Planetary Ruin

A growing number of illegal scrap yards in Europe endanger the environment and increase competition for valuable scrap metals, European industry sources said on Monday.

Record metal prices, with copper hitting an all-time high of $8,880 per tonne earlier this year, have sparked a hunt for secondary raw materials.

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A recent boom in Chinese wind power development has surpassed the government’s original target and forced policymakers to set a new goal that might still be too modest.

In 2007, cumulative wind installations in China exceeded 5 gigawatts (GW), the goal originally set for 2010 by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner. The Commission had set the target in its 2006 mid- and long-term development plan for renewable energy. The plan’s target for 2020 was 30 GW, a level that is now projected to be reached by 2012, eight years ahead of schedule.

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U.N.-led climate talks began in Germany on Monday on a global warming pact, facing a challenge from critics who say climate measures are partly to blame for high food and energy prices.

The meeting is the second in a series of eight which aim to secure a global climate deal by the end of next year in Copenhagen, to come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

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Gasoline-powered cars are perhaps the most inefficient devices that many of us use daily. The internal combustion engine is inefficient in term of pollution, gas costs and maintenance costs. Electric motors are comparatively simple devices that do not require much maintenance at all. But, as you may know, it’s difficult to obtain an commercial electric car today. One option is to buy a used vehicle that somebody else has converted to an electric vehicle.

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