Miscommunication, Twitter Wars, & Who Actually Benefits
Last week on Twitter, Elon Musk shared his thoughts about UBI and how our government pretty much mismanaged stimulus/relief for the coronavirus economic shutdowns.
Stimulus
New Hydropower Laws Could Add 60 GW Of Clean Energy To US Grid
The one thing everyone working on energy issues in America can agree upon is non-existent energy policy action at the national level. But late last week President Obama signed two bipartisan bills that could create a major boost for US renewables generation from an unlikely source – small hydropower.
It’s kind of amazing these bills becoming law hasn’t gotten much attention, since they’re the first real energy legislation to pass Congress since 2009, and could ultimately create 1.2 million green jobs while adding 60 gigawatts of new renewable electricity to the grid.
DOE Smart Grid Funds Created $6.8 Billion Economic Boost, 47,000 Jobs
An analysis from the US Department of Energy (DOE), “Economic Impact of Recovery Act Investment in the Smart Grid,” reports smart grid projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) created nearly $7 billion total economic output, nearly 50,000 jobs, and over $1 billion in government tax revenue.
New Kind of 40% Efficient Solar Farm Gets $90 Million DOE Loan Guarantee to Cogentrix
The largest High Concentration Photovoltaic (HCPV) project in the world is being funded by the DOE with a $90 million loan guarantee for the Cogentrix Alamosa Solar Generating Project. The first 20 years of the electricity it will generate has already been bought under a PPA (power purchase agreement) by the Public Service Company of Colorado. More than 80 percent of its components will be sourced from the United States.
HCPV is new form of utility-scale solar that has barely been developed, but it has great potential because it has almost twice the efficiency of regular solar PV. Cogentrix HCPV is rated at 40% efficient. By comparison, most coal plants are typically rated at 30% efficiency.
The $90 million in funding represents the tail end of almost $40 billion in loan guarantees, loans, or conditional guarantees by the US Department of Energy (DOE) powered by the Obama administration stimulus Recovery Act.
One famously went bad, $0.5 billion to Solyndra. But the more than 40 DOE loan guarantees have
ARPA-E backs a "Smart Metal" to Cool Future Climate Hell
As part of the new ARPA-E program designed to bring “game-changing” technologies to market, one of the 43 breakthroughs the Department of Energy has funded is the invention of a metal alloy for use instead of refrigerant in air conditioners and advanced refrigeration systems. The completely new thermally elastic metal … [continued]
Small-Scale Solar Comes to Light with Unique Financing
MP2 Capital is a San Francisco firm that develops, finances and invests in distributed generation and small-scale utility solar projects throughout North America, selling the electricity produced by its projects to commercial, government and utility customers under power purchase agreements and feed-in tariffs. Its latest project is a 445-kilowatt solar … [continued]
IMPACT Act proposes $30 billion in loans to clean energy manufacturers
[social_buttons] Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is proposing a bill that would lend $30 billion dollars to American small and medium sized manufacturing companies who specialize in clean technology. The bill would make American manufacturers a player in the clean technology market which faces stiff overseas competition. It is estimated that … [continued]
Cash for Clunkers Driving Consumers Towards Hybrids & Fuel-Efficiency
By all accounts the cash for clunkers incentive program has exceeded all expectations in both volume of sales, as well as answering skeptics by getting fuel inefficient vehicles off the road. The new vehicles being purchased average nearly 10 mpg higher, saving nearly 4 million barrels of oil per year … [continued]
Plant A Tree — Even Wall Street Agrees
A new way to treat wood has trees back in the limelight: a hardwood’s reliability that even a rain forest mahogany tree can love.
Check out the world’s first heavy traffic road bridge made from Accoya® wood. The bridge, located in Sneek in the Netherlands, is “the first wooden bridge in the world that can support the heaviest load class of 60 tons”. At this week’s Wall Street Green Trading Summit, a panel on forestation introduced a new way of thinking about how to deal with destruction of the rain forest.
