It’s a sustainable cure for the industrial hangover: take those old abandoned factories, former mines and dump sites, and use them as sites for solar, wind, hydropower, and other clean energy. The EPA has powered up a formerly patchwork reclamation effort into a program called Re-Powering America’s Lands that is … [continued]
If you take all the abandoned and classified former industrial sites and dumps across the U.S. and add them together, you get 14 million acres of cheap, available land that could be used as sites for new solar installations and wind farms. Right now the U.S. EPA is pushing forward … [continued]
The utility company National Grid has teamed up with solar specialist Rivermoor Energy to build a 1-megawatt solar array at a former industrial site in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The new project is more than double the size of its closest competitor, a 425 kilowatt solar array located on the site of … [continued]
In the search for a high efficiency algae biofuel, a team of researchers lead by Texas A&M University has been delving into the inner workings of the Botryococcus braunii green algae, and they have discovered a direct connection between the algae and deposits of petroleum and coal. The discovery is … [continued]
The poplar tree has entered the crowded field of sustainable biofuel crops, and now it seems that China, Israel and the U.S. are racing to tap into its potential. Poplars have a couple of big advantages over conventional biofuel crops, especially food crops like soy and corn. For one thing, … [continued]
The U.S. EPA has launched a program to push to recover brownfields for renewable energy generation. The initiative, called RE-Powering America’s Land (pdf alert), is focusing on solar energy, wind and biomass projects that provide local economic benefits in the form of new jobs. In doing so, RE-Powering pulls together … [continued]
“Mixed use” development is an exciting term in city planning. Mention it to a planner and chances are their eyes will widen, they will stand up straighter, and they will start talking with you in an excited tone about all the benefits of mixing land uses. When it gets down … [continued]
