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Trans-US solar plane sets off again

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Jun. 03 (News Report) - A solar powered plane aiming to cross the US from the West Coast to the East Coast begins its third leg, flying from Dallas, Texas, to St Louis, Missouri.

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Renewable energy is clean, cheap and here – what's stopping us? | Ashley Seager

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Ashley Seager - Jun. 01 (News Report) - Energies such as solar and wind have seen dramatic price falls. The revolution in non-grid energy should be embraced by the UK The report from the Committee on Climate Change arguing that investing in renewable energy would eventually save consumers a lot of money is spot on. We are regularly told by conventional utility companies, many politicians and commentators that energies such as solar and wind are hopelessly expensive and reliant on enormous subsidy. But this is simply wrong. Renewables have seen such dramatic price falls in the past few years that they are threatening to upset the world as we know it and usher in an almost unprecedented boom in the spread of cheap, clean, home-produced energy. Solar will be the cheapest form of power in many countries within just a few years. In places such as California and Italy it has already reached so-called "grid parity". Onshore wind, on a piece of land not constrained by years of planning delays, is already the cheapest form of energy ...

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Solar Industry Anxious Over Defective Panels

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By TODD WOODY - May. 29 (News Report) - Solar Industry Anxious Over Defective Panels

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Merkel cools EU-China trade war talk

Mon, 27 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - May. 27 (News Report) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she wants to reach an agreement with China over import tariffs and avoid triggering a damaging trade war.

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Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Energy Is Putting Power Back in the Hands of the People

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Heeten Kalan - May. 23 (Interview) - Danny Kennedy, Greenpeace activist, Project Underground founder and long-time campaigner, decided to apply his organizing skills to harness the sun’s energy. Choosing to do something about our energy crisis and climate change, he founded Sungevity with a small group of trusted friends in 2007. Now, Sungevity is one the world’s leading residential solar-energy companies and is the exclusive residential solar partner for Lowe’s.

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Solar plane sets off again across US

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - May. 22 (News Report) - The Solar Impulse plane, which holds records including the longest manned zero-fuel flight, sets of for the second leg of a bid to cross the US.

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Patent filing claims solar energy 'Breakthrough'

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Greg Gordon - May. 10 (News Report) - WASHINGTON — In a U.S. patent application, a little-known Maryland inventor claims a stunning solar energy breakthrough that promises to end the planet’s reliance on fossil fuels at a fraction of the current cost – a transformation that also could blunt global warming.

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Does Shale Gas Production Alter Climate Change?

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Forbes - By Ken Silverstein, Contributor - May. 05 (Opinion) - The shale gas industry has long thought that the Environmental Protection Agency may undercut its possibilities. But the regulator’s latest unveiling is now fueling the unconventional natural gas, noting that its heat-trapping emissions are much less than originally thought.

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Germany Doesn't Get Much Sun. How Did It Become a Leader in Solar Energy?

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Andrew Curry - Apr. 02 (Special Report) - This story first appeared in Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It's been a long, dark winter in Germany. In fact, there hasn't been this little sun since people started tracking such things back in the early 1950s. Easter is around the corner, and the streets of Berlin are still covered in ice and snow. But spring will come, and when the snow finally melts, it will reveal the glossy black sheen of photovoltaic solar panels glinting from the North Sea to the Bavarian Alps. Solar panels line Germany's residential rooftops and top its low-slung barns. They sprout in orderly rows along train tracks and cover hills of coal mine tailings in what used to be East Germany. Old Soviet military bases, too polluted to use for anything else, have been turned into solar installations. Continue Reading ...

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The Coming Crash: Our Addiction to Endless Growth on a Finite Planet [With Photo Slideshow]

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Tara Lohan - Mar. 30 (Review) - If you want to understand how much energy costs, don't look at your electric bill; instead get a copy of the new book Energy: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth. This massive coffeetable book contains hundreds of arresting images showing the effects of our energy choices, including oil spills, nuclear accidents, massive solar arrays, tar sands mines, fracking operations, transmission lines, and more. The photos are complemented by essays from leading writers like Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, Sandra Steingraber, Douglas Tompkins, Bill McKibben, Lester Brown and many others, which put into context our growing energy problems and what we can do about them.

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Solar-powered mobile health centre rolls into Cape Town

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By David Smith - Mar. 15 (News Report) - A solar truck equipped with remarkable range of facilities could revolutionise healthcare in rural parts of sub-Saharan Africa. At the back of the truck is a small soundproof booth with a chair, light and pair of headphones. Outside the door sits a "screening memory audiometer" with a laptop and printer. This is an ear clinic on wheels, designed to reach the far-flung corners of Africa. "Before they go to school, children are tested so we know their specific needs," says Kea' Modimoeng, of Samsung, unveiling the $250,000 (£168,000) vehicle in Cape Town, South Africa, this week.

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Jobs report: the energy connection to growth

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - Mar. 09 (News Analysis) - Growth in the energy sector is one of many factors contributing to a healthy jobs report. Unconventional oil and gas production have created more than 1 million jobs with 800,000 more expected by 2015. ...

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Hydrogen's energy promise improves

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - Mar. 01 (News Report) - Hydrogen produced from renewable resources is a promising source of clean energy, but the gas is difficult to handle and transport.

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Colourful 'solar glass' means entire buildings can generate clean power

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Adam Vaughan - Feb. 12 (News Report) - A solar power company capable of "printing" colourful glass that can generate electricity from the sun's energy announced a £2m funding boost on Tuesday . Oxford Photovoltaics , a spin-off from the University of Oxford, said the investment from clean-tech investors MTI Partners will help its solar glass, which can be dyed almost any colour, take a step closer to the commercial market. "What we say here is rather than attach [solar] photovoltaics to the building, why not make the building the photovoltaics?" Kevin Arthur, the company's founder and CEO, told the Guardian. "If you decide to build a building out of glass, then you've already decided to pay for the glass. If you add this, you're adding a very small extra cost. [The solar cell treatment] costs no more than 10% of the cost of the facade." These generally cost between £600 and £1,000 per square metre, meaning the new ...

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U.S. military gets serious about microgrids … which is more exciting than it sounds

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Grist - By David Roberts - Jan. 18 (Special Report) - The Department of Defense has bases in the U.S. and forward operating bases in theaters of war like Afghanistan. In both cases, providing reliable electricity, a strategic and tactical necessity for an increasingly wired military, is a challenge. One way

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Solar Industry Borrows a Page, and a Party, From Tupperware

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Diane Cardwell - Dec. 01 (News) - Solar parties, like Tupperware parties, are being used by solar companies to sell their products to neighbors of homeowners who have installed the arrays.

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Won Direction

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Bill Maher - Nov. 21 (Comedy News) - New Rule: Now that he's been reelected, President Obama must get back at all those right wing hacks who tried to paint him as an angry black man pushing a liberal agenda by becoming an angry black man who's pushing a liberal agenda.

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Indian blackout held no fear for small hamlet where the power stayed on

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Helen Pidd - Sep. 10 (Special Report) - In rural Rajasthan, Gram Power's solar-powered microgrid kept the lights working and the buttermilk churning.

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Pictures: 10 High-Tech, Green City Solutions for Beating the Heat

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

National Geographic - By Wong Maye-E - Jul. 26 (Special Report) - The centerpiece of Gardens by the Bay is a glass atrium that houses approximately 220,000 types of vegetation, or 80 percent of the world’s plant species, according to Singapore's National Parks Board. Outside the menagerie of plants is a grove of 18 “su

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Green Blog: A Hybrid Approach to Solar Power

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Matthew L. Wald - Jun. 22 (Opinion) - When photovoltaic cells make electricity from sunlight, they collect a lot of heat along the way. And they don’t work as well warm as they do cold.

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Romney’s Solar Flareout

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Robert Farley - Jun. 02 (Fact Check) - An ad from the Romney campaign strains facts to make its point that federal grants and loans to green-energy companies were improperly steered to Obama's political backers, and that federal money was wasted on failing companies that are now laying off employees.

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Romney misses a mark on Solyndra claim

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Matthew Daly - Jun. 02 (Fact Check) - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has revived charges about the failed solar company Solyndra as he assails President Barack Obama' green energy policy. But he didn't get the story completely straight when he accused the administration of favoring "cronies." Solyndra, the first renewable energy company to receive a federal loan under the 2009 stimulus law, went bankrupt last year and laid off its 1,100 workers, leaving taxpayers on the hook for more than $500 million.

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Around the World on Solar Power

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By BETTINA WASSENER - May. 03 (News Report) - Turanor PlanetSolar is expected to dock on Friday in Monaco, ending its 19-month journey.

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New solar cells are more efficient

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Photonics Spectra - By Laura Marshall - Apr. 17 (News Report) - The new hybrid cell absorbs red as well as blue light to boost the electrical current. A typical solar cell generates a single electron for each photon captured. But by adding the organic semiconductor pentacene, the solar cells can generate two electrons for every photon from the blue light spectrum. This could enable the cells to capture 44 percent of the incoming solar energy.

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Renewables Are a Reality: How We Can Ditch Fossil Fuels Without Any Help From Congress

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Fen Montaigne - Feb. 21 (Special Report) - In an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, Lovins discusses how business and society can pull off this transformation even if the U.S. Congress keeps failing to act, why climate change need not even enter the discussion, and why the oil industry will ultimately forego fossil fuels and jump aboard the green bandwagon. “One system is dying and others are struggling to be born,” says Lovins. “It’s a very exciting time.”

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