Fast Renewables Growth Triggers Scramble for Qualified Workers – The Energy Mix: “Engineering skills such as energy assessment, project management,
and project design are in high demand,” Bloomberg writes. Also needed
are business developers who actually understand how cleantech works.

Today’s graduate students in the field, especially those with skills
in engineering or chemistry, are being recruited straight out of their
universities. And the schools themselves are alert to these changing
winds: Barcelona’s Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, for example,
launched a new a masters program in hydrogen energy just last year.

Fast Renewables Growth Triggers Scramble for Qualified Workers – The Energy Mix: “Engineering skills such as energy assessment, project management,
and project design are in high demand,” Bloomberg writes. Also needed
are business developers who actually understand how cleantech works. Today’s graduate students in the field, especially those with skills
in engineering or chemistry, are being recruited straight out of their
universities. And the schools themselves are alert to these changing
winds: Barcelona’s Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, for example,
launched a new a masters program in hydrogen energy just last year.Read More

Winding Down Fossils is Essential, Doable to Keep Average Warming to 1.5°C – The Energy Mix: A map in the strategy report shows available renewable energy
potential exceeding demand on every continent and in every region of the
world—modestly in Europe, moderately in India, and drastically
everywhere else. “Even with conservative estimates that account for
environmental safeguards, land constraints, and technical feasibility,
solar and wind energy could meet primary energy demand more than 50
times over, indicating no new fossil fuel development is needed,” Teske
and Niklas write.

“This new report shows clearly that we have more than enough fossil
fuels above ground and under production and that we have the technology
and renewable energy capacity to more than meet the world’s energy
needs,” said FFNPT Initiative Chair Tzeporah Berman. “Fast-tracking a
wind down of oil, gas, and coal and focusing on expanding renewable
production and infrastructure is not only possible, but it will save
lives.”

Winding Down Fossils is Essential, Doable to Keep Average Warming to 1.5°C – The Energy Mix: A map in the strategy report shows available renewable energy
potential exceeding demand on every continent and in every region of the
world—modestly in Europe, moderately in India, and drastically
everywhere else. “Even with conservative estimates that account for
environmental safeguards, land constraints, and technical feasibility,
solar and wind energy could meet primary energy demand more than 50
times over, indicating no new fossil fuel development is needed,” Teske
and Niklas write.“This new report shows clearly that we have more than enough fossil
fuels above ground and under production and that we have the technology
and renewable energy capacity to more than meet the world’s energy
needs,” said FFNPT Initiative Chair Tzeporah Berman. “Fast-tracking a
wind down of oil, gas, and coal and focusing on expanding renewable
production and infrastructure is not only possible, but it will save
lives.”Read More

The Shining Lies Canadians Are Told about Lowering Emissions | The Tyee: Oh, the bright shining lies.

When it comes to energy and climate change the political rhetoric promises four great and positive happenings.

New oil and gas infrastructure will fund Canada’s energy transition.

Emissions will be conquered by technologies that bury carbon in the ground at great cost or don’t yet exist.

Canada will meet all of its climate change goals and ramp up oil and gas production at the same time.

The energy transition will be effortless and orderly because there is lots of low hanging fruit to pick.

These national assumptions, repeated daily by politicians and the media like some weird liturgy, give David Hughes, Canada’s foremost energy analyst, a headache.

The earth scientist and former researcher for National Resources Canada has been crunching inconvenient energy numbers for decades with a frightful reliability. His new report, Canada’s Energy Sector, published by the Corporate Mapping Project and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives this week, shatters many illusions.

The Shining Lies Canadians Are Told about Lowering Emissions | The Tyee: Oh, the bright shining lies.When it comes to energy and climate change the political rhetoric promises four great and positive happenings.New oil and gas infrastructure will fund Canada’s energy transition.Emissions will be conquered by technologies that bury carbon in the ground at great cost or don’t yet exist.Canada will meet all of its climate change goals and ramp up oil and gas production at the same time.The energy transition will be effortless and orderly because there is lots of low hanging fruit to pick.These national assumptions, repeated daily by politicians and the media like some weird liturgy, give David Hughes, Canada’s foremost energy analyst, a headache.The earth scientist and former researcher for National Resources Canada has been crunching inconvenient energy numbers for decades with a frightful reliability. His new report, Canada’s Energy Sector, published by the Corporate Mapping Project and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives this week, shatters many illusions.Read More

Wanted: Government ownership over the common good to achieve climate justice | Corporate Knights: By acknowledging that we cannot rely solely on pollution pricing to
tackle climate change, Canada’s federal political parties have all
signalled their readiness to take ownership over climate mitigation and
adaptation.

But taking responsibility means governments must establish a
comprehensive strategy for change that includes specific and measurable
goals. They must integrate those goals into objectives and leaders’
performance metrics. Of critical importance, they need to allocate
resources commensurate with the scale of the challenge they’re taking
on. And along the way, they must establish mechanisms for transparency
and accountability.

So what is holding governments back? First, let’s recognize that we
are talking about complex change, which is rarely easy. Governments are
often trying to find consensus among stakeholder groups with divergent
interests, and climate change is competing with a breadth of other
priorities that in the past have been seen as more urgent. Also, we are
still influenced by a neoliberal ideology that sees good government as
one that embraces the free market, not shapes it, as well as outdated
cost-benefit calculations that value economy over environment. More
generally, governments seem to be enacting climate mitigation measures
on one hand while investing in greenhouse-gas-emitting systems on the
other. Yes, we have $17.6 billion in new spending, but we continue to
invest in pipelines and subsidies to the oil and gas industry, and we
have failed to really reckon with the fact that we have an economic
system that is focused on driving infinite growth on a planet with
finite resources.

Wanted: Government ownership over the common good to achieve climate justice | Corporate Knights: By acknowledging that we cannot rely solely on pollution pricing to
tackle climate change, Canada’s federal political parties have all
signalled their readiness to take ownership over climate mitigation and
adaptation.But taking responsibility means governments must establish a
comprehensive strategy for change that includes specific and measurable
goals. They must integrate those goals into objectives and leaders’
performance metrics. Of critical importance, they need to allocate
resources commensurate with the scale of the challenge they’re taking
on. And along the way, they must establish mechanisms for transparency
and accountability.So what is holding governments back? First, let’s recognize that we
are talking about complex change, which is rarely easy. Governments are
often trying to find consensus among stakeholder groups with divergent
interests, and climate change is competing with a breadth of other
priorities that in the past have been seen as more urgent. Also, we are
still influenced by a neoliberal ideology that sees good government as
one that embraces the free market, not shapes it, as well as outdated
cost-benefit calculations that value economy over environment. More
generally, governments seem to be enacting climate mitigation measures
on one hand while investing in greenhouse-gas-emitting systems on the
other. Yes, we have $17.6 billion in new spending, but we continue to
invest in pipelines and subsidies to the oil and gas industry, and we
have failed to really reckon with the fact that we have an economic
system that is focused on driving infinite growth on a planet with
finite resources.Read More

Helicopter ‘Sand-Blasts’ Line 3 Opponents, 200 Arrested at Peaceful Protest – The Energy Mix:

In a widely-shared video first posted to Twitter by Minnesota Public
Radio, an AS350 helicopter can be seen using its downwash to
“sand-blast” some 500 Indigenous and allied protestors who had turned
out to blockade an active pump station along Line 3, writes
climate journalist Emily Atkin in her Heated newsletter. While pilot’s
intentions remain unclear, Atkin writes, the Department of Homeland
Security helicopter hovered largely above a group who had chained
themselves to Enbridge’s construction equipment—and thus were unable to
flee.

Helicopter ‘Sand-Blasts’ Line 3 Opponents, 200 Arrested at Peaceful Protest – The Energy Mix: In a widely-shared video first posted to Twitter by Minnesota Public
Radio, an AS350 helicopter can be seen using its downwash to
“sand-blast” some 500 Indigenous and allied protestors who had turned
out to blockade an active pump station along Line 3, writes
climate journalist Emily Atkin in her Heated newsletter. While pilot’s
intentions remain unclear, Atkin writes, the Department of Homeland
Security helicopter hovered largely above a group who had chained
themselves to Enbridge’s construction equipment—and thus were unable to
flee.Read More