Getting Started On Utility Scale Energy Storage
One of the issues concerning the rapid development of a renewable powered planet is the intermittency of energy that is generated by renewable sources - ie. the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. While carrying around your IPhone and and laptop the answer may seem obvious, batteries to store energy, on the scale that is needed to power the planet, batteries storage technology offers a whole host of interesting challenges and ideas... how's about stringing together billions of lithium ion batteries? Yeah, that's the basic idea. How are we going … More To Read...
Solar Powered South Beach Whole Foods
We all know that Whole Foods has always had a strong environmental ethic. In 2006 the company became the first Fortune 500 company to offset all of it's energy by purchasing wind power credits. As if that wasn't enough though, Whole Foods continues to lead the charge by installing solar PV systems at it's individual stores. Recently we were down in Florida and had the opportunity to visit the South Beach Whole Foods market which was in the process of installing a 25 kilowattt Solar PV system on the roof of their building, using 120 Evergreen panels and five 5 kilowatt … More To Read...
Replacing Petroleum With Third Generation Algae Biofuels
Back on January 15th we posted an article on Clean Coal and Fossil Fuel Phase Out, the purpose of which was to acknowledge and open the discussion on coal technologies. We like to try and keep our articles and commentary short enough for people to read in quick blurbs without getting the issues too confused. However in our complex world, rarely is anything so cut and dry simple. Yes we do need to aggressively plan for a fossil fuel phase out, but we also need to consider other technologies that may compliment or provide solutions for our current fossil fuel addiction. … More To Read...
Sarah Palin And Big Oil
This is scary. A mashup from Mox News - have to love their slogan "Unfair and Biased" - commenting on Sarah Palin questioning political donations by big oil companies to Obama. Mox puts Palin in her place by quoting the Wall Street Journal stats with the Republican Party taking in up and above 70% of all campaign contributions from the Oil and Gas Industry. McCain taking in $2.4 million and Obama only getting $800k. But the really scary part comes at the end with snippets from other Palin chat - basically admitting that she doesn't read newspapers or magazines, she is … More To Read...
Clean Coal And Fossil Fuel Phase Out
The past two weeks or so there seems to be some sort of a resurgence in “Clean Coal” talk – it’s not for any particular reason that I mention this other that I keep seeing commercials for America’s Power. A quasi-information junky, as I suspect most of us are, when I watch TV I have my laptop (actually, now my Ipad) within close reach – generally skeptical on the concept of clean coal I wanted to find out who these guys were. The Americas Power website is the home of The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity – in their own words: “The … More To Read...
Solar Power
Solar Powered South Beach Whole Foods
We all know that Whole Foods has always had a strong environmental ethic. In 2006 the company became the first Fortune 500 company to offset all of it’s energy by purchasing wind power credits. As if that wasn’t enough though, Whole Foods continues to lead the charge by installing solar PV systems at it’s individual [...]
Local Permitting Fees Hurting Solar Installations
Great article by Trevor Curwin over at CNBC. The costs imposed by local governments and municipalities associated with the installation of solar and other renewable energy power sources is an issue that really needs to be addressed. What’s nice to hear in this article is that installation cost is now averaging down to about $5.50 [...]
Why Big Solar Is Not Better Solar…
Below we’ve posted a great article we had emailed to us the other day written by Andrew Gilligan from Sol Systems, which was originally posted to Renewable Energy World – discussing the cost / benefits of Big versus Small Solar. We really appreciate this article and Andrew’s opinion / vision because this is actually a [...]
Wind Power News
Japan’s Wind Farms Hold Up Under Earthquake & Tsunami
he other day there was a great headline from Grist: Japan’s Wind Farms Save Its Ass While Nuclear Plants Founder. Making light of the Japanese crisis is one of those topics we’d almost like to stay away from, but this does provide us a real world example, that would be impossible to test in a [...]
Wind Turbines Close To Home
Summary: A big wind energy proposal near Lake Michigan is promising to pump more than a hundred million dollars into the economy over the next couple of decades. And supporters see wind as a good alternative to burning more fossil fuels such as coal. But, as Bob Allen reports, questions are being raised about possible [...]
US Wind Installation Down 50% In 2010
Despite the fact that we are rapidly approaching the second month of this new year, maybe we might be running out of time to keep posting end of 2010 “wrap ups”, but as long as we’re still finding them online, we’ll keep posting those that we think are relevant and / or helpful. The following [...]
AWEA Approves Higher Education Wind Programs
Interesting news story from Green Tech Media earlier today. Short version is that the American Wind Energy Association has granted the first three approvals for higher education technical training in the wind industry – aptly named the “Wind Turbine Service Technician Program Seal of Approval” – schools awarded were Oregon’s Columbia Gorge Community College, Iowa [...]
Electric & Plug In Hybrid News
Detroit Auto Show Goes Green With Inhabitat
Wow. Jill Fehrenbacher from Inhabitat over at the Detroit Auto Show – checking out the all electric Mercedes SLS AMG E-Cell, the new Ford Focus Electric, the Chevy Volt, and Porsche 918 electric hybrid. Probably the most interesting point made is when Bill Perkins (Co-Chair of the North American International Auto Show) states that about [...]
A Second Life For Batteries
I can’t really figure out why the title to this article has Better Place mentioned other than that it was written by Michal Wolkin the Global Head of Battery Technologies , Automotive Alliances at Better Place – ie. a really nice pitch and publish for Better Place, or maybe I’m just a little jaded and [...]
EV Charging Times Ford Focus VS Nissan Leaf
Understanding charging times and their effects on an electric vehicle… important topic and something we definitely need to be be more educated and aware of as the auto industry starts producing more EVs and PHEVs in the coming years. below is a very nice article that discusses the differences between the Ford Focus Electric vehicle [...]
Getaround Car Sharing Rental Program – Rent A Tesla
Please don’t ask how researching light detection and ranging (LIDAR) anemometer systems led me to discover this pretty cool concept company, Getaround – however, it’s not too hard to imagine that while reading about lasers and wind studies I might get easily sidetracked by any mention of being able to rent a Tesla. And that [...]