Clean Tech News & Views: Solar Energy News. Wind Energy News. EV News. & More.
When the 30% tax credits as cash grants were instituted with the American Recovery Act, I was doing solar estimates for a small start-up in California. I was surprised to find that the 30% tax credit (available as a cash grant for businesses) for solar, was applicable to solar thermal only if it was not used for swimming pools.
Major power companies in Florida and New Mexico announced this week that they would start buying large amounts of energy from certain solar power producers soon. In New Mexico, Southwestern Public Service Company (SPSC), a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, said that it would buy 50 MW of solar power from SunEdison. From the solar panels [...]
The largest solar panel array at a university was just launched this week at Florida Gulf Coast University. The new system will create 2MW of electricity at peak and consists of over 10,000 solar panels on 16 acres. University president Wilson Bradshaw says, “It’s now providing electricity to over 200,000 square feet of space.” The [...]
Diesel pollution from the shipping industry should be expected to soar in the near future as shipping traffic increases, but the U.S. EPA has just taken an important step toward nipping the emissions trend in the bud. On December 22 the agency announced that it has finalized a tougher rule for engines and fuel on [...]
Here’s some more good news about our renewable energy future. Another nation has reduced greenhouse gas emissions, while not taking an economic hit. Canada’s top 10 industrial greenhouse gas emitters reduced their emissions by 9% in a year, while the economy grew in the meantime by 0.5%.
Mission Viejo, California has become the latest in a string of cities to try out a new sustainable street-scale solar powered trash compactor called the BigBelly Solar Compactor. In partnership with its waste hauler Waste Management, the city hopes to cut trash pickups from street containers by up to 80%, which in turn would help [...]
The Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) is moving forward with an energy saving process for applying ceramic nanocoatings on metal surfaces. A more efficient process could pick up the pace for replacing toxic chemicals, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, and other hazardous materials with safer, more sustainable anti-corrosion nanomaterials. Ceramic coatings are nothing new, but [...]
Solar arrays can provide energy to pump water to watering troughs for cows, improving water quality on remote pastures and saving money too. Farmers can more sustainably manage their pastures if cows are not all clustered around small creeks, eroding the banks.
