Impasse Time

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Mark Simpson ◽  
Imre Szeman

Although energy transition—a shift from dirty energy to cleaner, renewable energy—has become a mantra for an effective way of addressing climate change, energy impasse—the incapacity of any transition whatsoever—is actually the defining condition of our age. This essay contributes to a fuller understanding of energy transition, climate change, and the promise of renewable energy by examining the specific temporality of energy impasse. Rather than a simple blockage that can easily be nudged aside, energy impasse is underwritten by a temporal “stuckness” that is a key effect of two centuries of fossil fuel energy use. The specific characteristics of this distinct temporal mode are explored in relation to the twentieth-century project of economic futurity historicized by Timothy Mitchell and two recent versions of sustainable futurity theorized by Allan Stoekl. The time signatures named and explained in these examples of futurity serve, in distinct but complementary ways, to enable and perpetuate the stuckness of energy impasse. The essay’s argument illuminates the abiding challenge posed by petroculture, while considering the implications of impasse time for the form of solar futurity here termed the solar fix.

2012 ◽  
Vol 524-527 ◽  
pp. 2388-2393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Wang ◽  
Mahjoub Elnimeiri

The phenomenon of climate change is becoming a global problem. One of the most important reasons of climate change is the increase in CO2 levels due to emissions from fossil fuel energy use in daily human activities. This research will use the data of the annual average temperature and energy consumption in the past 41 years of Shanghai, the largest city in China, to establish the statistical relationship between climate change and energy consumption. It is found that there is a strong positive relationship between climate change and energy consumption in Shanghai. The phenomenon of climate change could be controlled by reducing excessive energy consumption in people’s daily life. Furthermore, this paper will also discuss the reason of such relationship, and provide suggesstions of saving energy and protecting our environment.


2013 ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
Orsolya Nagy

The use of renewable energies has a long past, even though its share of the total energy use is rather low in European terms. However, the tendencies are definitely favourable which is further strengthened by the dedication of the European Union to sustainable development and combat against climate change. The European Union is on the right track in achieving its goal which is to be able to cover 20% its energy need from renewable energy resources by 2020. The increased use of wind, solar, water, tidal, geothermal and biomass energy will reduce the energy import dependence of the European Union and it will stimulate innovation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13404
Author(s):  
Georgios Tsantopoulos ◽  
Evangelia Karasmanaki

Humans have been using fossil fuels for centuries, and the development of fossil fuel technology reshaped society in lasting ways [...]


2021 ◽  
Vol 09 (12) ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Usman Bello ◽  
Livingstone Udofia ◽  
Olayinka A. Ibitowa ◽  
Auwal M. Abdullahi ◽  
Ibrahim Sulaiman ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
A. Elaine McKeown

Many nurses may not be aware of the role that healthcare plays in the cycle of harm. Healthcare participates in the cycle of harm by mismanaging waste, using fossil fuel energy and offering meat-based diets. Lack of knowledge, resources and empowerment potentiate this participation. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use and meat-based diets, with resultant water pollution, contribute to climate change. Climate change and healthcare source pollution in water from mismanaged waste, contributes to illnesses of community members. Once sickened, individuals come to the healthcare center for treatment. This illness care then contributes to more environmental pollution. Specific human health consequences of resultant water pollution and climate change will be discussed. With healthcare professionals collaborating with others concerned, the connections potentiating this cycle of harm can be broken. Recommendations will be offered for healthcare's forward movement to help create the solutions to the pollution.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 476
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Warner ◽  
Glenn A. Jones

China and India are not only the two most populous nations on Earth, they are also two of the most rapidly growing economies. Historically, economic and social development have been subsidized by cheap and abundant fossil-fuels. Climate change from fossil-fuel emissions has resulted in the need to reduce fossil-fuel emissions in order to avoid catastrophic warming. If climate goals are achieved, China and India will have been the first major economies to develop via renewable energy sources. In this article, we examine the factors of projected population growth, available fossil-fuel reserves, and renewable energy installations required to develop scenarios in which both China and India may increase per capita energy consumption while remaining on trach to meet ambitious climate goals. Here, we show that China and India will have to expand their renewable energy infrastructure at unprecedented rates in order to support both population growth and development goals. In the larger scope of the literature, we recommend community-based approaches to microgrid and cookstove development in both China and India.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Brown ◽  
Samuel J. Spiegel

In the wake of the Paris Agreement on climate change, promises to phase out coal-fired power have suggested cause for optimism around energy transition globally. However, coal remains entangled with contentious development agendas in many parts of the world, while fossil fuel industries continue to flourish. This article discusses these entanglements through a climate justice lens that engages the cultural politics surrounding coal and energy transition. We highlight how recent struggles around phasing out coal have stimulated renewed critical debates around colonialism, empire, and capitalism more broadly, recognizing climate change as an intersectional issue encompassing racial, gender, and economic justice. With social movements locked in struggles to resist the development or expansion of coal mines, power plants, and associated infrastructure, we unpack tensions that emerge as transnational alliances connect disparate communities across the world. Our conclusion signals the need for greater critical engagement with how intersecting inequalities are coded into the cultural politics of coal, and how this shapes efforts to pursue a just transition.


Energy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 2261-2269 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.A. Dyer ◽  
S.N. Kulshreshtha ◽  
B.G. McConkey ◽  
R.L. Desjardins

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2558
Author(s):  
Askar A. Akaev ◽  
Olga I. Davydova

On 4 November 2016, the historic Paris Climate Agreement of the United Nations entered into force, requiring signatory countries to maintain global warming at the level of 1.5–2 °C. According to the calculations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to achieve this goal, a 2/3 reduction in greenhouse gas energy emissions into the atmosphere compared with gaseous energy-related emissions in 2019 (33.3 Gt) by about 2050 (1.5 °C) or by 2070 (2 °C) is required. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), this is only possible with the implementation of a great energy transition from the use of currently dominant fossil hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—to the predominant use of renewable energy sources (RES) by 2040–2050, when the share of renewable energy in the total energy balance will reach 40% and above. In this work, mathematical description of an upcoming energy transition has been carried out, including long-term scenario writing of the world’s demographic dynamics and global energy demand, calculation of the dynamics of industrial CO2 emissions and CO2 accumulation in the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the corresponding changes in the average global temperature of the Earth’s surface in the 21st century. A mathematical description of the impact of energy consumption on climate change was carried out taking into account long-term trends in the dynamics of energy consumption. Using the performed mathematically-oriented scenario writing, it is suggested that a great energy transition with the achievement of the goals of the Paris Agreement is possible only by 2060. Renewable energy could sufficiently displace and replace hydrocarbon fuels to achieve climate safety without compromising economic development. As a result, humanity will receive an environmentally friendly decentralized distributed energy system, connected by «smart» grids, controlled by intelligent digital technologies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Schaffartzik ◽  
Marina Fischer-Kowalski

The global energy system subsumes both extreme wealth (and waste) and extreme poverty. A minority of the global population is consuming the majority of the fossil fuel-based energy and causing global warming. While the mature industrialized economies maintain their high levels of energy consumption, the emerging economies are rapidly expanding their fossil energy systems, emulating traditional patterns of industrialization. We take a global, socio-metabolic perspective on the energy transition phases—take-off, maturation, and completion—of 142 countries between 1971 and 2015. Even within our global fossil energy system, the transition to fossil energy is still ongoing; many countries are in the process of replacing renewable energy with fossil energy. However, due to globally limited supplies and sinks, continuing the fossil energy transition is not an indefinite option. Rather than a “Big Push” for renewable energy within pockets of the fossil energy system, a sustainability transformation is required that would change far more than patterns of energy supply and use. Where this far-reaching change requires pushing back against the fossil energy system, the energy underdogs—the latecomers to the fossil energy transition—just might come out on top.


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