NewsTrust - Solar Energy - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Hermann Scheer (1944-2010): German Lawmaker, Leading Advocate for Social Energy and "Hero for the Green Century" in One of His Final Interviews

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Hermann Scheer, Amy Goodman - Oct. 15 (Interview) - Hermann Scheer, one of the world's leading advocates for solar power, has died at the age of sixty-six. The German economist and politician helped make Germany a renewable energy powerhouse and inspired many across the world to expand the use of solar power. Scheer had been member of the German parliament for three decades and was the president of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energy. In 1999, he won the Right Livelihood Award for his "indefatigable work for the promotion of solar energy worldwide." When he received the award, he described solar energy as the energy of the people. We met up with Herman Scheer last month in Bonn, Germany, for what turned out to be one of his final interviews.

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Henry Red Cloud of Oglala Lakota Tribe on Native American Anti-Nuclear Activism, Uranium Mining, and the Recession's Toll on Reservations

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Henry Red Cloud - Sep. 30 (Interview) - The Nuclear-Free Future Awards are being awarded tonight at New York's historic Cooper Union. The prize has been described as the most important anti-nuclear award in the world. We speak to one of this year's winners, Henry Red Cloud, the great-great grandson of Chief Red Cloud. Henry Red Cloud is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and founder of Lakota Solar Enterprises, one of the nation's first Native American-owned and -operated renewable energy companies.

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BP Oil Spill and the Way to a Green Energy Future

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Monique Harden, Michael Brune Amory Lovins - Jun. 16 (Interview) - AMORY LOVINS: the President made two very interesting shifts in language in his speech. One is from just oil to talking about ending the addiction to fossil fuels, so that refers also to coal and ultimately, indeed, to natural gas. And second, he started a very interesting exercise in consensus building, because he pointed out that this has cost—our dependence on fossil fuel has cost not only to our economy but also to our national security and our environment. And I think that starts a new conversation of a new kind in energy policy, because we’ve always supposed people had to want the same things we wanted in energy for the same reasons. So if you had different priorities than somebody else, you couldn’t agree on the outcome. What the President started to do here is to say, let’s focus on outcomes, not motives, and then we can build a strong consensus.

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U.S. Far Behind Global Solar Power Demand

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Transcript - Jun. 11 (Interview) - The Wall Street Transcript has RECENTLY published its Alternative Energy and Utilities Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This Special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

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Goodbye, bullet trains and windmills

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Michael Lind - Jun. 09 (Opinion) - Concrete’s liberal pedigree is as impeccable as asphalt’s. Along with their nostalgic fixation on rail, the obsession of many progressives with non-hydroelectric renewable energy sources like solar and wind power is a relatively recent deviation from the more sensible New Deal liberal tradition. In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt presided over the most massive hydroelectric power dam construction projects in the world at the time. At Roosevelt’s instigation the U.S. government literally invented nuclear power with the Manhattan Project. It was only in the 1970s, when romantic environmentalists rooted in the older liberal Republican subculture gained influence in the Democratic Party, that Democrats began to demonize the energy sources and transportation modes favored by New Deal liberalism: dams, nuclear power plants, highways and aviation.

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Energy Transitions Past and Future

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Oil Drum - By Cutler Cleveland - Jun. 07 (Opinion) - In the coming decades, world oil production will peak and then begin to decline, followed by natural gas and eventually coal production. There is considerable debate about when these peaks will occur because such information would greatly aid energy companies, policy makers, and the general public. But at another level, the timing of peak fossil fuel production doesn't really matter. A more fundamental issue is the magnitude and nature of the energy transition that will eventually occur.

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Making Solar Technology a Competitive Force in the U.S.

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

ClimateBiz - By Ben Holland - Jun. 01 (Opinion) - In an effort to reframe the renewable energy conversation in the U.S., many pundits have resorted to good old-fashioned competition. And who better to serve as antagonist? The one country that seems to make everything these days: China.

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Solar Industry Facing “Gross Oversupply”

Wed, 19 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

earth2tech.com - By Katie Fehrenbacher - May. 19 (Opinion) - What happens to an industry when the price of a core component suddenly drops, the credit crisis hits, countries get ready to cut important subsidies, and a new type of technology is disrupting the established players? Well, for the traditional solar industry that’s what happened in 2009. As a result, 2010 will be a year of “gross oversupply” of solar modules and significant “consolidation” according to a report from Pike Research. In other words traditional solar PV suppliers and manufacturers are facing yet another rough year in 2010.

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Google Plans New Solar Mirror Technology

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

alternative-energy-news.info - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Google's Bill Weihl expresses his opinion, We see a chance to make difference in the field of renewable energy and information that can help bring

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Climate Change Recalculated

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Long Now Foundation - By Stewart Brand, Saul Griffith - Jan. 16 (Speech) - Engineer Griffith said he was going to make the connection between personal actions and global climate change. To do that he’s been analyzing his own life in extreme detail to figure out exactly how much energy he uses and what changes might reduce the load. In 2007, when he started, he was consuming about 18,000 watts, like most Americans. The energy budget of the average person in the world is about 2,200 watts. Some 90 percent of the carbon dioxide overload in the atmosphere was put there by the US, USSR (of old), China, Germany, Japan, and Britain. The rich countries have the most work to do. What would it take to level off the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm)? That level supposedly would keep global warming just barely manageable at an increase of 2 degrees Celsius. There still would be massive loss of species, 100 million climate refugees, and other major stresses. The carbon dioxide level right now is 385 ppm, rising fast. Before industrialization it was 296 ppm. America’s leading climatologist, James Hanson, says we must lower the carbon dioxide level to 350 ppm if we want to keep the world we evolved in. The world currently runs on about 16 terawatts (trillion watts) of energy, most of it burning fossil fuels. To level off at 450 ppm of carbon dioxide, we will have to reduce the fossil fuel burning to 3 terawatts and produce all the rest with renewable energy, and we have to do it in 25 years or it’s too late. Currently about half a terrawatt comes from clean hydropower and one terrawatt from clean nuclear. That leaves 11.5 terawatts to generate from new clean sources.

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