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June 20, 2012
Three Lessons Learned on the Future of Smart Buildings from IBCON
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Last week I attended Realcomm’s first IBCON in Las Vegas. This gathering of real estate professionals, information technology and building efficiency vendors represented major stakeholders in the Smart Buildings market. The presentations and... [read more]
June 19, 2012
Enabling Business Energy Efficiency
Energy costs have steadily risen over the last decade and are expected to carry on doing so as consumption grows worldwide.Especially for businesses, the cost of energy is an increasingly significant issue. Indeed, a new analysis by Siemens... [read more]
June 19, 2012
The Land of the Rising Sun starts Worlds Most Ambitious Solar Program
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In the wake of Fukishima, Japan enacted a radical move: shutting down all of it's nuclear energy based facilities down. Whilst Japan's prime minister has recently ordered two nuclear reactors to be switched back online (amid concerns of power shortages this summer), it is also launching a very generous program to support the uptake of renewable energy. [read more]
My Turbine Blade Is Bigger Than Your Turbine Blade
There’s a my-turbine-blade-is-bigger-than-your-turbine-blade battle going on in the wind power industry.Siemens just showed off a 75-meter wind turbine blade, which doesn’t quite measure up to the 80-meter model Vestas had announced earlier. But... [read more]
Green Energy Playgrounds: The Future of Recess Is Here
Call it a green tech concept whose time has come. Every day, all across the developing world, green-minded parents fret over the amount of electricity their kids’ toys suck up, and every day, they nag their kids to get out from behind that bleeping... [read more]
EPA’s Costly, Unnecessary Soot Proposal
Photo by jlk.1 via Flickr
EPA continues to act tone deaf to the real-world needs of U.S. businesses and regular Americans. Its particle standards proposal issued this week is a good example of the kind of investment-squelching overregulation that ultimately could hurt the... [read more]
Take Me Out To The Utility-Scale Solar Farm
It won’t make up for the absence of injured slugging first baseman Ryan Howard, but the Philadelphia Phillies are acquiring some power.The Phillies are getting behind the effort to build Pennsylvania’s largest utility-scale solar farm, agreeing to buy 22 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) – 22,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) – of renewable... [read more]
Promoting Low-Carbon Innovation at Rio+20
As Rio+20 negotiators rush to complete a consolidated text of outcomes before heads of state begin arriving tomorrow, participants at hundreds of side events are calling on business and government to take stronger action on clean energy, poverty elimination, food security, oceans, sustainable cities, green technology development,... [read more]
Great data on on PV and falling energy demand in Australia
jaddingt/Shutterstock
Today see’s the release of yet another important and much needed set of up-to-date data and truth on PV and falling energy demand in Australia.The REC Agents Association commissioned Green Energy Markets to produce an analysis and update on what’s been going on in our electricity market and the roles of PV and Energy Efficiency... [read more]
No easy answers at SONGS - Update
Esteban De Armas/Shutterstock
Faulty computer analysis, design flaws, and manufacturing changes are among the reasons there is excessive tube wear in the steam generator at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Unit 3 California Song BirdIn a presentation at an NRC public meeting held in San Juan Capistrano, CA, on Monday June 18, Southern California Edison VP for... [read more]
Lowballing Carbon Dioxide Emissions Projections: IEA Edition
The International Energy Agency has released a new analysis that helps to demonstrate the systemic failure of policy analyses focused on carbon dioxide emissions reductions.In the new report the IEA projects that by 2030 the world will be emitting about 45 Gt (gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide. Yet, in 2008, just 4 years ago the IEA was... [read more]
Fossil-Fuel Subsidies: Why We Crunched The Numbers
Irena Misevic/Shutterstock
Something crucial was missing from the first-ever global inventory of tax breaks for oil companies and other fossil-fuel subsidies when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released it last fall. The report detailed all the subtle and not-so-subtle supports for production and consumption of oil,... [read more]
Clean Energy Trends on Twitter
As the world converges in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest sustainability conference of the year, the Rio+20, twitter activity is booming. One of the most popular hashtags today was #endfossilfuelsubsidies, which aims to end subsidies for fossil fuel energy. A sustainable future must hinge on alternative energy, such as solar and wind... [read more]
International Energy Agency: Double Current Pace of Clean Energy Development
Climate-change skeptics like to call environmentalists “alarmists” because of their call for urgent action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The skeptics say the science is too uncertain, that there’s no rush to act, and those who argue otherwise are sanctimonious lefties out of touch with reality.For them it’s drill baby, drill.It’s a... [read more]
Simulating the Sun – Using Analytics to Expand Solar Markets
YAKOBCHUK VASYL/Shutterstock
Installations of solar systems that generate electricity are coming down in price due to materials innovations and manufacturing efficiencies. But it’s been a challenge to wring costs from the part of the value chain that is focused on business origination – identifying and marketing to qualified opportunities, conducting site... [read more]
Mobilizing Information and Communications Technology in Rio
tommistock/Shutterstock
One of the centerpieces of this month’s Rio+20 summit is an important initiative called Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All). C2ES is pleased to be contributing to this initiative as a founding member of a new global partnership aimed at improving energy efficiency and curbing greenhouse gas emissions through the use of information... [read more]
The Work to Further Clean Energy Innovation Continues
This was Arun Majumdar’s last week as director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). His leadership will be missed, but he leaves the agency in great shape and also left clean energy stakeholders with some final thoughts via an insightful phone interview with The New York Times.Majumdar starts by counseling patience... [read more]
Politics and The Global Cleantech Shakeout
For all the enthusiastic comparisons of the cleantech sector to infotech or microelectronics that we've encountered in the last decade, one rarely employed analogy is turning out to be more apt than the rest: Cleantech seems just as capable as dot-coms and chip makers of undergoing an industry shakeout and consolidation at the same time... [read more]
A Prelude to Rio: Mexico Takes a Stand to Protect Irreplaceable Coral Reef
NRDC has been calling for the Rio+20 Earth Summit to be a different type of international meeting – one where our world leaders act, and not just talk. On Friday, Mexican president Calderón set the stage for Rio with the rejection of a controversial and destructive tourism development project on the Baja California coast. This is... [read more]
Has the fuel-cell industry reached a tipping point?
There was a shareholder who stood up at Ballard Power’s annual meeting last week to share her experience with the company’s stock price. It pretty much summed up the frustration shared by most investors in the fuel-cell industry.This investor has owned Ballard shares for most of 20 years. She sold in early 2000 when the stock hit $140 a... [read more]
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Enabling Business Energy Efficiency
Posted June 19, 2012 by Roland W. Chalons-Browne
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Baby You Can Drive My (Electric) Car
Posted May 11, 2012 by Scott Edward Anderson
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Siemens develops ABS plastic alternative
Posted May 9, 2012 by Doris de Guzman
The moderated community for energy, policy, and environment professionals
What's New on
Scott Edward Anderson is a consultant, blogger, and media commentator who blogs at The Green Skeptic. More »
Marc Gunther is a writer, speaker and consultant, who focuses on business and the environment. More »
Christine Hertzog is a consultant, author, and a professional explainer focused on Smart Grid. More »
Jesse Jenkins is the director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute. More »
Robert Rapier works in the energy industry and writes and speaks about energy and the environment. More »
Geoffrey Styles is Managing Director of GSW Strategy Group, LLC and an award-winning blogger. More »
Dan Yurman is a nuclear energy blogger and writes regularly for Fuel Cycle Week. More »
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9th Renewable Energy Finance Forum - Wall Street
When: Wed, 2012-06-20 05:25
Cost-Saving Energy Efficiencies Conference
When: Wed, 2012-06-20 08:30
Drive Trains of Wind Turbines
When: Wed, 2012-06-20 09:30
Global E&P Data and Knowledge Management 2012 Praxis Interactive Technology Workshop
When: Mon, 2012-06-25 08:30
Grid-Scale Energy Storage
When: Mon, 2012-06-25 09:00
Global PongamiaWorld 2012
When: Mon, 2012-06-25 09:44
“I hope Mr Hamilton is right. Fuel cell companies have predicted profitability before and have failed to deliver. For the longest time fuel cell companies fortunes waxed and waned based on how much federal support was available. I say this from experience having watched the field since the early 1970's. What is most exciting to me in Mr Hamilton's post is that fuel cell companies now seem to ...”
“ I've always had a love/hate relationship with diesel engines. I like the efficiency but hate the noise and especially the exhaust emissions. Before retiring I used to ride my bike to work and would hate to get behind a vehicle with a diesel engine knowing the long term damage it could do to my health. Pickup trucks or buses were especially bad because the tail pipe was only a foot or two ...”