Tech

power of the Web

The internet cannot climb onto your roof to install a solar panel. But there is a movement afoot where social media, IT, big data and mobile communications could upend how we use limited resources in the future.[read more]

renewable energy/shutterstock

Renewable energy is ideologically very attractive. But such ideological perfection can easily switch off the critical thinking of environmentally-conscious individuals and this is exactly what we are seeing at the moment.[read more]

new AES energy storage

AES’s new software platform isn’t the first to address the energy storage and energy markets nexus. Projects around the globe are testing value propositions to be derived from storage, as stand-alone or linked to renewable power.[read more]

new energy efficient glass

China’s building sector accounts for more than 25 percent of China’s energy use. Improving the efficiency of its buildings, new and old, is a key part of China’s strategy to reduce energy demand.[read more]

Philly's Naval Shipyard/wikimedia commons

Philadelphia's new GridSTAR Center will serve as a "hub for workforce training, building performance testing, energy management research and ‘smart’ microgrid modernization deployments.”[read more]

Solar Energy Industries Association

There is clear evidence that disputes within one segment of the industry affect the entire solar supply chain. What’s more, they cause a ripple effect throughout the economies of the United States, Asia and Europe.[read more]

algae biofuel R&D

ExxonMobil has been quietly researching algae biofuel in partnership with California-based Synthetic Genomics Inc. for the past four years, and it just announced a new co-funding agreement last week.[read more]

German solar production

This idea, that you build wind farms where it is windy and solar panels where it is sunny is a curiously controversial one. Some would even lobby accusations of you being “anti-renewables” if you put it forward.[read more]

reducing wireless energy demand

The GreenTouch consortium outlines energy efficiency measures that could reduce the net energy consumption of global data and communications networks up to 90% by 2020, compared to 2010 levels.[read more]

buildings and the smart grid/shutterstock

The Smart Grid will transform roles from consumption to prosumption – producing electricity as well as consuming it. One of the most prominent enablers to engage as prosumers are the buildings where we live and work.[read more]

 

nuclear energy back on track?

 

Reconstructing nuclear confidence in a post-Fukushima world is a long and painful process. Russian experience in this field can offer some interesting solutions to decision-makers.[read more]

energy choices/shutterstock

It’s time we stopped wasting time with brain dead energy saving mantras and got on with the real task of building a clean energy infrastructure so we can use far, far more electricity.[read more]

energy innovation inspiration?/shutterstock

The idea of an “artificial leaf” sounds simple enough: Take a small, cheap, light-collecting device the size of a typical leaf, dunk it in a quart of water, and use solar energy to generate enough hydrogen gas for powering a small fuel cell.[read more]

coal-fired plants

Now, the inexorable growth of coal in China in the last decade is often news even to people who make some kind of living writing about energy, but could it possibly be slowing down? And could wind be growing faster than coal?[read more]

climate change future?

Terrorism seems to be the only actionable trigger in our leaders' minds. Perhaps we need to brand Mother Nature a terrorist to provoke action on climate change?[read more]