doe posts, articles, and infographics

Innovation vs. Invention: NAATBatt White Paper Asks for Support of Distributed Energy Storage

February 25, 2012 by James Greenberger
with 660 views

Photo by uhuru1701 via Flickr

As a recent corporate advertising campaign (by Dow Chemical) points out, there is a difference between invention and innovation. Getting the balance right between the two is a tricky thing. DOE support for new invention is important. Developing new technologies that might reduce the cost of high power advanced batteries from $750 per kilowatt hour to $100 per kilowatt hour, for example, would be helpful and potentially transformative in some storage applications (such as automotive). But it would be a serious mistake to believe that what is needed to solve the problem of bringing electricity storage to the grid is a new invention. In fact, the problem and its solutions are substantially more mundane. [read more]

EDF’s Utility Proposal Could Scale Up Distributed Solar, EE

January 20, 2012 by Jim Pierobon
with 226 views

The California Public Utility Commission is accepting comments through January 25 and holding workshops February 8-10 on a proposal by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to create the nation’s first statewide on-bill repayment (OBR) program for energy efficiency and solar energy upgrades to be financed entirely by third parties. The on-... [read more]

Regional Transmission Efforts Good for Re-routing Information Flows to Regulators

January 18, 2012 by Michael Giberson
with 127 views

Peter Behr, at ClimateWire, describes the U.S. Department of Energy’s efforts to rework its electric transmission study processes, created in the 2005 Energy Policy Act but stalled by adverse court decisions and political missteps. I’m not so sure that the new approaches will be any better received than the old, but I noticed in the... [read more]

Petroleum Prices Set Records in 2011

January 11, 2012 by Geoffrey Styles
with 289 views

Without much fanfare, the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy released a report on 2011 energy commodity prices yesterday. It confirmed that crude oil and key petroleum products set annually averaged price records last year. This largely snuck up on us, because it occurred without the kind of dramatic price spike we experienced in 2008 or in the oil crises of the 1970s. Prices rose early in the year, during the Libyan revolution, and they didn't fall much, subsequently. [read more]

5 Things US Congressional Representatives Need to Hear About the Smart Grid

December 28, 2011 by Christine Hertzog
with 205 views

As the US Congressional representatives head home to their respective districts, some of which defy all logic in terms of that contortionist geography called gerrymandering, it’s a perfect opportunity to attend their town hall meetings to offer advice in support of Smart Grid initiatives. Support a national energy policy... [read more]

Decades of Government Funding Behind Shale Revolution

December 21, 2011 by Michael Shellenberger
with 446 views

The technological revolution allowing for the cheap extraction of natural gas from shale occurred thanks to more than three decades of government subsidies for research, demonstration, and production, a new Breakthrough Institute investigation finds. Both directly and indirectly, the government was behind the critical moments and tools... [read more]

Appropriations Bill Amendment Attempts To Derail Efficient Lighting

December 21, 2011 by Steve Nadel
with 221 views

It is unfortunate that some members of Congress have inserted a provision in the federal appropriations bill seeking to derail implementation of lighting efficiency standards enacted in 2007 and signed by then-President Bush. Contrary to misinformation being spread by some lamp standard opponents, the standards do not ban incandescent lamps, but merely require incandescent lamps to be more efficient. [read more]

Why Some Republicans are Delusional About Oil & Energy Policy

December 12, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 364 views

Two Sides of a Coin In a recent video blog about energy politics, I stated that in my opinion each of the major political parties in the U.S. only gets half of the energy picture. Democrats tend to demonize oil usage, with many believing that we can shift to renewables for our energy needs. To be clear, we can — but not in the way they... [read more]

How Many More Solyndras?

November 2, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 204 views

Another firm that received a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy has just filed for bankruptcy. Beacon Power had drawn down $39.1 million of the $43 million authorized by the DOE for the construction of its 20 MW energy storage facility in Stephenstown, NY, but was still operating at a loss and unable to find additional backing... [read more]

CNN: Government to Thank for Technologies We Can't Live Without

October 26, 2011 by Breakthrough Institute
with 362 views

With the backdrop of solar company Solyndra's bankruptcy, the media has been running an endless stream of stories and op-eds seeking to discredit government investment in technology. CCNMoney, in an encouraging contrast, today published a blog post called "7 great government-backed inventions." From their story: It's under fire for... [read more]

More Lessons from Solyndra

October 15, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 448 views

I'll bet that those working and investing in renewable energy are even more tired of the steady stream of headlines from the unraveling Solyndra mess than the rest of us are. Today's crop includes more evidence of the political linkages to the overall process for determining the company's suitability for federal backing and the... [read more]

Drawing Conclusions from Solyndra

September 29, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 286 views

When the energy portions of the 2009 stimulus were announced I remarked to a colleague that I wouldn't be surprised if its billions in incentives led to a future scandal or two. In fact, I was thinking more along the lines of fraudulent diversions from the Treasury's renewable energy grant program, which has handed out $8.7 billion since its inception. That program had its own day in the spotlight when it turned out that a significant portion of the initial disbursements were going either to non-US companies or to pay for equipment made outside the US, undermining its green jobs rationale. However, I wouldn't have guessed that the biggest scandal would erupt from the ostensibly lower-risk loan guarantee program of the Department of Energy. The prospect that a tussle over a small cut to that program, for which eligibility is due to end in a few days, nearly set up another government shutdown crisis seems even stranger. [read more]

US CHP Markets: Sometimes Supportive Policies Aren’t Enough

September 29, 2011 by Anna Chittum
with 219 views

Image Courtesy DOE/NREL Here at ACEEE we love combined heat and power (CHP). CHP is a critical, affordable, and proven energy resource that can produce electricity and thermal energy at the same time from a single fuel input. CHP does this at up to double the efficiencies of traditional utility power plants. CHP units already provide... [read more]

What Can we Learn From Solyndra’s Failure?

September 23, 2011 by Marc Gunther
with 191 views

Our national conversation has become so politicized that it’s hard to talk about anything without setting off an argument. Not the weather. And certainly not the failure of Solyndra, the solar company that went bankrupt after getting a $535 million loan from the Obama administration. Today’s hearing of the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, focusing in part on Solyndra, was more like an inquisition than a fact-finding exercise. It was titled “How Obama’s Green Energy Agenda is Killing Jobs.” That was before the testimony began. [read more]

Solyndra - Let's Keep It Real Folks

September 15, 2011 by Arno Harris
with 861 views

Election year politics ensure that Solyndra is going to get at least a full news cycle's worth of attention. Here are some interesting facts to consider as the Solyndra kerfluffle builds steam: Solyndra was a very small piece of the policy picture - Solyndra's $535M loan is just 1.2% of the total $38.6B loan guarantees issued by DOE. (... [read more]