Energy

Cuba’s Power Crisis Drives Home Need to Accelerate Energy Transition

By Luis Brizuela
With aging infrastructure and problems with fuel supplies, Cuba is facing a crisis in its electric power generation system, which could accelerate plans to increase the share of renewable sources in the energy mix.

Climate Crisis Drives Up Cost of Electricity and Brings Big Changes in Brazil

By Mario Osava
As most of the world seeks to modify its energy mix to mitigate climate change, Brazil has also been forced to do so to adapt to the climate crisis whose effects are being felt in the country due to the scarcity of rainfall.

Argentina Takes Controversial Step Backwards in Biofuel Production

By Daniel Gutman
Argentina, historically an agricultural powerhouse, has become a major producer of biofuels in recent years. However, this South American country is now moving backwards in the use of this oil substitute in transportation, a decision in which economics weighed heavily and environmental concerns have been ignored.

Solar Energy Revitalises Indigenous and Farming Communities in Chile

By Orlando Milesi
Communities in Arica y Parinacota, the region in the extreme north of Chile, are using solar energy and are being empowered by projects for shrimp and trout farming, the production of yarn from camelid wool, the production of tomatoes and cheese, and even the sale of surplus solar power to the national electric grid.

How Market Knowledge is Powering Africa’s Solar Irrigation Sector

By Thai Thi Minh and Cecily Layzell
‘Know your customers’ is arguably the first rule of marketing. By identifying and segmenting customer groups, companies can target their products and services to the right people, in the right way. This can open-up opportunities for growth, inform product development and improve customer retention.

China Struggles with Socio-environmental Standards in Latin America

By Emilio Godoy
In southeast Mexico, work on the Yucatan Solar Park, owned by the Chinese company Jinko Solar, has been halted since 2020 for lack of proper consultation with indigenous communities, after affected local residents filed an injunction against the project.

Suburban Living the Worst for Carbon Emissions – New Research

By Sabrina Zwick
Work, education, entertainment, or simply better connectivity all draw people to cities. By the end of this century around 85% of the world population are predicted to live in cities.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Mining Proposal Faces Many Hurdles

By Edgardo Ayala
That a country like El Salvador, poor and with many social needs, would embark on an effort to attract so-called bitcoin mining, which demands a huge amount of energy and does not generate large numbers of jobs, is an extravagance that many find hard to digest.

Threat of Blackouts in Brazil Highlights Climate Crisis

By Mario Osava
Twenty years after the blackout that prompted nine months of rationing to keep the power grid from collapsing, Brazil may see a repeat of the traumatic situation, this time with a more obvious climate change undertone.

Latin America Vastly Underspends on Green Post-Pandemic Recovery

By Fermín Koop
Latin America is investing too little in a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, with only 2.2% of the region's stimulus funds spent on environmentally sustainable projects last year, according to a new platform developed by Oxford University and the UN.

To Fund Grand Inga Using Green Hydrogen, Equity and Ethics Matter

By Philippe Benoit
Visions of Grand Inga, a proposed massive hydropower plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) powering much of Africa, have excited energy experts, investors, and governments for decades.  The announcements this week by the Australian company, Fortescue Metals Group, and its chairman, billionaire Andrew Forrest, of their plans to develop Inga for green hydrogen exports brings this vision a little closer to reality. 

The Energy Revolution Is Here: How to Be Part of It

By Liu Zhenmin, Achim Steiner and Damilola Ogunbiyi
The industrial revolution took 100 years. The digital revolution, two decades. The next global revolution, the energy revolution, has already begun. But how fairly and how fast it happens is the biggest challenge of our time.

Betting on Green Hydrogen in Chile, a Road Fraught with Obstacles

By Orlando Milesi
Chile is in a privileged position in the world to produce green hydrogen and boost the development of the new fuel thanks to the country’s optimal conditions for generating solar and wind energy, but the large investment required and the scarcity of water are two of the biggest obstacles to overcome.

Charcoal Production Risks Future of Zimbabwe’s Native Forests

By Busani Bafana
Once a week a tonnage of fresh charcoal is dropped off at Sibangani Tshobe's rugged, pit-stop stall by a hired, battered old Bedford lorry. Small, makeshift trolleys — nicknamed Scania's — quickly cart off small loads and disappear into Old Pumula, the oldest suburb in the country’s second-largest city of Bulawayo.

Latin America’s Challenge of Financing Energy Recovery

By Emilio Godoy
Hit by the pandemic's socioeconomic and health impacts, Latin America is facing the challenge of financing an economic recovery based on a sustainable energy sector and a transition to clean sources of energy.

Why Latin America is the Middle East of Biofuel

Latin America has lots of natural advantages for the coming energy transition. It already has the greenest power matrix in the world. While having the planet’s largest reserves of copper make it a key provider for international electrification programmes.

Energy Transition Evolves in Central America and the Caribbean

By Emilio Godoy
The situation of the energy transition in Central America and the Caribbean was the main issue debated this Friday 21st in the sessions at the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, which is attended virtually by high officials, business delegates and analysts from the region.

China’s Firms Gain a Foothold in South America as Energy Providers

By Cecilia Joy-Pérez
Over the past decade, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from China have carved out a niche as owners and operators of electric utilities in South American countries through acquisitions of energy grids. As SOEs shift from their previous role as mostly builders to investors in large energy assets, policymakers in South America and in Washington should consider the implications of having these companies at the helm of such services.

International Cooperation Gives Biogas a Boost in Rural Cuba

By Patricia Grogg
Yunia Cancio cooked with firewood until a few years ago, when a biodigester was built on her family’s El Renacer farm in Cabaiguán, a municipality in the central Cuban province of Sancti Spíritus, under the Biomass Cuba project. That change meant a lot for her family’s quality of life, but it was not the only one.

South America’s Gas Dreams

By Emilio Godoy
The gas producing countries of South America are debating on how to make better use of the resource and how to integrate the sector, amid geographical and infrastructural barriers.

Biogas in Argentina: Turning an Environmental Problem into a Solution

By Daniel Gutman
"Until five years ago, we didn't know about the circular economy, but today our waste generates environmentally neutral products that also offer a return,” says José Luis Barrinat, manager of a cooperative that brings together some 550 small farmers in Monje, Argentina.
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