Thank You For Smoking: Cigarette Smokers May Be The Key To Solving Global Warming

As it turns out, used cigarette butts can be converted into material used for energy storage. South Korean scientists say this material could one day be used to coat the electrodes of supercapacitors which would enhance energy storage for things like electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines.

“Our study has shown that used cigarette filters can be transformed into a high performing carbon-based material using a simple one step process, which simultaneously offers a green solution for meeting the energy demands of society,” Professor Jongheop Yi of Seoul National University said in a statement.…

World Bank: ‘One in seven people still live without electricity’ – 1.1 billion people

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/one-seven-people-still-live-without-electricity-world-073404900.html

India made significant advances, but progress in sub-Saharan Africa was far too slow, said a report tracking the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative, launched by the U.N. Secretary-General in 2011.
Almost no headway was made in switching people from biomass cooking fuels such as kerosene, wood and dung, the report added.
“We are heading in the right direction to end energy poverty, but we are still far from the finish line,” said Anita Marangoly George, a senior director for energy with the World Bank.
The report warned that traditional indicators can overestimate energy access because power supplies are limited or unreliable for many communities.
For example, new evidence showed that in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa, 90 percent of people are judged to have access to electricity because of widespread grid connections, but the streets are dark most nights and few households can use their electrical appliances.
Ben Garside, a senior researcher with the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said too much emphasis was placed on investing in large-scale energy projects that feed into national grids.
“The aim is to generate the maximum amount of megawatts, but that won’t address the access issue, which is in rural areas,” he said.
INVESTMENT TO MEET GOALS
The SE4ALL initiative has three goals, to be met by 2030: providing universal access to modern energy services, doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewables in the global energy mix.
The report said the share of renewable energy – including hydro, solar and wind – grew fast at 4 percent per year from 2010 to 2012. But the annual growth rate should speed up to around 7.5 percent to achieve the 2030 goal, it added.
Energy efficiency also improved, with energy intensity – global economic output divided by total energy consumption – dropping more than 1.7 percent a year, but that rate must also accelerate, the report said.
“We will need to work a lot harder especially to mobilise much larger investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency,” the World Bank’s Marangoly George said.
According to the World Bank and the International Energy Agency, which co-produced the report, annual global investments in energy would have to triple from around $400 billion now to as much as $1.2 trillion to meet the SE4ALL targets.
Of this, between $40 billion and $100 billion is …