Posts Tagged ‘Renewable Energy’

Data Highlights on Solar Energy

March 11th, 2010
Posted by: earthpolicy

Concerns about global warming, rising fossil fuel prices, and oil insecurity have prompted calls for a new energy economy, one that replaces fossil fuels with renewables. The sun is an enormous reservoir of energy; in fact, the sunlight reaching Earth in just one hour is enough to power the global economy for a whole year. [...]


On Rooftops Worldwide, a Solar Water Heating Revolution

March 9th, 2010
Posted by: earthpolicy

By Lester R. Brown
The harnessing of solar energy is expanding on every front as concerns about climate change and energy security escalate, as government incentives for harnessing solar energy expand, and as these costs decline while those of fossil fuels rise. One solar technology that is really beginning to take off is the use of [...]


Coal-Fired Power On the Way Out?

February 24th, 2010
Posted by: earthpolicy

By Lester R. Brown
The past two years have witnessed the emergence of a powerful movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States. Initially led by environmental groups, both national and local, it has since been joined by prominent national political leaders and many state governors. The principal reason for opposing [...]


Smarter Grids, Appliances, and Consumers

February 17th, 2010
Posted by: earthpolicy

By Lester R. Brown
More and more utilities are beginning to realize that building large power plants just to handle peak daily and seasonal demand is a very costly way of managing an electricity system. Existing electricity grids are typically a patchwork of local grids that are simultaneously inefficient, wasteful, and dysfunctional in that they often [...]


El Niño and Wind Power Potential

February 8th, 2010
Posted by: Cynthia

Later this week I’m going to post a blog that goes over the basics of El Niño. In the meantime here is an interesting link about El Niño and how it affects wind speed.
3TIER has released maps indicating how wind speeds in the US have changed in the last three months due to the influence [...]


Technology, unsustainability, and the 99 cents burger.

January 25th, 2010
Posted by: robertri

Lynn White Jr., in “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” wrote, in 1967, “More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one.”   Much of modern Christianity teaches that the earth was created for people to [...]


Stabilizing Climate: Beyond International Agreements

December 21st, 2009
Posted by: earthpolicy

Lester R. Brown
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2009/pb4ch0_pref
Note: the following was written in July 2009, before the Copenhagen climate change conference.
From my pre-Copenhagen vantage point, internationally negotiated climate agreements are fast becoming obsolete for two reasons. First, since no government wants to concede too much compared with other governments, the negotiated goals for cutting carbon emissions will almost certainly [...]


Cisco cuts net 40% greenhouse gas emissions

December 9th, 2009
Posted by: envirothink

In several previous posts I’ve poked at corporations that boasted cuts in their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when they’ve been only around 2 to 5 percent. This time, however, one company has cuts that are substantial.
Cisco Systems has succeeded in cutting their net emissions by 40 percent, compared against 2007. These figures include  what’s termed Scope 1 direct emissions from Cisco-owned [...]


Add salt to solar for light when the sun goes down

November 9th, 2009
Posted by: envirothink

One of the toughest nuts to crack for renewable energy has been the inability of producing light from solar when the sun goes down. Solar Reserve, a Santa Monica, California company, may have solved this conundrum.
The key is salt.
Solar Reserve has filed an application with California regulators to build a 150-megawatt solar [...]


Suzlon completes Silver Sage windpower project

November 5th, 2009
Posted by: grmeyers

Press Release: 5 November 09
Chicago: Suzlon Wind Energy Corp., the North American subsidiary of Suzlon Energy Limited (SEL), announced the early completion of the Silver Sage Windpower Project, a Duke Energy wind farm in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that is comprised of 20 Suzlon S88-2.1 megawatt wind turbines.
The Silver Sage Wind Farm began operating in early October.  [...]