Author Archives: Joshua S Hill


About Joshua S Hill

I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, a liberal left-winger, and believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I work as Associate Editor for the Important Media Network and write for CleanTechnica and Planetsave. I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), Amazing Stories, the Stabley Times and Medium.   I love words with a passion, both creating them and reading them.

RE-volv Signs First Solar Lease With Shawl-Anderson Dance Center

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RE-volv logo

In December of last year I wrote about RE-volv’s Indiegogo campaign to finance their first community-based solar energy installation. Fast-forward to March of this year, and RE-volv announced that they had finally signed their first solar lease agreement with the non-profit Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, California. RE-volv’s idea is simple, yet brillant: RE-volv will invest $30,000 into a community-based solar energy installation  for a community centre such as schools and non-profits Using the savings … Read More

Robotics To Help Maintain Offshore And Onshore Wind Turbines

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The Helical Robotics HR-MP20

The maintenance and inspection of wind turbines was never a topic I thought I would end up covering. It is definitely not the sexiest of news items ever to appear on CleanTechnica (though I defy you to find something unsexier than some of the regulatory pieces we’ve covered over the past few months). But, as with any new field of industry — and especially with new fields of energy generation — inspection and maintenance are … Read More

WATTIO SmartHome 360 Saving You Money And Electricity At Home

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Wattio gadgets

It would be no surprise to the majority of CleanTechnica readers that I am a huge fan of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. They provide people and companies who have great ideas a platform on which to sell their ideas to the wider global market. Crowdfunding has been a real boon for energy-saving consumer technologies. WiFi-enabled light bulbs and home energy monitoring systems have been a real hit, funding relatively quickly and often excessively overfunding. … Read More

China’s Utility Companies Vulnerable To Water Scarcity

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A coal plant belches smoke out on the river bank of the Yangtze River in China Image Credit: ishmatt on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A new report by research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that China’s “Big Five” power utilities are heavily exposed to water supply disruptions given the huge quantities of water they use and their locations in climate affected portions of the country. We have covered the possible water shortages in China before — both specifically looking at the potential for renewable industries to benefit from water shortages and the regional troubles that will result from … Read More

New Discovery Could Mean Making Fuel From CO2 In The Atmosphere

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Turning Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Into Fuels

If we’ve learned anything from the totality of human history, it is that if we ever find anything in great enough abundance, we’ll try to use it for something that benefits us. One need only look at the coal deposits, forests, and oceans for proof of this. This instinctual human trait has been the cause of numerous conflicts and problems, including the highly publicised anthropogenic global warming that has caused our current climate change. Our … Read More

Sierra Club, 350.org, Greenpeace Lead Effort To Curb American “Bullying” Of Indian Solar Industry

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Sierra Club And Others Accuse US Of Bullying Indian Solar Industry

The Sierra Club announced last week that it and 11 other organisations (listed below) had sent a letter to Ambassador Demetrios Marantis, acting US Trade Representative, expressing their growing concern regarding America’s legal intrusion into India’s national solar program. According to the Sierra Club, “the United States government is currently challenging domestic content rules and subsidies in India’s national solar program, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM),” in the solar trade case they have brought before … Read More

SunFunder Wins $25,000 From Facebook & Cleantech Group

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SunFunder Wins Cleantech Goes Social Award

Last Wednesday, solar crowdfunding platform SunFunder was awarded $25,000 by Facebook and the Cleantech Group as winners of the Cleantech Goes Social competition. The competition, which challenged companies to “leverage Facebook’s billion person network to accelerate cleantech and increase engagement in sustainability” was awarded at the Cleantech Forum 2013 in San Francisco by Bill Weihl, manager of energy efficiency and sustainability at Facebook. SunFunder, which crowdfunds off-grid solar projects in developing countries, only launched in 2012 and … Read More

RSPB Team Up With Ecotricity To Create Renewable Energy Nature Reserves

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Ecotricity Teams Up With RSPB

The British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is teaming up with the world’s first green energy company, Ecotricity to develop more environmentally friendly site selections for renewable energy installations which could see renewable energy installations double as wildlife reserves. The two organisations say the partnership will deepen the link between green energy and nature by focusing on two strands: Wildlife Partnership – the RSPB will use their expertise to help Ecotricity create … Read More

Wiki-Solar Ranks Top Solar Developers, First Solar On Top

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Image Credit: First Solar

Wiki-Solar bills itself as “the interactive information source on major global photovoltaic power projects” and it has just released a list of the top 20 photovoltaic project installers globally. At the top of the list, with a total of 759 MW across 11 sites, is First Solar, which includes the largest plant currently operating — and still under construction — the Agua Caliente Solar Farm in the Southwest corner of Arizona. The farm, owned by NRG … Read More