Can Indian and U.S. Ingenuity Lead the World to Clean Energy Solutions?
Last week, India and the United States crossed another significant milestone in their efforts to create a clean energy future for their citizens and the rest of the world. Both countries announced an unprecedented funding opportunity for joint, collaborative research in three critical fields: solar energy, second-generation biofuels, and energy efficiency in buildings. Together, India and the U.S. are contributing $50 million across these three fields,... Read More
Prop 23: US Climate Change Fight Hinges on California Voters
(Photo: Flickr user fd) Whether or not you live in California, you might have heard about the battle going down over Proposition 23 on next Tuesday’s ballot. On one side of the climate show-down, two Texas-based oil companies (Valero and Tesoro), who wrote and funded Prop 23, joined by a host of other out-of-state corporate polluters including the energy conglomerate and Tea Party financiers the Koch brothers. On the No-side, an ever-growing list... Read More
Sublime Vistas in Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley One of my favorite classes from undergrad was “Picturesque Suburbia,” an art history course that traced philosophical and historical origins of modern-day suburbia. The aesthetic of The Sublime was a key influence in the early history of the suburban ideal. The British philosopher Edmund Burke, in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful argued that the strongest emotion which... Read More
Solar PV Production in China Heats Up
China is rapidly becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of renewable energy products. China is now producing 35-45% of the planet’s photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, though over 95% of these panels are exported. The Chinese government is now looking into preferential pricing policies (such as a feed-in tariff) to promote solar energy deployment domestically. Check out this informative video on solar photovoltaic (PV) production in China... Read More
The Bloom Box: The Holy Grail of Energy?
The other night on “60 Minutes”, Leslie Stahl profiled Bloom Energy, a silicon valley energy firm that is today unveiled the Bloom Box. In the 60 Minutes segment, the Bloom Box (AKA Bloom’s Energy Server) was touted as a “holy grail” of energy – a clean, cheap, and distributed energy source that you could set in your backyard. The Bloom Box So what is it? The Bloom Box is a 100 kW fuel cell that uses natural gas,... Read More
Enter the Green Dragon: China Moves to Dominate Clean Energy Economy
China has been rapidly building up its renewable energy production and investing in sustainable energy while the U.S. continues to stall and take small incremental steps. Failing to assess the stakes of the global sustainable energy race could be a costly missed opportunity for the U.S. economy. Residents walk pass a group of solar power panels in Shenyang (Source: AFP & Google News) It is easy to be impressed by the pace and robustness with which... Read More
Good News from China
Big news from the International Energy Agency (IEA) today. As the New York Times reported in their Global Edition, the IEA released a report today that offers a silver lining to the otherwise painful impacts of the “Great Recession”: CO2 levels are projected to decrease roughly 3% this year, the first time in the 40 plus years of data collection that such a significant decrease has been recorded. In short: we are producing, building, and consuming... Read More
