According to a new study presented by the Renovate Europe Campaign, weatherizing European buildings in an important way could boost local GDP by up to 291 billion Euros ($370 billion) by 2017.

Furthermore, gross annual investments of €41 to €78 billion per year in the EU could bring ongoing annual (more…)

Not long ago, the Obama Administration raised the federal fuel efficiency standards, known as CAFE, to an average 35.5 mpg by 2016. Yesterday, they announced the CAFE were being raised again to historically high levels. For model year 2025, the average fuel economy for cars and light-duty trucks will be set at 54.5 mpg. This will mean a nearly doubling of fuel (more…)

Electric vehicles in general are a great step in reducing emissions that cause global warming. The emissions from a gasoline-powered car are always greater than the emissions created to charge an electric vehicle. However, a new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) suggests that the “greenness” of electric vehicles is not uniform across (more…)

Maine, one of the most oil dependent American states, has passed a law that requires the region’s oil consumption to be reduced by 30 per cent by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050, based on 2009 levels.

While the law does not seem mainly focused on a shift to alternative energy, it does include it, although (more…)

(Reuters) – U.S. federal government and California regulators will coordinate announcements of proposed fuel economy and emissions requirements for 2017-2025, the agencies said on Monday.

California will now release its fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for 2017-2025 model year cars and (more…)

(Reuters) – The Chinese government is said to be looking to prepare at least 10 million car parking spots for electric vehicles by 2020 in a new comprehensive policy due to be announced soon, a top executive at a local automaker said on Thursday.

China relies on foreign oil for more than half of its oil consumption and is looking to (more…)

Carbon dioxide emissions dropped significantly in the United States in 2009. The economy played an obvious role; not so obvious was the influence of power generation and its increasing efficiency.

Emissions of CO2 have been trending down for the last decade by about 0.9 percent.  But the 2009 drop was far more dramatic — seven percent — the largest decline since the Energy Information Administration began keeping energy data more than 60 years ago.

This tells us a lot about just how bad economic conditions were (As if we needed to be told!). (more…)