Retrofits: is it possible to make 'greening your home' sexy?
Carl Frankel
20th January, 2012
Green refurbishments save money and reduce CO2 emissions, helping combat climate change. The challenge is getting people to do them
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Spanish mountains under threat from open cast coal mining
Almudena Serpis
26th October, 2011
Almudena Serpis reports on the activists taking action against the expansion of coal mining in the beautiful and ecologically important Lacaiana valley
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Xayaburi dam divides Laos and stirs tension over Mekong hydropower
Brendan Brady
30th September, 2011
Supporters of a controversial dam in one of Asia's poorest countries say it will bring huge economic benefits. Critics say it could threaten fisheries and rice cultivation, threatening the livelihoods of millions. Brendan Brady reports from Laos more...
The big divide: is ideology holding back greens from embracing nuclear power?
Matilda Lee
20th July, 2011
Once united in opposition, the environmental movement is now divided on nuclear power. Matilda Lee reports on why some greens say that anti-nuclear is just sentimentalism
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Estonia enters the race in scramble to secure rare earths
Joel Tozer
20th April,2011
With China's rare earth industry blighted by claims of toxic pollution, Estonian company Silmet is stepping up production to meet demand for rare earths essential in the manufacture of electrical gadgets and green technologies
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UK shale gas boom 'may be dirtier than coal'
Tom Levitt
13th April, 2011
Despite outrage in the US over ‘fracturing’ techniques used to extract shale gas and new evidence its greenhouse gas footprint may be higher than that of coal, the UK has given the go-ahead to companies here to begin drilling. Tom Levitt reports from the centre of this potential unconventional gas boom near Blackpool
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Scramble to design supersized turbines to maximise wind power potential
David Strahan
1st March, 2011
Offshore wind power is crucial if the UK is to meet its renewable energy targets - but a lack of suitably powerful and reliable technology could hamper efforts, reports David Strahanmore...
US natural gas drilling boom linked to pollution and social strife
Jim Wickens
30th November, 2010
The gas stored in the Marcellus Shale formation is the subject of desperate drilling to secure US domestic energy supplies. But the process involved - hydraulic fracturing - is the focus of a bitter dispute over environmental damage and community rights
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Dark nights: the global effort to tackle light pollution
Carrie Madren
31st August, 2010
The energy, financial and health costs of lighting up our homes and streets could be saved through better lighting and an end to wasteful illuminations
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Solar power – the hidden threat to water supplies
Andrew Williams
18th August, 2010
Concentrating solar power plants seem in many ways like a silver bullet for the world's energy problems - but have we looked closely enough at their environmental impacts?
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Think nuclear is clean energy? Ask the Nigeriens
Carolyn Lebel
1st June, 2010
As the new nuclear renaissance grows, so too does uranium extraction. In Niger, which boasts some of the world's richest deposits, NGOs say that the poor are being exploited for the West's 'clean energy'
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Can our electricity grid cope with all the new wind power?
David Strahan
27th April, 2010
Wind energy finally seems to be moving somewhere in the UK, but without some new techniques, our grid is simply not going to cope with this flood of new green power
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What if we all traded energy between ourselves?
Mark Jansen
16th March, 2010
The time may soon be coming when every government will need to think about rationing fossil fuel usage. What's the quickest and most equitable way to do it?
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Jatropha biofuels: UK investors sell controversial crop as 'green'
Andrew Wasley
15th February, 2010
UK fund managers are selling investments in jatropha plantations as a wallet-swelling, planet-saving financial bonanza. But the reality for poor farmers is very different
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Jatropha biofuels: the true cost to Tanzania
Thembi Mutch
15th February, 2010
Billed as wonder crop, the establishment of jatropha plantations on the ground in Tanzania has been far from successful, or, in some cases, ethical
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Will carbon capture and storage work?
Mark Jansen
15th December, 2009
Carbon capture sounds like a fantastical idea: dig up fossil fuels, burn them, then return the captured CO2 underground. But the hurdles that stand in its way are formidable
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Tar sands: tearing the flesh from the Earth
Paul Miles
18th August, 2009
As the price of oil increases again, Canada's tar sands once more look like a giant cash cow to the industry. Now, the only thing standing between the 400 ton bulldozers and rampant environmental destruction may be a small group of First Nations people...
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Fighting Coal
Frank Joseph Smecker
7th July, 2009
The Appalachians, America's vast network of mountains, has long been threatened by destructive coal mining practices. Local communities fighting mountain top removal are putting their hopes behind new legislation now in Congress
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Dams: development or control?
Khadija Sharife
1st June, 2009
The vast dams clogging the veins of Africa are instruments of control rather than promised hydroelectric liberation. Khadija Sharife investigates.more...
Roundtable on renewables
Mark Anslow
1st June 2009
The Ecologist harnessed the power of several luminaries from the renewables world to find out why a wholly renewable future seems no closer than before.more...
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