanks, processing facilities, and other parts of the natural gas system.   Natural gas is mostly composed of methane, so these emissions constitute waste and lost revenues.  But they also represent a serious […]

We recently highlighted the plight of orangutans.  Following years of failed conservation measures, all orangutans are now listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.  The Sumatran orangutan had been listed as critically endangered for nearly two decades, but the Bornean orangutan was a recent addition.  According to the IUCN, […]

Electric cars are gradually becoming more popular, but there are still real concerns about their driving range, the availability of charging infrastructure, and their price.  Adoption of the technology is still rather slow. A recent study at MIT looked at whether existing electric car technology could really make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  […]

The Carbon XPrize is a five-year, $20 million competition to identify ways to convert carbon emissions into successful, profitable and useful products.  Forty-seven organizations from seven countries are competing for the prizes and include large companies, startups and university researchers. Not only do the winners have to be able to convert CO2 from power plants into […]