Feature Article

The choice between centralized and decentralized electricity generation is examined for 150 countries as a function of population distribution, electricity consumption, transmission cost, and the cost difference between decentralized and centralized electricity generation. A network algorithm is developed to find the shortest centralized transmission network that spans a given fraction of the population in a country. The least-cost combination of centralized and decentralized electricity that serves the country is determined.

With the enactment of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, U.S. President Obama made a public commitment to a new approach to energy production and transmission in the United States. It features installing smart meters and related technologies in residential homes, as part of transforming the current electrical grid into a “smart grid.” Realizing this transformation requires consumers to accept these new technologies and take advantage of the opportunities that they create.

Renewable energy is a sunrise industry, offering huge potential for employment generation, besides promising energy security for a developing country like India. However, the Union Budget 2012 has failed to provide for it the much needed impetus.

Freshwater scarcity is a growing concern, placing considerable importance on the accuracy of indicators used to characterize and map water scarcity worldwide. We improve upon past efforts by using estimates of blue water footprints (consumptive use of ground- and surface water flows) rather than water withdrawals, accounting for the flows needed to sustain critical ecological functions and by considering monthly rather than annual values. We analyzed 405 river basins for the period 1996–2005.

Germany is outraged at major cuts for solar electricity and at the possibility of cuts to other renewables being snuck in through the back door.

To protect the climate and overhaul our energy supply, we will need to do more than just expand renewables, we will need to do more than just expand renewables - we also have to start using energy more efficiently. But planned EU regulations are meeting with fierce resistance.

Arunachal Pradesh is rich in biodiversity and has become a hub of scientific explorations leading to the discovery of new taxa species. Of late Arunachal Pradesh has become the focus of national and international wildlife research and conservation, partly due to its status of being in the Eastern Himalayas 'biodiversity hotspot'.