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The Dawn of a New Day for Autos

February 7, 2012 by Steve Seidel
with 225 views
0

A lot has changed in the two years since I made my first visit to the Washington Auto Show. Back then, gas prices averaged $2.68 per gallon and the Nissan LEAF looked like a “car of the future” compared to the other vehicles on the showroom floor. Now, prices at the pump are 25 percent higher, averaging $3.50 per gallon in 2011, and fuel... [read more]

Four Smart Grid Innovations that are Utility Painkillers

February 7, 2012 by Christine Hertzog
with 308 views
0

The electricity value chain of generation, transmission, distribution and consumption has a number of challenges, or pain points, to overcome to deliver all Smart Grid benefits.  Electric utility Smart Grid investment decisions are made on the basis of what reduces or eliminates pain.  There is no “one size fits all” answer in... [read more]

D.C. Auto Show Focused on Efficiency

February 1, 2012 by Geoffrey Styles
with 252 views
2

Last week I attended the media preview of the Washington Auto Show. With its dual focus on cars and energy policy, this is always a high point of the winter for me, even if this year's display lacked a draw of the magnitude of the pre-production Chevrolet Volt I drove at the 2010 show. Instead, I was pleased to find that the emphasis on... [read more]

PACE Solar Financing Shows Signs of Life

January 31, 2012 by Chip Gaul
with 193 views
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 Communities and homeowners have more reason to be optimistic about solar financing. In the summer of 2010, the Federal Housing Financial Authority (FHFA), which is the regulatory arm of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, unilaterally wiped out PACE financing programs that were just gaining fruition in communities (... [read more]

The Electric Car and the New Normal

January 31, 2012 by Rocky Kistner
with 295 views
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About halfway between St. Louis and Chicago, nestled in the fertile corn and soybean fields of Illinois, a quiet electric car revolution is sprouting up in the town of Normal, a town that in some ways is anything but. That’s because this vibrant, forward-looking community of 50,000—along with its adjacent sister city... [read more]

Why the Clean Energy Sector Has “Rolling Uncertainty”

January 31, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 400 views
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If the 2008 financial crisis was a swift punch to the face for the clean energy industry — and for the whole energy sector — the global uncertainty of 2011/2012 is more like a rolling series of blows to the body. In both cases, the sector continues to stand back on its feet. But it’s still going to be a hard fight to the top. [read more]

How Smartphones Can Help You Make the Right Energy Choices

January 31, 2012 by Carrie Nash
with 326 views
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 In a recent blog post, Penni McLean-Conner of NSTAR, highlighted the tremendous innovation spurred on by the new EISA standards enacted on January 1. The standards have truly brought about the biggest evolution in the lighting industry since Edison was around.  Some of this change has not been so welcomed.  In her post... [read more]

How to Leverage Data to Increase Clean Tech Sales

January 30, 2012 by Christopher Williams
with 146 views
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In last month’s post “How to Grow Electric Vehicle Sales”, I discussed the importance of understanding your target customers so you can successfully market your new clean tech product or service. For instance, the people who brought the early Toyota Prius - typically middle aged, upper middle class, highly educated, environmentalists –... [read more]

Is Warren Buffet’s Utility Betting On Clean Energy?

January 27, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 600 views
2

Warren Buffet’s utility subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy Holdings, has made a number of large investments in renewable energy over the past few years. But the famed investor doesn’t exactly make environmentalists jump for joy. Buffett’s take on climate change has been schizophrenic, to put it kindly. [read more]

Should we lift the moratorium on offshore wind in the Great Lakes?

January 26, 2012 by Tyler Hamilton
with 417 views
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For a year now there has been a moratorium on the development of offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes. The Ontario government issued the ban because it said more study was needed to make sure the projects can be developed safety and responsibly, even though such studies were supposedly already done when the previous moratorium was... [read more]

DSM ventures into ethanol

January 26, 2012 by Doris de Guzman
with 541 views
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Is it just the blog's imagination or are there seem to be more and more chemical companies venturing into advanced ethanol production, the recent one being DSM? Let's see our list here: DuPont Cellulosic Ethanol - No need to introduce DuPont in this case. The company's cellulosic ethanol business is planning to build a 27.5m gal/year... [read more]

Is PV Solar Energy a Success Story in Germany?

January 26, 2012 by Willem Post
with 1,064 views
6

German households and businesses are increasingly concerned and upset with the rising cost of electricity as a result of the energy policies pursued by their government. Whereas some people felt good about phasing out nuclear plants, the estimates of capital and other costs of doing so are steadily increasing as energy systems analysts... [read more]

The Environmental State of the Union

January 24, 2012 by Frances Beinecke
with 143 views
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The annual State of the Union Address is a time for taking stock.  Tonight President Obama will assess our nation's progress on a range of urgent issues of urgent issues, but today I want to look closely at one critical indicator of America's well being: the health of our environment. Is America's air getting safer to breathe than... [read more]

Green Chemistry and Clean Energy

January 23, 2012 by David Levy
with 169 views
1

In December, the University of Massachusetts, Boston (where I work) hosted three leading proponents of green chemistry for a panel discussion of the potential and challenges of the field. John Warner, widely considered the father of green chemistry, is a former chair of the UMass-Boston chemistry department and is currently the president... [read more]

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader About Your Electricity Data Privacy?

January 23, 2012 by Christine Hertzog
with 222 views
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Saturday, January 28 is International Data Privacy Day.  It’s a great opportunity to think about new data created as a result of the modernization of our electrical grid into the Smart Grid, and what this means for our privacy.  Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is credited with the quote:  “Knowledge is power.”  Agreed.... [read more]