By Neal Dikeman I had a chance to chat today with Dr. Charlie Gay, the President of Applied Material’s solar division. You may recall, we broke the story in the blogosphere 5 years ago about Applied’s entry into solar, which was anchored with a highly touted and very aggressive strategy for turnkey large format amorphous [...]
China leads the world with over 100 million riding e-scooters, e-bikes, and light-electric vehicles. By December 2015, China plans to have 500,000 electric vehicles that can travel slow streets to fast highways. Those EV will be supported with 220,000 charge points and 2,351 battery swap stations in the nation’s latest plans. China’s 12th Five Year [...]
I had a chance to meet Peter Fox-Penner, the Chairman Emeritus of the Brattle Group the other day, when he was announcing the launch of his new book, Smart Power. Brattle Group is a long time economic consulting group to the power industry. Smart Power is about the emergence and issues around the smart grid. [...]
This week I’m going to break one of my self-imposed ‘blog’ rules and dip into last week’s news. My reasoning will become clear. On Thursday I attended Envirolink North West’s Developing New Technologies for off Shore Wind event at the Met in Leeds. Apart from gaining a new respect for gearboxes (not to mention the [...]
Comments by Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, were a highlight of my fascinating introduction to RPAG – Renewable Power at Scale, this week. With 206 GW of offshore renewable energy potential (wind and marine), despite it’s small size, Scotland has 25% of Europe’s wind power potential and 25% of its tidal resource potential. Keep in [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi In recent years, there’s been a major push for renewable fuels — to reduce our needs for petroleum, as well as to reduce the carbon footprint associated with burning petroleum-based fuels. The common thread of all of these renewable fuels has been the use of some sort of carbonaceous feedstock — [...]
‘Any plan to switch from gasoline to electricity or biofuels is a strategic decision to switch our dependence from foreign oil to domestic water’. So says Dr. Michael Webber of the University of Texas at Austin in an interview with Steven Lacey on the Inside Renewable Energy Podcast this week. Webber comments on the links [...]
There is a growing awareness that there are two convergent crises facing the world: Energy and Water. Scientific Amercican just launced a dedicated environmental publication this month, Earth 3.0 and the cover story? … ‘Energy Vs Water’. The article explores the dichotomy between the fact that we need energy to produce water and we need [...]
Oil prices quietly (at least in the cleantech world), slipped below $80 last week, off some 50% from its highs a few months ago. Did I say 50%? Yes 50%. And gas has slipped, too, as with some variations, natural gas historically trades at a roughly 10:1 price ratio of Barrels to MCF. It’s easy [...]
by Marguerite Manteau-Rao Mark Jakobson, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Stanford University, performed a thorough evaluation of energy solutions to global warming, as applied to alternative vehicle technologies. His answers may surprise you. Pr. Jakobson looked at the following energy sources: wind turbines battery electric vehicles solar photovoltaics hydrogen fuel cell vehicles geothermal [...]
Those of you that know me know that fighting climate change is an issue near and dear to my heart – and day to day life, since I am currently involved with a start up working on helping to deliver even better transparency and environmental integrity to carbon credits. So as a small government, energy [...]
John McCain picked first term Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his veep choice today. I love this pick. She’s a 44 yer old first term, youngest and first, woman Governor of Alaska. She’s known as a maverick and anti-establishment in Alaska, and has taken on Republicans and the oil industry over ethics and pork. [...]
In his speech in Constitution Hall this week, former Vice President and renewable energy investor Al Gore extolled a stretch goal challenging America to achieve 100% renewable power within 10 years. The quote: “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources [...]
Author: Mark Henwood Broad market indices (Emerging Markets, EAFA, S&P500) all fell this week. Camino’s PurePlay™ indices were mixed, commodities (ticker DJP) rose strongly. The PurePlay™ Solar index, comprised of 34 companies, reversed last week’s 2.0% loss with a 0.9% gain. The index members were mixed with 13 stocks increasing and 21 stocks declining. In [...]
Cleantech Blog had a conversation last year with Stuart Hemphill, now the newly appointed Vice President for Renewables and Alternative Energy at Southern California Edison, a subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE:EIX), one of the largest purchasers of renewable power in the US. We caught up with him again today in a lively discussion around his [...]
I have long had a respect for GE (NYSE:GE), and how it runs its business. In cleantech, I am very, very jealous. They have made themselves into the company to beat. Whether by plan, luck, or simply applying sound business discipline, GE has made itself into a top 3 global cleantech player no matter happens. [...]
by Frank Ling Sulfur Batteries The EPA has banned sulfur in gasoline but not in batteries. Sulfur, in the form of a sodium salt, has been used as large-scale storage systems. Pioneered in Japan, these batteries are gaining acceptance in the US as a reliable form of energy storage. Due to the intermittent nature of [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi Over the weekend, Virgin Atlantic Airways flew a passenger-less Boeing 747-400 partially fueled by a biofuel mixture of coconut oil and babassu oil from London’s Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. (Read USA Today story.) The test flight, performed to evaluate comparative engine performance and emissions rates with standard jet fuel [...]
