Renewable Energy Articles

World produces huge amounts of waste, if we look at the United States we can see that Americans alone generate around 250 million tons of waste each year. The other bad news is that half of this waste ends up in landfills, thus consuming huge amount of land that could be used for agriculture and other useful purposes.

Waste management cannot be described as a simple process because it involves several different phases such as collection, transport, processing, recycling, disposing, and monitoring of waste. As the human population grows waste management is becoming more and more important not just because proper waste management means clean environment but also because it ensures the healthy life for all of us.

Waste management is particularly important for the disposal of hazardous waste. Hazardous waste refers to chemical waste, asbestos, waste from pharmaceutical industry, asbestos, electronic waste, etc. Luckily for us, the number of companies involved in hazardous waste disposal keeps growing, with one of the most prominent names being BKP Group .

There are many daily-level news about new renewable energy projects coming online in all parts of the world and if one would to judge by this there would certainly seems like renewable energy is replacing fossil fuels, and world is becoming a cleaner place. The truth, however, seems to be completely different as according to new report from International Energy Agency, world has remained as "dirty" in terms of energy consumption as this was the case 20 years ago.

The transition to renewable energy economy seems to be more talk than action. International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director, Maria van der Hoeven, recently announced that "the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago".

The factors that have slowed down transition include new technologies that still lack cost-parity with fossil fuel technologies, powerful fossil fuel lobbies, the resurgence of natural gas due to shale gas fracking, and lack of decisive political action.

Hydrogen is often being talked about as one of the most promising future energy sources. In regards to this, it is no surprise that there are many ongoing researches that aim to make hydrogen fuel production as efficient and cost competitive as possible.

One of the most notable researches comes from the Virginia Tech where scientists have discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant. This discovery could revolutionize the entire hydrogen fuel production because of its high potential to bring cost competitive and environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel as well as reduce our heavy dependence on fossil fuels.

The major feet that researchers have achieved was that they used xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen. Up to this study this process was pretty much attainable only in theory.

When the words “renewable energy” a lot of people automatically start thinking about the United States and its shouting about reducing dependence upon foreign oil. The USA isn’t the only leader in renewable and sustainable energy, though. Canada is no slouch in this industry, either.

One of the leaders in renewable energy and sustainability is Just Energy Alberta. This Canadian based company does quite a lot of work within the United States. Most recently, the company partnered with a US radio chain to start work on making that radio chain’s concert venues more sustainable and environmentally friendly. They are also working with a band called Portugal to help the band reduce its own carbon footprint as it records and tours.

This isn’t the only company that has benefited from a US-Canadian partnership. In 2012 alone, HB White Canada Corp (and it’s “mother ship” White Construction, Inc (a company based in Indiana) have completed twelve renewable energy projects in both the US and Canada, including the building of wind farms in Nova Scotia and Ontario.

Once prominent source of energy, nuclear energy is today one of the least popular energy sources, even despite having long history of use and being very reliable source of energy. Obama used to speak about the nuclear power as being one of the US energy options for clean energy future but after the Fukushima accident in Japan, nuclear power represent unattractive energy option, both for public as well as the investors.

Will nuclear energy be a part of US energy future? Difficult to tell. And lately there have been recent reports that country's business-as-usual approach will lead to a nuclear phase-out in less than half a decade.

The economic viability of existing nuclear power plants is also under a big question, and new reactors still remain an extremely unattractive investment prospect. Because of this, it wouldn't come as surprise if existing reactors would simply run out their licensed lifetimes between now and the late 2050s.