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Nissan: more electric car charging stations than fuel stations in UK by 2020
There will be more public locations to charge electric cars in the UK than there are gasoline stations by the summer of 2020, according to new analysis by Nissan. At the end of 2015, there were just 8,472 fuel stations in the UK, down from 37,539 in 1970—a 77% drop. Assuming a steady rate of decline, Nissan predicts that by August 2020 this will fall to below 7,870. The supply of fuel within the Capital is also becoming scarcer. Central London has nearly half as many gasoline stations per car as the Scottish Highlands; only four remain within the congestion-charge zone. A notable closure in 2008 was one of the country’s oldest forecourts, the Bloomsbury Service Station, which had been operational since 1926. In contrast, the number of public electric vehicle charging […]
6 Signs The Big Global Switch To Solar Has Already Begun
China has installed 20 gigawatts of new solar power just in the first half of this year. This achievement beats analysts’ expectations by a wide margin. China wants to add 20 GW of new solar every year for the next four, but apparently could do twice that. At the end of 2015, China had about 40 gigawatts of installed solar power, so in just six months it has added half as much again. It already surpasses the previous solar champ, Germany. The Crescent Dunes “concentrating solar power” plant in Nevada, operated by a Santa Monica firm, is using molten salt as a battery so that it can generate electricity 24/7. It is the first such plant to use solar energy to melt the salt directly instead of via oil, which is a huge advance in efficiency. All electricity plants are just a way to turn turbines using boiling water. […]
U.S. states signed pact to keep Exxon climate probe confidential
A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas September 15, 2008. A pact that 15 U.S. states signed to jointly investigate Exxon Mobil Corp for allegedly misleading the public about climate change sought to keep prosecutors’ deliberations confidential and was broadly written so they could probe other fossil fuel companies. The “Climate Change Coalition Common Interest Agreement” was signed by state attorneys general in May, two months after they held a press conference to say they would go after Exxon, the world’s largest publicly-traded oil and gas company, and possibly other companies. The signed agreement has not been made public until now, and Reuters reviewed a copy of it on Thursday. It provides considerably more detail about the prosecutors’ legal strategy than the general outline provided at their announcement in March, which was headlined by former Vice President Al Gore. In a nod to the politically charged […]
America’s Fracking King on Environmentalists and Donald Trump’s Appeal
Harold Hamm explains why his industry just can’t get any respect. The following is a condensed and edited interview with Harold Hamm, CEO, Continental Resources. Photographer: Jonno Rattman for Bloomberg Businessweek Domestic crude supplies have almost doubled. Do you feel Americans appreciate what your industry has done? It’s hard to miss the benefits of what’s happened as a result of the oil and gas renaissance. A lot of people didn’t expect it—particularly those environmentalists that would stop all fossil fuel production. The industry has been forced to reckon with efficiencies in the face of lower prices. How much more efficient are Continental and its competitors today? When horizontal drilling began in the 1980s, one well would take the place of 18. So one surface location would take the place of 18 locations on the surface—a tremendously more efficient situation. What has given us this energy renaissance in America is […]
Tesla posts $293M Q2 loss, up 59% from Q2 2015
Tesla reported a $293-million GAAP net loss for Q2, a 59% increase from the $184-million net loss for Q2 2015. This marks Tesla’s 13 th consecutive quarterly loss. However, Tesla also completed a $1.7-billion equity raise to end the quarter with $3.25 billion in cash. In Q2, Tesla delivered 14,402 new vehicles consisting of 9,764 Model S and 4,638 Model X. Tesla said that production and demand are on track to support deliveries of approximately 50,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles during the second half of 2016. Tesla said that it delivered fewer cars in Q2 than originally planned as a result of a steep production ramp, resulting in almost […]
