10 More Cleantech Stories of the Week

July 31st, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

Here are some more top cleantech stories of the week. Enjoy!

Straw bale homes are helping the UK to improve energy efficiency and address the economic struggles going on their.
Dr. Joe Romm picked apart a new report supposedly on “climate pragmatism” this week. The roadblocks put in front of true climate action and understanding are many. A big thanks to Joe for constantly being a watchdog on these topics.
Arctic drilling is the new gold rush for scrupulous oil companies. Many people have been concerned that oil companies would not be prepared to clean up or at all respond to an Arctic oil spill. The Coast Guard has now testified on the matter and said the same.
Interbrand just announced the “best global green brands” of 2011 (top 50). The top 5 of those are: 1) Toyota, 2) 3M, 3) Siemens, 4) Johnson&Johnson, 5) HP.
The Department of Energy had a piece this week on a tidal energy pilot project in Washington State’s Puget Sound. Interesting project using 2 tidal energy turbines on the floor of Admiralty Inlet that could create over 1 MW of electricity (enough to power about 700 American homes) at peak.
Poland is moving forward on plans to build its first two nuclear reactors. GE is one of the companies working with professionals there on this matter and “signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Warsaw-based engineering firm Energoprojekt Warszawa, S.A. (EW) to discuss the feasibility of partnering on future reactor projects.”
Climate Central, which normally writes about climate science, has been delving into clean energy a bit lately. One piece this week explained how the U.S. could produce 80% of its electricity from “clean energy sources” by 2035.
Ontario has delved into clean energy as much as just about anyplace on the planet with its Green Energy Act. And recent reports show that it’s got a ton of jobs to show for that. Reportedly, 20,000 green jobs have been created by renewable energy measures and 30,000 are expected to be generated by 2012.
The world’s largest wave energy project, a 4-MW project in Scotland, just lost a major backer, German utility RWE. Tidal energy seems to be the favored marine energy technology as wave energy technology is still very nascent according to experts.
The Energy Information Agency delayed a study on energy subsidies this week due to its ridiculous, politically-motivated assumptions and the EIA chief was apparently up in arms about the assumptions being requested by Republican lawmakers.

Photo via foxypar4

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: arctic, arctic drilling, clean energy jobs, climate pragmatism, coast guard, Green Energy Act, ocean energy, Ontario, Poland, RWE, Scotland, straw bale building, straw bale homes, UK

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.