By Chip Martin, Special to RGB In the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction, Glen Close’s delightfully insane stalker character Alex Forrest famously proclaimed to her victim Dan (Michael Douglass), “I WILL NOT BE IGNORED, DAN!” Alex, you have nothing on Xcel Energy. You remember Xcel Energy, right? That charming Minneapolis company that is suing city council […]
By Chip Martin, Special To RGB About 10 days ago, I wrote about the exciting push toward municipalization in Colorado, and how the citizens there were working to free themselves from the yoke of Xcel Energy oppression. As I wrote then (at the risk of seeming self-reverential): Despite mouthing public platitudes about how much it […]
By Chip Martin, Special To RGB As most of you who read me regularly know, I am all about smashing the regulated-monopoly-utility racket that currently holds us hostage. They’ve never faced real competition before, and now rooftop solar poses a significant threat. That’s why they’re hell-bent on regulating it out of the picture. In Colorado, […]
This article originally appeared on Solar Wakeup. By Yann Brandt, Managing Editor of SolarWakeup Residential solar is the fastest growing part of the solar market and some of the major players in the sector have been making big moves. Recently, Sunrun acquired the residential division of REC Solar including AEE Solar and SnapNrack while also announcing […]
This post originally appeared on Solar Power World. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and are not intended to represent the views or policies of the United States Department of Energy or the United States. The article was not prepared as part of the writer’s official duties […]
By Chet Henry, Special To RGB Close your eyes for a moment and picture the perfect job in solar. You’d talk solar all day and all night. You’d work with some of the most innovative companies in the solar world. You’d fly around the country — first class, of course — to attend solar ribbon […]
Yann Brandt, solar entrepreneur and proprietor of SolarWakeup.com (if you’re not receiving his daily wrap-up of news from around the solar industry in your inbox, shame on you), wrote this original piece for his website. When I saw it, I immediately demanded he let me post it here. Thankfully, he acceded to my request: By Yann Brandt, Managing […]
Paula Mints is one of the top market researchers in the country whose insights are sharp and incisive. She is also the founder and chief market research analyst for SPV Market Research. In this post, she says the trade wars currently raging in the solar industry must stop — or the long-term damage to the industry may be irreparable. […]
We all know those parents, hovering just out of sight, keeping an eye on every move their children make, offering unsolicited advice and generally trying to keep control of everything — all in the name of “love.” The utilities have studied that behavior and decided to go all-in with it, with a much more sinister goal: to […]
As a vocal critic of the Keystone XL pipeline fiasco proposal, Tom Steyer is hardly alone. Public opinion has definitively shifted against the pipeline, but the oil industry and its political allies are still rolling out an aggressive PR campaign to try to convince Americans that we somehow need the pipeline that will only create […]
The oil industry has constantly touted the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada as a glorious project to increase petroleum supplies for U.S. consumers and provide thousands of jobs for the unemployed, but a new study reveals that the construction of the pipeline would actually cost U.S. consumers dearly at the gas pumps. The White House […]
Dozens of individuals peacefully disrupted road construction and stopped operations today at the site of a proposed tar sands mine in the Bookcliffs range of southeastern Utah. Earlier this morning, Utah residents joined members of indigenous tribes from the Four Corners region and allies from across the country for a water ceremony inside the mine […]
By Mary Anne Hitt Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign If you’re reading this post, then you are part of the last generation of people who will have the chance to stop runaway climate disruption. Coal-fired power plants are the nation’s single biggest source of the carbon pollution that threatens our kids’ future, and today President Obama made […]
The EPA is now calling on tar sands pipelines – like the Keystone XL – to be treated differently from regular oil pipelines, according to this NPR report. That’s just recognizing reality. Tar sands oil – technically diluted bitumen, or dilbit – IS different from regular oil. Bitumen is heavy, dense, and sticky. In order […]
There have been reports of a huge energy find in the Australian outback. Some outlets are breathlessly reporting the shale oil reserves around the tiny town of Coober Pedy in the Arckaringa region could be worth $20 trillion. But there are a few problems with that idea – starting with the basics: Shale oil means […]