Renewable Energy

Contrary to popular belief, humans have failed to address the earth’s worsening emergencies of climate change, species’ extinction and resource overconsumption not because of a lack of information, but because of a lack of imagination, social scientists and artists say.

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Sen. John Bingaman and supporters are once again introducing federal legislation that would require power utilities to generate electricity from clean energy sources. Though the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012 is once again likely to be shot down in Congress, the push for a long overdue overhaul of federal energy policy focused on clean energy looks certain to be a “hot button” issue right through the November elections.

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The Club of Rome and the Smithsonian Institution’s Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet are hosting a symposium on March 1, 2012 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the launching of Limits to Growth, the first report to the Club of Rome published in 1972.

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“Is the emergence of shale gas a positive or negative development with respect to sustainability?” This was one of the most interesting questions discussed on one of the panels at KPMG’s Global Summit last week in New York. Given the growth of both interest and dispute around shale gas, the question was basically if shale gas is a bridge to a sustainable future or a bridge to nowhere.

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Msheireb Properties is building a 35-hectare project in Doha, Qatar, that will infuse traditional Arabian architecture with modern green building techniques.

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Instead of a land-based solar system, the company Solaris Synergy decided to develop a water-based technology. In other words: a floating solar power plant. According to the company, any fresh, salt or waste water surface can be turned into a solar energy platform.

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What do oil and gas say about Environmental NGOs when they think no one is watching?

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As far as clean energy and green jobs go, President Obama’s 2013 budget includes a Christmas-in-July package of initiatives that are designed to help pull the U.S. out of recession while transitioning the economy to cleaner, safer, more reliable and less price-spikey forms of energy.

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According to Ecotricity, Searaser is the latest in harnessing wave energy and expects commercial application in the next 12 months.

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With the launch of a first-of-its-kind High Performance Sustainability Index for publicly listed US utilities, Target Rock Advisors has identified and ranked the top 5 and 15 US utilities across the three pillars of sustainable, Triple Bottom Line business practices and operations: environment, economy and society. Sure to spur interest among investors, Target Rock found that their shares, as a group, have outperformed the DJIA and S&P 500 over the past ten years.

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There are businesses already today which are benefitting from sustainable development strategies of ‘natural capitalism’ or the so called ‘circular economy.’ Here are some examples.

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Solar energy is one of the most widely available forms of renewable energy, especially in the developing world where plenty of sunshine is available. Around the world, 1.5 billion people still live without access to power. This is where the Washington based, non-profit organization Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) comes in. SELF believes that energy [...]

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Hoping to avert an all-out solar energy trade war, 45 US solar energy CEOs have sent a letter urging Pres. Obama to focus on mutual benefits with Chinese VP Xi Jinping, who is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as China’s president in 2013.

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Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s executive director, announced earlier this month that Sierra Club has decided to turn down $30 million in donations from people connected with Chesapeake Energy, the country’s second-largest natural gas producer. This decision came after it was revealed that Sierra Club secretly received $26 million in donations from these donors between 2007 and 2010.

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Hong Kong’s Upsolar in mid-January became the first Chinese silicon PV supplier to complete an initial Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of its two best-selling solar PV modules. Now, it’s using Facebook to crowdsource a public contest to create its 2012 advertising campaign.

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The EPA’s latest ranking of the top renewable energy buyers has Walmart moving to number three on the list from number 15 three months ago.

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Oversupply, a precipitous price drop and high-profile bankruptcies notwithstanding, venture capital (VC) investments in the US solar sector set a record in 2011, with 182 different VC firms participating in 111 transactions. Conditions might well get worse before they get better, however, according to a Mercom Capital Group report.

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Well, the vultures might be circling, but they might have to wait a while to pick the bones of the CleanTech industry, which by many accounts, is still far from dead. Juliet Ellperin wrote in this month’s Wired, that the CleanTech boom has gone bust, comparing it to both the Internet bubble and the housing bubble. But a number of experts are forecasting significant growth for the renewable sector despite several mitigating factors.

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Leon Kaye explains that Masdar City does not have it all right, nor should it: at a fundamental level, it is an experiment. And that is why this UAE hub is a leader.

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For the past 18 years, the NFL has been trying to decrease the environmental footprint of the largest annual sporting event in the U.S. – the Super Bowl. This year, the NFL is trying to outdo itself yet again by making Super Bowl XLVI the greenest on record.

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Venture capital investments in US cleantech fell 4.5% in 2011, though transaction numbers held steady, according to Ernst & Young, a relative victory given the difficult economic, market and industry conditions.

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The UN High-Level Panel Global Sustainability released its report in Addis Ababa yesterday entitled “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing.” The panel’s 99-page report, which will serve as an input to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June, (otherwise known as the Rio+20 Summit) is a call to action, “to address the sustainable development challenge in a fresh and operational way.”

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Renewable energy merger and acquisitions surged 40% in 2011, with solar energy and energy efficiency leading the way, according to a PwC report. Larger, billion-dollar, deals dominated, a sign of the sector’s increasing maturity, but persistent EU debt problems and overcapacity will continue to plague the sector and M&A in 2012, PwC believes.

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A UN-backed survey conducted by Globescan and SustainAbility, of 642 senior executives, campaigners and academics found that the vast majority feel that pressure to deliver short-term financial results is impeding their sustainability efforts. Of course the sluggish economy has been a challenge, but do companies today really have to choose between profitability and sustainability or is this a false choice?

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AORA Solar, an Israeli developer of concentrated solar power, will be opening its second-ever gas-turbine solar thermal power station in Spain. The plant will answer the electricity needs of the local population and provide additional heat energy for an adjacent desalination facility.

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At the VerdeXchange Marketmakers Conference that took place in downtown Los Angeles this week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave a keynote speech to an audience of about 500 industry leaders working to build and shape the green economy of Los Angeles and the nation. In his presentation, Mayor Villaraigosa explained how his focus on developing Los Angeles’s clean technology market is helping him address some of the biggest challenges facing the city.

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My recent stay in Detroit and current trip to Doha have opened my eyes to how citizens are taking matters into their own hands and building more sustainable economies.

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Chinese exports of silicon solar panels surged in 2011, and they’re spiking higher yet following the filing of illegal dumping and subsidy petitions in the US, according to a study of US Customs and Border Protection Service data by CASM, which filed petitions with the US International Trade Commission and Commerce Dept. The brewing trade dispute is significant enough to have prompted Pres. Obama to announced the formation of a new Trade Enforcement Unit in his SOTU address Tuesday night.

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President Obama made his energy vision very clear, explaining that “this country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy. A strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.“ Under the definition of American energy he included natural gas, offshore oil and clean energy sources like solar and wind, letting us to believe that for him these are all important parts of the energy future of the U.S. In a way, he wants to have the cake and eat it too. Is it possible? I doubt.

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Now that the world’s population has officially reached seven billion and with around half of this now living in urban areas, new and creative strategies in energy generation are definitely needed for the increasing number of us, and distributed renewable power generation presents a viable and importantly, sustainable solution.

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