China to Develop New Energy Source – Combustible Ice
March 9, 2010Leave a Comment
ENN – China’s western Qinghai Province, containing major deposits of the country’s “combustible ice,” will see increased explorations for this emerging clean energy, Provincial Governor Luo Huining said on Saturday.
The plateau province plans to allow large energy companies along with researchers to tap this new source of energy while minimizing [...]
Electricity From All Kinds Of Renewable Sources
March 9, 2010Leave a Comment
Distributed energy through small power plants, is the EC solution.
2,000 Windmills for Sweden
March 9, 2010Leave a Comment
Sweden plans to build 2,000 wind turbines by 2020
Sweden is planning to build 2,000 new wind turbines in the next 10 years to expand its total power production by 25 terrawatt hours from alternative energy sources.
The increase is equivalent to about half of the power [...]
BrightSource Energy’s $1.4B Loan for Solar Thermal
March 9, 2010Leave a Comment
BrightSource Energy gets $1.4 billion loan for the world’s largest solar thermal project
Eco Factor: Solar thermal plant to generate 400MW of renewable electric power.
After being forced to scale down its solar thermal plant plans significantly [...]
Johnson Controls Predicts Upturn In Efficiency Segment
March 8, 2010Leave a Comment
Green Building Block
Last Friday, Johnson Controls reported FQ1/10 financial results. While we don’t formally cover Johnson Controls, the company’s results and management’s outlook are of particular interest to us given the firm’s leadership position in the building efficiency market. In our view, here are the key take-aways from the earnings report:
Result
Fiscal first quarter (ended [...]
The Green Spider Sparks Interest
March 8, 2010Leave a Comment
The Green Spider is the Latest Innovation in Energy Efficient Lighting
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.– In today’s economy where many businesses are looking to save money and operate in environmentally friendly ways, a new product promises to achieve both in a place few consider: the parking lot.
A new, first-of-its-kind energy-efficient lighting system called The Green Spider launched this [...]
Utilities: the Sound of One Hand Clapping
February 23, 2010Leave a Comment
The way utilities are forced to make decisions about capacity is like The Pottery Barn making daily staffing and inventory decisions based on the busiest shopping day of the year.
How much easier for retail if customers spread themselves evenly throughout the year. It’s the sound of one hand–the utilities–making decisions without any control over when [...]
Driving Down Solar Costs with Beans and Cotton
February 23, 2010Leave a Comment
BioSolar has a new idea for making solar even more sustainable: Make the back sheets, that support silicon solar cells, from organic materials.
Economical
As David Lee, PhD, President and CEO of BioSolar said, their mission is to make solar energy truly sustainable.
“We cannot depend on government incentives for ever,” he said. “We need to make solar [...]
Fast Chargers
January 28, 2010Leave a Comment
Ioxus, a US firm, is beating ultracapacitors made in Asia, and using them for much larger applications than digital cameras and Blackberries.
Ioxus is helping power cars, diesels and locomotives, along with finding smarter ways to make small devices smaller.
Fitting between batteries and traditional capacitors, ultracapacitors have features of both. As Chad Hall, COO of Ioxus [...]
Integrating Renewables Into The Grid
January 26, 2010Leave a Comment
FERC seeks to break down barriers to the integration of renewable energy resources
Although there is tremendous excitement about renewable energy, to an existing grid, new sources of energy can be difficult to manage and integrate. Variable energy resources (VERs to the transmission grid operators) have experienced some bumps on the road to integration. As the [...]