Sometimes ‘progress’ drives a good product to the brink of extinction before it brings it back. For example, between the late 1800s through the early 1920s electric boats in England were experiencing a heyday, with charging stations abundantly situated up and down the Thames river. Then, the fossil-fuel-powered internal combustion engine emerged, heralding speed boats to come. Electric marine vessels lost their allure, to say nothing of their marketing value, almost overnight.
Illinois’ 23 largest wind farms will add $5.8 billion to local economies and result in the creation of more than 19,000 jobs over their useful lives, according to an Illinois State University Center for Renewable Energy study released this past week. The results provide additional fuel for US wind industry participants and supporters lobbying Congress to extend a key renewable energy subsidiy: the wind energy production tax credit or PTC.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, leaving the Lower 9th Ward, where hundreds of working class families lived, utterly devastated. By 2007, it was clear something dramatic needed to be done to help the people rebuild. Enter Brad Pitt–a dramatic sustainability advocate if ever there was one.
As longstanding ruling regimes shake and fall around them, Moroccans to date have been able to steer a moderate, comparatively peaceful course of socio-political change that’s seen the establishment of a new constitution based on modern pluralist democratic principles tolerant of social, political, and religious diversity. Encouragingly, with regard to energy policy, that’s included moving forward with a progressive, proactive national renewable energy and energy efficiency strategy that includes renewable energy sources meeting 42% of electricity demand by 2020.
