http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/ The Grid RSS A change to utility tariffs would likely provide incentive to consume less at critical times November 28, 2011 2:54 PM June 24, 2011 4:25 PM Nuclear safety cannot be separated from public opinion.That was the message in Vienna today as the UN nuclear watchdog wrapped up its first nuclear safety talks after the accident at Japan's Fukushima power plant, where an earthquake and tsunami... June 24, 2011 3:42 PM A coalition of Western nations has opted to flood the market with 60 million barrels of oil, marking a breakdown in relations between consumers and producers.The consuming countries, which include the US and the 28 member states of the... June 23, 2011 8:28 PM Sharjah is brandishing a new weapon at its fuel-less filling stations: Either get petrol, or prepare to shut down.Its executive council has granted Emirates National Oil Company, the Dubai-owned company that owns the stations, 72 hours to stock up."Failure... June 22, 2011 5:58 PM The Seychelles, an archipelago off the eastern coast of Africa, struggles to produce enough power for its citizens.Abu Dhabi made a step toward lightening that burden yesterday with a Dh52 million set of generators for the island nation. Soon... June 22, 2011 11:56 AM Until recently in the Ferghana Valley, the green belt that spans Uzbekistan, citizens located potentially deadly gas leaks largely by sniffing.Then they plugged the leak with plastic, hemp, chewing gum or -- given the budget -- sheets of asbestos,... June 21, 2011 6:02 PM June 20, 2011 12:44 PM June 19, 2011 5:01 PM Dolphin Energy, which owns a network bringing Qatari gas to UAE customers, has cut cut a tenth of its pipeline's normal volume because of a leak.The leak at a unit that strips corrosive sulphur from natural gas will take about... June 16, 2011 5:01 PM The UAE’s nuclear company is ready to talk.Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, the Government-owned company building the UAE’s first nuclear reactors, is putting its chief executive before the Abu Dhabi public tonight — the first time it is doing so... June 16, 2011 3:25 PM Today there is a shiny new bus shelter in front of the shiny new petrol station that has sprung up behind it, supplanting the shade trees that used to grow there. It all looks very modern, functional and clean, but appearances can be deceiving. On closer inspection, this shelter represents in miniature much of what ails the capital's stop-and-go public transit system. June 3, 2011 5:39 PM "Air-conditioning units which are not efficient will soon cease to trade in the UAE." May 22, 2011 9:16 PM "The doughty Swedes have already made great progress in reducing their carbon footprint from transportation, while improving air quality. During a recent press tour to the Nordic country, city officials from Stockholm and Malmo discussed their traffic-control strategies, and why the world's oil exporters should take notice." May 17, 2011 7:00 PM "Close to 80 per cent of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies." - IPCC May 10, 2011 8:37 PM Oil-derived petrochemicals of this type are already at the heart of the world's pigment, dye and paint industries. Could they also find a niche in the growing solar energy business? Dr Adachi thinks that is possible. May 1, 2011 12:27 PM If oil and coal are the ugly sisters of energy, biofuel could be the soot-streaked Cinderella, with great potential but no sign yet of a prince in the offing. Too often, the early promise of plant-based transportation fuel has proved worse than empty. April 25, 2011 8:13 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2011/02/solar-pact-an-anodyne-for-oil-pains.html The pilot scheme, an affirmation of a memorandum of understanding that Masdar signed with Washington last April's to co-operate on clean and sustainable energy technologies, seems perfectly straight-forward. But in the Byzantine world of energy geopolitics, it is seldom safe to take things at face value. February 28, 2011 6:45 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2011/01/on-a-salt-flat-outside.html On a salt flat outside Abu Dhabi, Masdar City is beginning to take shape, starting with a university and a bunch of energy experiments.The Masdar Institute, a post-graduate research academy, is the site of a number of investigations into energy... January 16, 2011 6:58 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/12/plastic-cars-seen-on-road-to-sustainable-future.html The petrochemicals industry needs to address its "disastrous" public image in light of its importance to sustainable economic development, according to a senior executive of the French energy group Total. "The electric car will be plastic," Francois Cornelis, the president of the company's chemicals division, told a forum of the Gulf Petrochemicals Association in Dubai. December 8, 2010 7:42 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/12/post-1.html A media assemblage more inclined to be sympathetic to the corporate goals of Masdar, the Abu Dhabi government's clean-energy company, and its flagship project to build an eco-city in the desert, would have been hard to find anywhere in the world. Yet when the group travelled by bus a day earlier to the nearby Masdar City construction site, keen to get a first-hand view of the development's first installations, they were in for a disappointment: Their bus was turned away at the gate. December 2, 2010 9:22 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/11/shippers-consider-gas-and-nuclear-power.html The USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier, is an existing nuclear-powered shipPic courtesy of the US Navy, via WikimediaCurrent wisdom holds that oil will be hard to replace as the fuel of choice for transportation. But now the shipping industry... November 17, 2010 7:13 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/11/renewables-roundup-1.html General Electric (GE) may resurrect a plan to manufacture wind turbines in Turkey, as the country seeks to increase its wind power capacity to 20,000 megawatts from less than 1,000mw by 2020. November 11, 2010 4:57 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/10/sun-power-rising-in-north-africa.html Tunisia has pledged US$2.9 billion (Dh10.64bn) of investment in solar energy projects in the next six years, joining Morocco and Egypt in the vanguard of North Africa's renewable power movement. October 21, 2010 6:29 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/10/two-pieces-of-news-of.html Two pieces of news of relevance to the UAE's efforts to embrace clean energy broke yesterday, from rather different sources. October 20, 2010 5:24 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/10/morocco-picks-solar-thermal-technology.html Morocco has chosen concentrating solar power over photovoltaics as the technology for its first solar power station. October 2, 2010 7:00 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/10/the-desertec-industrial-initiative-dii.html The Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii) has acquired its 18th new partner. It has added the Italian grid operater Terna to the expanding international group that is promoting the large-scale development of renewable energy in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, with a view to developing "green" electricity exports to Europe. ... The significance of the development is that Terna is the first Desertec partner specialised in the increasingly complex business of electricity transmission. October 1, 2010 12:29 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/09/where-old-car-batteries-go-to-die.html One of the environmental quandaries that purchasers of electric cars may soon face is what to do with expensive rechargeable batteries that reach the end of their useful life within the vehicle. Dumping them in the nearest landfill would surely be distasteful to most of the car manufacturers' existing and potential customers, so the car companies are teaming up with electricity experts to develop more palatable solutions. September 22, 2010 10:00 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/09/moroccan-algerian-and-tunisian-companies-join-desertec.html Last month I wrote that the Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii) was still waiting for energy firms from the MENA region to join up. This month, I am delighted to be proved wrong. September 11, 2010 3:28 PM http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/09/from-mirage-to-reality-in-98-years-the-evolution-of-solar-power-in-egypt.html Egypt and solar power have a long history together, as befits a nation that advertises its sun as a tourist attraction. In 1912, the US engineer and inventor Frank Shuman built one of the world's first solar arrays at Maadi in Egypt, consisting of five rows of 62-metre parabolic mirrors. September 10, 2010 2:38 AM