Sweden Oil Free

The commission on Oil Indepence, installed buy the the Swedish Ministry of Sustainable Development, has recently made a plan to make Sweden an "oil free society" by the year 2020. The topic in itself is quite interesting but also the fact that Sweden not only has a Minister of the Environment but also a Minister for Sustainable development is quite interesting. In the Netherlands the Minister of Environment was demoted to a State Secretary 4 years ago when the christian democrats and liberals came to power.

Graduation time !

Eight of our first cohort of MSc IE students will receive their diplomas on the 23rd of August. This will take place at a historic location the Kamerlingh Onnes Building, birthplace of four Nobel Prizes.

China to invest $100 billion in renewable energy

Some were already impressed by the $ 2 billion that the US government is investing in the hydrogen economy but the Chinese seem to surpass this effort. The Chinese government plans to raise the installed capacity for renewable electricity to 10 percent by 2010 and 16 percent by 2020. Looking at these percentages one has to keep in mind that in China the consumption of energy has grown at an average rate of over 10% per year for 5 years, thus doubling every 7 years !