Energy Efficiency, Finance, Sourcing Renewables  -  January 13, 2018

Weekend reads: Bitcoin Power, Trends to Watch & Home Biogas

Every Saturday, we'll bring you five of the most interesting — or quirky; it is the weekend after all — energy stories from around the web that you may have missed this week. Here are this weekend's energy reads: 

Bitcoin Could End Up Using More Power than Electric Cars (Bloomberg)

 The global power needed to create cryptocurrencies this year could rival the entire electricity consumption of Argentina and be a growth driver for renewable energy producers from the U.S. to China. While the figure is too small to be a major driver of global utility shares, it represents an important growth story for companies investing in wind and solar power combined with energy storage. Other potential beneficiaries include big oil companies that are investing in renewable energy and green-power developers that are backed by initial-coin-offering capital raises.

Five renewable energy trends to watch in 2018 (The Guardian)

It’s been a rollercoaster year for renewables. The price of solar and wind plummeted, China smashed its target for solar installations—but Donald Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement. So what do the experts predict for 2018? 

Denmark Sets Record with 43% of Power from Wind in 2017 (The New York Times) 

Denmark generated close to half of its electricity consumption from wind energy in 2017, setting a new world record as it aims to entirely phase out fossil fuels in its power sector, the country's energy and climate minister said on Thursday. "This will not be the last record we set," Lars Chr. Lilleholt told Reuters. He added that the goal is to cover the windy country's entire electricity consumption with renewable energy, although the timing depends on technological advances.

Paul Fenn Wants to Give Your Electric Company the Boot (Bloomberg)

Paul Fenn is a little-known consultant with an academic bent, but he may be the utility industry’s enemy No. 1. For more than 25 years he’s been pushing the idea that local communities ought to be able to set up their own power agencies to compete with established utilities. Local control, he says, can produce lower rates and greater use of renewable energy. Fenn’s campaign is finally getting traction, especially in green-minded California. 

Home biogas: turning food waste into renewable energy (The Conversation)

Last night I cooked my family a delicious pasta dinner using biogas energy. This morning we all had eggs cooked on biogas. I’m not sure what’s for dinner tonight, but I know what will provide the energy for cooking: biogas. And not just any biogas – it’s home biogas, produced in our suburban backyard, as part of my ongoing “action research” into sustainable energy practices. In an age of worrying climate change and looming fossil energy decline, the benefits of biogas are obvious. It is a renewable energy source with zero net greenhouse emissions. And yet its potential has largely gone untapped, at least in the developed world.

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