Solyndra Gets Biggest Chunk of SCE's 250 MW Distributed Solar Project

Solyndra_installation

Solyndra was the very first of the renewable energy companies funded through the (newly renewable energy-friendly) Department of Energy under Secretary Chu, who guaranteed a $535 million loan so Solyndra could build a factory to make its innovative cylindrical CIGS thin film solar modules. That factory is now due online this fall in the Bay [...]

The 23 Most Cost-Effective Policies for Stopping Climate Change

bigrig

The Center for Climate Strategies has issued a report laying out in detail the cost/benefit analysis underpinning 23 policy options and their expected net cost per ton of greenhouse gases removed. Like the three climate bills that would have reduced the deficit by about $20 billion by 2020, these 23 carbon reduction policies would also [...]

India: Doubling Renewable Energy Capacity Would Have Negligible Impact on Power Tariffs

Transmission lines

A study by one of the leading ratings firm in India shows that the cost of doubling the renewable energy generation capacity over the next five years would be negligible. The Indian government has announced a the National Action Plan on Climate Change according to which the contribution of renewable energy resources to power generation [...]

Fossil Fuels Get Tons More in Subsidies than Renewable Energy

fossil fuel subsidies

Fossil fuel subsidies are huge. It is something many of us now know, but which even more people don’t. Thus, it is something we come back to from time to time on here. A new report out by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that governments worldwide spend a ton more on fossil fuels than on [...]

Russia Plans its Largest Wind Farm and 1st Major Solar Plant

Russia wind energy

Russia, heavily focused on oil and gas, has just unveiled plans to build its biggest wind farm. The country also intends to build its first solar power plant soon. Are the heat waves and fires getting to the country and President Medvedev? Perhaps, but Medvedev has been talking about diversifying Russia’s energy base and economy [...]

More Green Jobs Will Sprout from Brownfields

US EPA provides $16 million in additional funding for green jobs in brownfields

The U.S. EPA has just announced that is is allocating an additional $16 million in funding for projects to reclaim brownfields, which are former industrial sites with varying degrees of contamination.  The funds are targeted to brownfields projects that create new green jobs in nearby communities. So far, the EPA’s brownfields/green jobs program has provided [...]

If Texas Leaves the U.S., Do We Get Our Light Bulbs Back?

Austin, Texas is using a $7.5 million federal Recovery grant to install high efficiency light bulbs

What a difference a year makes.  In the spring of 2009, Governor Rick Perry famously suggested that Texas could secede from the United States, and he rejected federal money meant to recharge the state’s unemployment fund.  Fast forward to this summer, and the state’s capital city Austin is busy installing high efficiency fluorescent light bulbs [...]

Do You Know Your Representatives in Congress?

There are a lot of ways you can throw the blame after the horrible death of a comprehensive climate change and clean energy bill, and the seeming death of a national Renewable Energy Standard (RES). You can blame: the Republican party and a broken Senate the media immoral billionaires Obama environmentalists a handful of Democratic [...]