Rhein on Energy and Climate

Archives for Energy Supply

The unusually harsh 2010 winter in Europe has led to much higher consumption of coal and gas to warm homes and offices, and it naturally leads one to query about the ways our children and grandchildren will heat their homes 40 years from today. The European Union aims at reducing its CO2 emissions by at… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Over the coming 30 years the volume of intra- European passenger and goods traffic is expected to rise substantially, due to more intensive economic activity and leisure time. Most of the extra traffic will turn to the roads, thereby causing more saturation, traffic jams, C02 emissions and other environmental nuisances. The top priority for European… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Once again the State of California takes the world by surprise. Only a few weeks after President Obama had to concede defeat in his efforts to pass national legislation on reducing green house gas emissions the biggest US State by population and GDP acts on its own. The new legislation, due to enter into force… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Iran with a population of only 60 million ranks tenth in the world among C02 emitter countries. Its per capita C02 emissions amount to almost 8 tons, equal to Italy, and extremely high for a country with a relatively low level of economic development. Two major reasons account for this situation. First Iran is the… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

When the European Council will conclude its deliberations December 16th, Brussels will make a sigh of relief. This has been arguably one of the most difficult years the EU ever had to master. But despite the accidents on the road, the EU deserves good notes. It has achieved much more in than expected at its… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Until the end of 2009 Lithuania had depended for most of its electricity on two reactors of the unsafe Chernobyl type, which the country had to close down as a pre-condition for EU membership. In order not to depend excessively on Russian gas and electricity supply the government decided to replace its two former nuclear… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

For the last 10 ten years European wind and solar industries have scored nothing but victories. The demand for renewable energy was steadily rising, helped be generous feed-in tariffs, allowing them to widen production capacities, improve technology, pioneer off-shore technologies and enter markets beyond the EU, in particular USA. Thus the annual installed wind capacity… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

For the last 40 years Europe has been struggling for a single patent comparable to patents issued by the US Patent Office. The patents granted by the European Patent Office in Munich are only valid in the 37 signatory countries of the 1973 European Patent Convention, after due translation into the respective national languages. This… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

After GM, Nissan and Peugeot BMW has decided to enter manufacturing of electric cars. On November 5th 2010, it has inaugurated its new building site in Leipzig where it hopes to produce several ten thousand “Megacity” vehicles per year as of 2013-14. Thanks to political and multi-billion Dollar financial support from governments across the world,… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein