Europe will select 30 cities to pioneer “smart” electricity grids and space-age insulation as it seeks to lead the global race for green technology, a draft EU document shows.
The wind-power sector must shift offshore and strive to provide a fifth of EU electricity by 2020, said a draft of the European Commission’s long-awaited Strategic Energy Technology Plan.
The so-called SET-Plan lays out the EU’s strategy for promoting hi-tech solutions to climate change to give European businesses a head start as the world switches to low-carbon energy.
Billions will have to be poured into research to avoid falling behind the US, which is pouring US$777 million into energy research, notes a draft of the plan obtained by Reuters ahead of its release next month.
“Basic research is chronically underfunded in the EU,” the report says. “We need to stimulate and incentivise our best brains to push back the frontiers of science.”
The project envisages 25 to 30 “smart cities” — highly insulated cities that glean energy from their waste and the sun and wind overhead and channel it down to the electric cars, trams and buses in the streets below.
“These Smart Cities will be the nuclei from which smart networks, a new generation of buildings and alternative transport means will develop into European wide realities,” it said.
Billions of euros will be needed for the transition, but EU officials are still calculating the exact need.
Environmentalists gave the plan a mixed reception, saying it should have completely ditched coal power and nuclear.
The geothermal industry, which generates steady “baseload” power by tapping into the earth’s natural heat, said it provided the perfect complement to fluctuating wind and solar and expressed dismay it had been ignored altogether.
“A renewable energy mix can not be reached in the future without geothermal energy,” the European Geothermal Energy Council said.
Boosting energy efficiency will top the agenda, an area where the European Space Agency is expected to lend a hand.
“This could be achieved by transferring advanced insulation materials and ultra-efficient energy systems to the terrestrial energy sector,” the report said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS