New York Times: Enacting Cap-and-Trade Will Present Challenges Under China’s System
American officials have applauded President Xi Jinping’s commitment to a national market for greenhouse-gas quotas as a breakthrough in environmental cooperation.
But to work well, Mr. Xi’s pledge, made at the White House on Friday, will demand big changes from a Chinese government accustomed to heavy-handed intervention and skewed statistics. It will take years of effort to build a substantial market that plays a major role in curbing emissions, and even then, it could founder, like similar initiatives elsewhere, experts said.
Vox: Solar Power Is Booming in India. Will It Reach the People Who Need It Most?
The sun is shining on India, and India is poised to take advantage of it, with massive investments in solar energy facilities to help meet the needs of a population that is expected to grow to make it the planet’s most populous nation by 2022. But will the power go to the people who need it most?
With its large land mass and tropical location, many experts consider the country particularly suitable for solar power. In fact, a recent study by Deloitte and the Confederation of Indian Industry estimated India’s solar power potential at 749 gigawatts -- nearly three times the country’s entire installed electrical capacity in 2012 -- and reported that not even 1 percent of this potential is currently tapped.
Climate Central: Obama Says Paris Climate Talks Bound to ‘Fall Short’
President Barack Obama said he hopes major countries agree to "aggressive enough targets" to cut carbon emissions at climate talks in Paris later this year, but he said any deal will fall short of what is needed to slow global warming.
"I'm less concerned about the precise number, because let's stipulate right now, whatever various country targets are, it's still going to fall short of what the science requires," Obama said in an interview published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Quartz: This Sports Car Runs on Seawater
When a months-old company called NanoFlowcell AG showed up at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2014, debuting its prototype for a “supercar” powered by saltwater-filled flow battery, onlookers appeared intrigued but skeptical.
But now that the Quant e-Sportlimousine has been approved for use on European roads, there’s more enthusiasm, and some in the tech media are making the inevitable comparison with the high-profile luxury electric carmaker Tesla Motors and its Model S. The concept of the car, after all, is stupendously attractive. It has four motors -- one for each wheel -- powered by electricity generated from a process of filtering ionic liquid, or saltwater. The car carries the electrolyte fluids in two adjacent 200-liter tanks separated by a membrane. The fluids in each tank are slightly different, and it’s the reaction between them when they cross the membrane that creates electricity.
Guardian: George Osborne Presses on With Hinkley Power Station Despite Criticism
Nuclear power returned to the top of the political agenda this week when George Osborne used his visit to China to underline the government’s determination to push through the Hinkley Point C power station project.
There are expectations that the energy company behind the proposed plant, EDF of France, will announce a final investment decision on the £24.5B scheme during the visit of Chinese premier Xi Jinping to London next month.
Beijing holds the key to Hinkley because state-controlled EDF wants two of China’s nuclear companies to commit as investors before it gives the green light.