Breaking: Obama Gets G-20 to End $558 Billion in Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Oil_Wave

With the evidence of our gluttony for oil now rudely lapping at our shores, at the G-20 meeting that just wrapped up in Toronto, Obama pressed for and got agreement from other world leaders to actually end fossil fuel subsidies, by erasing the word “voluntary” in the agreement, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. Despite [...]

Indian Government Sets Up $70 Million Fund to Ensure Premium Returns on Solar PV Projects

Solar India

The Indian government has set up a solar securities fund which would ensure that project developers of large-scale solar photovoltaic projects get paid at premium to the utility tariffs. The $70 million fund would be used to release finances to the project developers who are refused payments by state electricity boards under power-purchase agreements. The government [...]

Sales of Small Wind Turbines Up, Even in Soft Housing Market

the American Wind Energy Association reports a rise in home wind turbine sales despite housing slump

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck – or a really great ducklike thingamajig.  Apply that maxim to energy, and you get some insight into why more Americans are shedding fossil fuels in favor of wind power and other forms of clean, renewable energy.  After all, if [...]

Obama Tells Senators to Use Cap and Trade to Make Polluters Pay Carbon Cost

Obama_urgent

Today, President Obama told twenty three senators who met at the White House to discuss proposed climate legislation, to use the funds of polluters, not taxpayers, in order to fund the replacement of existing fossil energy with new climate-safe energy. Senators coming out of the meeting say that President Obama told them that the climate [...]

Does YOUR Spouse Hate How Solar Looks?

BIPV

If you are a Californian who’s been wanting to put on solar, but your spouse has objections on aesthetic grounds, you now have an alternative. There are now more CSI-approved choices for building-integrated solar (BIPV) modules in the updated list this month at GosolarCalifornia. Expected performance of all the new BIPV is listed at the [...]

Why Finnish Paper Mills Became Electric Utilities

Danger_Sign

On my recent tour of Finnish greentech, I found that a simple law on the books for decades helps account for the incredibly low carbon footprint of Finns, who look just as energy-intensive as Americans, but register at half our weight on this fragile planet. Finns get almost one third of their electricity second-hand, after [...]

Steel Workers See Green Jobs in Wind Power

United Steel Workers backs report calling for more green jobs in wind power industry

In a partnership that illustrates the powerful currents at work in today’s environmental movement, the United Steel Workers labor union has joined with the American Wind Energy Association and BlueGreen Alliance, an organization that includes other labor unions, the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council, to produce a blueprint for new green jobs [...]

Jamaica Bay Restoration Puts a Transformed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Spotlight

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with numerous partners, is working to restore the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary

As part of the U.S. military’s broad adoption of sustainability principles, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been undergoing a historic mission shift.  In the past, the Corps performed remediation as a sidebar to other projects.  Now it is now focusing its considerable resources on environmental restoration for its own sake, including an all-out [...]