Articles from news.nationalgeographic.com

A photographer gains an inside look at China’s massive power complex, and at efforts by the world’s largest energy consumer to spur cleaner future growth.

China's energy use, production, and ambitions are best captured by superlatives: The country is the world's largest energy consumer, and leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.

To power its tremendous economic growth, China has called on every fuel, every technology. It is the largest producer of coal and its greatest consumer, and yet China has more nuclear reactors under construction than any other nation. Its growing appetite for oil has kept gasoline prices high around the globe. And yet China's commitment to wind and solar power is so outsized that its young industries are now among the largest in the world.

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In the leafy borough of Montvale, New Jersey, near the New York State border, containers resembling oversized refrigerators stand on skids outside the U.S. administrative headquarters of international accounting and advisory fir­m KPMG. These are the buzzing accoutrements of a simple but powerful system that allows KPMG to squeeze more work out of every dollar spent on energy. The energy system at KPMG's suburban data center-winner of a U.S. government Energy Star award this month-is an example of combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration. (Related: "Tapping into the Electric Power of Heat") CHP is a "proven, reliable and cost-effective" set of technologies that could be much more widely deployed worldwide to save energy and cut carbon emissions, the International Energy Agency says. But the IEA has identified numerous barriers that prevent CHP from taking off, from outdated electricity regulations to financing difficulties. (Lenders ... (Read Full Article)