On Africa, Europe, Energy, Colonialism, Democracy: Desertec: the renewable energy grab?

Will Europe's next move be to try to capture the sun in North Africa?

Desertec: the renewable energy grab?   Hamza Hamouchene

How much space is needed for the sun to generate sufficient electricity for the entire demand of the world and EU? Yes, the graphic below is more or less accurate...

Assuming of course,lots of infrastructure and capacity for transport and storage existed - yet such plans are in the works for giant centralized solar plants in sunny places like Algeria. Thinking in terms of Mitchell's Carbon Democracy, would centralized solar generate any different kind of politics than centralized oil-rich authoritarian regimes?

Read the whole article here.

#tarsands #canada #terrorism #carbondemocracy: RCMP talks of opposition to oil in the language of national security and terrorism, part of wider criminalization of protest

This illustrates the political struggle described by Zalik, the tactics of hegemony, the legitimization of coercion (violence) in defense of extractivism, and the increasing criminalization of all forms of opposition.

(Zalik, Anna (2011). "Protest as Violence in Oilfields: The Contested Representation of Profiteering in Two Extractive Sites" in S. Feldman, C. Geisler and G. Menon (eds) Accumulating Insecurity. Athens, University of Georgia Press. p 261-284.)

More on the 'anti-terror' legislation: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/c-51-confusion-abounds-as-tories-rush-anti-terrorism-bill-to-committee-1.2963569

The Cost of Clean Coal

The Cost of Clean Coal Sara Bernard

http://exp.grist.org/clean-coal/