Technology Info Crunch

Third Party Content: Newscientist ANALYSIS   11 April 2017 The Panama Canal may soon have a giant neighbour across Nicaragua – and two huge waterways could be built in Asia. Will they help or hurt the environment? Venice it ain’t Plainpicture/Sabine Vielmo By  Fred Pearce AFTER years of protest, the world’s biggest civil engineering project yet is now cleared for takeoff. Late last month, the Supreme Court in Nicaragua turned down the last environmental claim delaying the construction of the $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal. It will carve a 273-kilometre channel through the small Central American country to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean – even though the Panama Canal, 1000 kilometres to the south, already does the job, and received a massive upgrade less than a year ago. Why the duplication? Proponents of the canal say it will ease congestion that the upgrade can’t address, and create new economic opportun...

Five years ago, during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, we asked executives of the world’s largest energy companies, policy-makers and thought leaders from across the energy value chain: to what extent do you expect global energy systems to change over the next 10 years? An overwhelming 90% expressed the belief that significant change would occur around the world, and nearly one-third predicted a radical shift in the way energy is sourced, transformed and consumed. Reflecting on this today, the world is inarguable in the grips of an ongoing energy transition which is gathering momentum as unprecedented structural changes take place in global energy systems. The  Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2017  shows that a selection of countries are establishing themselves as masters of the energy transition, while others are gearing up to challenge them. Some of these are highlighted in the figure below. Image: World Economic Forum a...