Smart meter opt-out mandates are popping up across the United States, threatening utility smart grid efforts. But the key to data security, one of the major hurdles to consumer acceptance, may be held by a set of privacy rules debuting in Southern California.
All of us are beneficiaries of the paradigm shifts of credit cards and ATM’s; desktop computing and the Internet. For each of these widespread social shifts there were risk-taking start-up companies and “early adopter” consumers that helped lead social and economic change. In the case of today’s clean energy and energy conservation movement, we’ve come a long way from tree hugging by unshaven men (and women), saving the whales (and otters), Greenpeace and recycling in a few tangentially interested California neighborhoods. Going green has become more than an idealistic cause by the liberal left, to more broadly being recognized as an economic imperative.
A new 15 megawatt, utility scale geothermal power plant has just come online in Jersey Valley, Nevada.The project is significant because according to its host company, Ormat Technologies, it was the only utility-scale geothermal plant to be completed in the U.S. within the past year or so. Geothermal is reliable, … [continued]
Just as we Americans are finally really and truly internalizing the real cost of sticking with fossil fuels, due to the Gulf sea floor gusher, a timely NREL study finds wind power makes electricity that’s not just cleaner, but it’s also much cheaper. If the Western US generated 30% of … [continued]
