Avoiding tropical deforestation – or REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) in the parlance of the emerging policy dynamic – is the most mind twistingly complex endeavor in the carbon game. The fact is that REDD involves scientific uncertainties, technical challenges, heterogeneous non-contiguous asset classes, multi-decade performance guarantees, local land tenure issues, brutal potential [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi The Federal government is a mighty bureaucracy, so it’s impossible to keep track of all the parts. Still, few areas are as unknown by the general public as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The FERC (it’s always referrred to as “The FERC”) is responsible for interstate regulation of energy markets, [...]
By Ed Beardsworth Are we in just another cycle, where we charge ahead with renewables and care for the environment, but then forget all about it when oil prices drop? The saga is all too familiar, and cynics can’t be blamed for seeing deja-vu all over again. This time, however, it feels different. Reality seems [...]
This is my first time to drive on a race track and I’m wondering if these are my final moments on planet earth. Here at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca I take the Andretti Hairpin and learn to accelerate in successive turns. After accelerating uphill, I enter “The Corkscrew” where I cannot see the sharp [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi I don’t know if it’s a myth, but I’ve heard it said that a city’s suicide rates and average wind speeds are correlated. According to the claim, there may be something fundamental about human biology – perhaps within the inner ear – that makes windiness tend to drive people crazy. Whether [...]
All new industries seem to think they deserve a Moore’s Law. The photovoltaic solar really, really thinks it deserves one, since it kind of sort of looks like a semiconductor business: Photovoltaic Moore’s Law Will Make Solar Competitive by 2015, IEEE.org, Understanding Moore’s Law, DistributedEnergy.com, and Silicon Valley Starts to Turn Its Face to the [...]
I’ve been warning about a massive mispricing of risk in cleantech investing for years. Cleantech Venture Capitalists Beware – What You Don’t Know About Energy Can Kill You Beware the Allure of Ethanol Investing Is there a cleantech bubble? Experts don’t think so That certainly doesn’t mean that cleantech investing is bad. On the contrary, [...]
Last year I did my first “Power 10″ ranking for 2008 of cleantech companies, and the response was so good we’re doing it again. I spend most of my day meeting and talking to companies in the cleantech sector. And those of you who know me know I have opinions on who is doing it [...]
Today, Zenergy Power plc (AIM:ZEN), a company I am a cofounder of, announced that ConEd, one of thought leaders in the utility sector on transmission & distribution technology (conventional wisdom says they have to be, as given its tremendous load in a small area, the Manhattan grid is devilishly tricky to operate), has agreed to [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi as posted to Huffington Post Last week, I wrote a sizable check to the IRS. I wasn’t exactly happy about it, but I was happy for the fact that it stemmed from a nice payday in 2008 from one of my investments. Ah, the joys of capitalism, and the obligations of [...]
By David Niebauer In late March Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey released the first draft of a climate bill that presents three mechanisms designed to provide funding for reducing tropical deforestation: offsets, a supplemental pollution reduction program, and strategic reserve auctions. Full text of bill can be found at: The bill would permit 2 [...]
This seems like something out of a James Bond movie. There is a startup, Solaren, which is trying to build panels in space that converts sunlight into a radio frequency beam aimed at a receiving station near Fresno. The station then converts the radio waves into electricity. Megan Treacy at EcoGeek says: “If everything goes [...]
by Cristina Foung Last Saturday and Sunday, April 4th to 5th, about 50 motocross riders participated in the first 24 hour long endurance race….on electric motorcycles. The event, 24 Hours of Electricross, was hosted by Zero Motorcycles, the creators of the Zero X motorcycle, an off-road electric bike, and the soon-to-come Zero S street legal [...]
By John Addison. Intermodal solutions allow people to effectively navigate major cities such as New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Madrid, and Tokyo. Subway and light-rail are especially effective, but expensive to build. As cities grow, change, and morph, not every potential route can be served with subway and light-rail. Bus rapid transit is a cost [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi Over my spring break vacation, I had the pleasure of reading The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burroughs. It was one of those books I just couldn’t put down. The Big Rich profiles the saga of the so-called Big Four of the [...]
By John Addison. Toyota’s (TM) global market share leadership has been helped by the success of its hybrids. Looking to a future that will increasingly emphasize fuel economy and lower emissions, Toyota will put 500 plug-in hybrid Priuses on the road in 2009. Competition is just getting started in hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles. [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi One of the more contentious questions in the cleantech community is the role of coal in the energy sector of the future. There’s a lot of coal in the world — many decades of supply left — including here in the U.S. It’s pretty darned cheap to mine. So, it would [...]
The cleantech crunch is on. And a few juicy tidbits are coming to light. Optisolar – Crunched. Several 9 figures into it, what do we find? The only thing of real value are the development deals in a post subsidy boom year. Is it a “financial market” issue? Only if manufacturing and technology development are [...]
People and fleets that use vehicles with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per mile are rewarded with making our future a little better and with their fuel costs being much lower. The following cars, wagons, and SUVs have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per mile of any vehicles available for volume commercial sales in the [...]
by Heather Raefor cleantechblog.com The term came up over lunch. A group of home energy evaluators convened at King Eider’s pub in Damariscotta. That morning, we had completed filming of an energy evaluation with the film crew from Maine Public Broadcasting Network. We were talking about the future of the country and the economy and [...]
