Every bus used for public transportation in California will be a zero-emissions vehicle by 2040 as the result of a new initiative approved this week by the Air Resources Board. By Steve Hanley Cleantechnica “A zero-emission public bus fleet means cleaner air for all of us. It dramatically reduces tailpipe pollution from buses in low-income […]
Solar panels today rely on silicon to generate electricity from the sun. The technology has been around for nearly 50 years. A totally different kind of solar cell was created by Japanese researchers in 2009. Called perovskite, it doesn’t depend on silicon. Instead, it uses a hybrid organic-inorganic lead or tin halide based material as the […]
Oh, to be young and stupid. Reddit user Leicina posted a photo a few days ago showing a bunch of pickup trucks blocking the Tesla Superchargers at a Sheetz store. “I’ve never had a supercharging experience like this one. These trucks blocked all the chargers, chanted ‘F’ Tesla, and were kicked out by a Sheetz […]
Using data provided by the US Energy Information Agency, the New York Times has created a graphic representation of how America generates electricity and compares today’s energy mix to what it was in 2001. The data shows the shift away from coal power that has occurred in recent years and charts the rise of electricity from natural […]
The extent of microplastic pollution in the oceans is far greater than anticipated. Researchers from China have found the highest concentration of microplastics in the deepest part of the ocean — the Mariana Trench. How deep it is it? Let’s put it this way. Mount Everest is 8,850 meters high. The bottom of the Mariana […]
Yo, Donny. You want good paying jobs for Americans? Renewable energy has sparked an employment boom in the Midwest, but your policies are trying to kill it. Why don’t you try being for something for a change instead of opposed to everything? America is not going back to some supposed golden age when the steel mills lit […]
Five members of Congress have proposed new legislation that would create a revenue neutral fee structure for carbon emissions. What is unusual about the proposed bill is that it is sponsored by three Democrats and two Republicans. The Democrats are Ted Deutch and Charlie Crist of Florida and John Delaney of Maryland. The Republicans are Francis […]
Writing in The Guardian this week, Bill McKibben, the tireless climate activist and founder of 350.org, reports this bit of good news — the global movement to convince institutional investors to divest fossil fuel stocks from their portfolios is making extraordinary progress. The latest converts to the divestment movement are major French and Australian pension funds and […]
As the result of a Freedom of Information suit brought by The Guardian, the FBI has revealed it maintained an open investigation of 350.org — the climate activism group founded by Bill McKibben — and its members as part of an ongoing anti-terrorism campaign. “Trying to deal with the greatest crisis humans have stumbled into shouldn’t require being […]
There are two kinds of carbon capture, which leads to misunderstandings. One kind captures the carbon dioxide going up the smokestacks of coal-powered electrical generating stations before it can get into the atmosphere. The second kind removes some of the carbon dioxide that is already in the air. Advances in both technologies promise a dramatic […]
Hotter average global temperatures are producing stronger storms with higher winds and more rain, droughts, wildfires, rising ocean levels, scarcity of clean water, flooding, and heat waves. But we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, warns a study published November 19 in the journal Nature Climate Change entitled “Broad threat to humanity from cumulative climate hazards intensified by greenhouse […]
A 25 MW/50 MWh Tesla grid-scale battery was commissioned this week at the 60 MW Gannawarra solar power plant north of Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria. This makes the Gannawarra facility the largest in the country to be retrofitted with a storage battery. Last month, installation of a 30 MW/30 MWh battery at the […]
Perhaps you have seen the splashy ads from ExxonMobil touting its research efforts to create clean burning bio-fuels from algae? They want you to believe the company is leading the way to a zero carbon future. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like all of its fellow fossil fuel companies, ExxonMobil is wrapping itself […]
My colleague George Harvey did a report recently about Lazard’s LCOE analysis #11released in November, 2017. In it, he speculated that Lazard was being too conservative when it projected an annual decrease in the cost of renewable energy of around 6% a year. The latest Lazard LCOE analysis, #12 in the series, is now available and it […]
Two-thirds of voters in Arizona fell prey to one of the most vicious disinformation campaigns in the annals of US politics last Tuesday. Bombarded by more than $25 million worth of lies bought and paid for by local utility company Arizona Public Service, they turned thumbs down on a proposal that would have required the […]