Google kicked off 2013 with an announcement about a new, $200 million equity investment in a wind farm in west Texas. The wind farm can generate enough electricity to power 60,000 average U.S. homes.

The Spinning Spur Wind Project is located in Oldham County, which is about 35 miles from Amarillo. The 161 megawatt facility was built by (more…)

According to the French utility EDF, the French solar PV capacity reached in March 3,000 MW, with over 2,672 MW in mainland France and 339 MW in Corsica and overseas.

According to the data: the total capacity grew by 15 percent this semester in metropolitan France. An additional (more…)

While I was visiting my family in the Region of Lorraine – North Eastern France – I came across two distinct news illustrating the possible future of the region, and in a way, of the whole country.

The first one is about dirty polluting fossil energy as to Elixir Petroleum, an Australian company, there would be massive quantities of shale oil and gas in Lorraine’s soil. To the volumetric estimates, there (more…)

On Monday the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its latest country report on France. These reports are generally issued every five years.

Although France has not been immune to the global economic downturn, the climate change plan known as the Grenelle de l’Environnement is still considered by the IEA as having “many positive provisions”.

Indeed, the government is willing to cut by a factor of four the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels). (more…)

From a comfortable distance the BP oil disaster is depressing and horrific. But up close, it’s worse.

Two days in the Gulf of Mexico left me enraged – and deeply resolved. Both the widespread damage and the inadequacy of the response effort exceeded my worst fears. I’d spent a full day on the Gulf and we ended up soaked in oily water and seared by the journey.

By Tuesday night, I was home. My throat burned and my head was foggy and dizzy as I showed my pictures and video to my wife, Fran, and my 13-year-old (more…)