Clean Technology, Recycling, Renewable Energy

Natural gas has been in the news a lot lately, being hailed as the solution to our energy problems on the one hand, and a potential environmental disaster on the other. Let us try to sort out the reality behind this old friend with a new face. Before we start, it might be useful to make a distinction between the natural gas that has historically been collected as a byproduct of oil drilling and the more recently promoted source known as shale gas.

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Undoubtedly sobered by the plight of the Chevy Volt, which recently idled production for five weeks, furloughing 1300 workers in an effort to draw down excess inventory, the Ford Focus EV team has taken a number of innovative steps to avoid a similar plight.

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In terms of GDP per capita, Brazil and India’s wealth grew 34% and 120%, respectively, from 1990-2008. According to a new, alternative Inclusive Wealth Indicator developed by UNU-IHDP that measures natural and human, as well as economic capital, Brazil’s wealth actually increased only 3% and India’s 9% over the period.

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Wind and solar energy are currently prohibitively expensive to store. Environmental and electrical engineers have made recent developments towards making green energy a more integral part of the grid.

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Almost every day you can find on the media news on renewable energy and sometimes it’s so overwhelming that you can’t see the forest for the trees. Therefore I always appreciate the opportunity to stop for a minute and get a better look at the big picture. Such an opportunity was The Wall Street Green Summit that took place in New York. This event provided many interesting perspectives on the present and the future of the cleantech sector, and I’d like to share three main themes from the summit that seemed to be having the greatest influence on the industry. I’ll divide them into the good, the bad and the ugly.

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Just kidding!  Happy April Fools 2012 :-) While the race to the Republican presidential nomination continues to bristle with confrontation and finger pointing, there is one thing both front-runners suddenly agree on:  the new economy will be powered by the sun, and it will happen sooner that we think. Both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former [...]

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In a tragic twist of unbridled proportions, Conservatives have started recycling, but Environmentalists have ceased recycling actions. What stimulated this sudden role reversal? What effect does this have on not only the environment, but the economy?

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Two companies may have found a solution, creating drop-in jet fuel from biomass. Not only have the companies created the jet fuel, but the fuel has also passed rigorous military testing.

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About two years ago Bloom Energy revealed its top secret “Bloom Box” fuel cell system and immediately created an incredible buzz around it. It was amazing to see how much hype was created around what the company described as “a new class of distributed power generator, producing clean, reliable, affordable electricity at the customer site.” For a while, it seemed that there was nothing more exciting than Bloom’s fuel cells that presented a promise to change the world someday. So what happened with Bloom Energy since then? Was the hype justified?

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Currently on the runways at Heathrow airport chemicals are used to stop ice forming on the runways. This proved not to be enough in late 2010 when some 4000 flights got cancelled just before Christmas. Now we might soon be seeing a new green solution on the horizon.

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The interrelated social, environmental and economic challenges associated with rapid, growing urbanization is bringing some 3,000 experts from around the world together in London this week for “Planet Under Pressure 2012″ conference.

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Saudi Arabia is an interesting country when it comes to energy. First of all, they have more oil than anyone else. They also get a huge amount of solar energy, approximately 2200 kWh per square meter. At the same time, they have tremendous energy demands, both for air conditioning and desalination. It is, after all, not an inherently hospitable environment. Until quite recently, they mostly used oil to generate electricity, since it was so plentiful and cheap there. But, given that oil production has now peaked and with the price of oil going up now, along with increased demand, they are looking in to other alternatives.

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Minnesota based Liberty Paper has made a big name for itself in paper recycling and other sustainability issues, and now it is about to plunge into wastewater biogas recovery – in a big way.

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There been quite a bit of buzz for several years now about the Tata Motors MiniCAT Air Car, a car that could purportedly run entirely on compressed air. Tata made an agreement back in 2008 with Zero Pollution Motors to market the car in the US by the end of 2009. Then, early in 2009, Tata Motors’ vice-president S. Ravishankar told DNA Money the project was facing difficulties in terms of vehicle range and cooling. Now a report from the Australian web-based The Motor Report claims that the MiniCat will be on sale in India by August of 2012.

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Public companies are increasingly tracking earth-related metrics, from waste to water to carbon and energy. As a HIP investor, you will see improvements in reporting these metrics over time, and will be better prepared to identify leading companies who will have higher profits and shareholder value.

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Pythagoras Solar develops windows with built-in solar panels that increase energy efficiency and renewable power generation for buildings. The solar cells, based on patent-pending optical technology, are adaptable and can be installed in almost any kind of window.

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Yesterday McDonald’s announced that the fast food giant would test the use of paper coffee cups instead of foam in 2000 of its U.S. locations.

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In the new energy future, building owners can squeeze some extra value out of their property by installing rooftop solar panels or even integrating solar energy harvesting directly into roofing materials and exterior walls. Unfortunately for some buildings, windows take up a significant amount of surface area and are therefore lost to the cause…or are [...]

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Google has been operating a municipal wastewater recovery and recycling system to cool its Douglas County, Georgia data center for the past couple of years without much fanfare, up until last week when its facilities manager decided to post a video about the system on googleblog. The short post unleashed a flood of snickering and [...]

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The clean economy sector totaled $47 billion on the West Coast in 2010, and it could triple in size by 2020, according to a recently released study by the Pacific Coast Collaborative (PCC).

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The solar panel manufacturer Trina Solar Limited is turning the U.S. philanthropic community on its head with a little help from actor Patrick Dempsey. Dempsey, of the hit TV show Grey’s Anatomy, has lent his name to Trina’s new solar power initiative for schools, health clinics and other community service organizations. In the normal course [...]

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Researchers found a way to implant snails with biofuel cells that can produce enough electricity to power small circuits. These cyborg snails might possibly be used for military purposes, as living sensors or detectors.

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In February, Sustainable Land Development Initiative and Ocean Mountain Ranch – a SLDI carbon-negative project providing a model for sustainable forest and wildlife habitat management, integrated with mixed-use development activities – co-hosted the world premiere of Ocean Frontiers, a feature-length movie which captures the compelling stories of a number of ocean pioneers — people who are [...]

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General Motors received an award for its innovative approach to waste management.

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$10 billion. That is the annual dollar size of the proposal-flow for roof top solar systems being created by Clean Power Finance’s national network of 1,550 installers.

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U.S. Navy works with Virginia Tech’s RoMeLa robotics lab to develop autonomous humanoid fire fighting robot.

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The clean energy industry grew by more than 30 percent in 2011 and is charging full steam ahead.

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The dream of converting corn husks and other inedible crop waste into biofuel is about to be realized in a big way, now that the global corn ethanol company POET has just broken ground on its $250 million Project Liberty corn ethanol refinery in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

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A few years ago, data center managers on the bleeding edge were talking about using outside air to cool servers. Now the race to net zero (net zero energy, net zero electricity or net zero carbon) has become more complex.

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Renewable energy developer Burcote Wind has recently announced a £1bn investment in wind farm projects across Scotland which could create almost 600 jobs and power over half a million homes. The UK firm which has its headquarters in Dunfermline, plans to develop 10 wind farms at locations across Scotland. They are targeting a total installation of [...]

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