Renewable Energy

Berkeley-based Alphabet Energy has been around for just a year now, a seemingly short time. On Tuesday the company announced $1 million in seed money to develop prototype devices of their proprietary thermoelectric technology.

The technology harnesses excess heat and turns it into electricity. The incremental add in electric volume has enormous potential to create additional energy on a large scale. While the science is nothing new — it’s a recognized idea in science that creating electricity produces excess heat — Alphabet Energy claims that their technology has the “possibility of offsetting as much as 500 million metric tons of carbon per year.”

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I served as a corporate sponsor of AB32, California’s pioneering legislation that was passed in 2006 setting a 2020 goal for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20%. One reason for doing so was my analysis as a professional economist that renewable energy is a path for America’s prosperity, including job growth. A ballot initiative [...]

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For several years Google has shown that it is more than just a cutting-edge provider of web search, email, and software applications for the cloud.  The Mountain View, CA-based Internet giant has been investing in renewable energy projects over the past decade, and in 2007, it launched RE<C (renewable energy cheaper than coal), an initiative [...]

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With all the big news from the governments and big businesses announcing efficiency gains, offsets, retrofits, and other sustainability initiatives, it’s easy to lose site of the local efforts gaining traction across the country and world.  Microenterprise and community-based efforts at energy efficiency, alternative energy, and social entrepreneurship–such as solar powered cafes in remote rural [...]

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Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced growing cooperation between the United States government and that of other Latin American nations to find common ground on climate change and renewable energy policies.  The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) aims to address clean energy, energy [...]

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On April 8, The Timberland Company announced it had reduced its greenhouse (GHG) gas emissions by 36% in 2009 over its 2006 baseline figures.  Claiming it is not content with this decrease, Timberland, led by its CEO Jeff Swartz, stated that the outdoor footwear and apparel company will reach a 50% reduction by the end [...]

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It’s a brave new world for news media. Clean Skies Network, a video news website bankrolled by the American Clean Skies Foundation, which is in turn bankrolled by Chesapeake Energy, the country’s largest natural gas producer, has been quietly putting out well-produced, timely stories on clean energy and climate policy. Clean Skies is still ranked [...]

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A new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) argues that Europe and North Africa can achieve complete independence from fossil fuels by 2050, and that all the technologies necessary for such a transformation are already in place. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the European Climate Forum all [...]

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The old adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” sure rings true for a North Carolina-based earth friendly natural personal care products company.  In 2008, employees from Burt’s Bees took part in Dumpster Day, an event held to educate employees about waste reduction. Trash destined for the landfill was collected for two weeks and [...]

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The Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog may have closed up shop earlier this year but the name lives on in the Journal’s third annual ECO:nomics conference: Creating Environmental Capital. The event, focusing on the “most urgent issues in business and the environment,” continues to draw a host of prominent executives, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, [...]

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It’s hard not to see the flurry of activity preceding Dec 2010’s slated electric vehicle launches as an expression of joyous excitement. A range of stakeholders are taking action, and coordinating to prepare for widespread electric vehicle ownership. But are they in fact preparing for a new Golden Age in transportation, for the most significant [...]

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Just imagine if we were only now building our first electric infrastructure. Of course that would mean that we’d be decades behind our other modern counterparts. But it would also mean that we’d be in a position to build it using the very latest and best technology. That is exactly the position China is in [...]

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The sustainable economy is perhaps the fastest growing, fastest changing segment of the overall economy.  It’s hard to keep up with all the new books, movies, and websites that cover sustainable food, clean tech, renewable energy, alternative transportation, Socially Responsible Investing, ecotourism, green building, holistic education, and all the other facets of the sustainable economy–even [...]

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Adobe Systems is yet another company that has jumped on the alternative power energy bandwagon.  Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Adobe Systems has installed 20 Windspire vertical axis turbines  atop the parking garage of its LEED certified office complex.  While the feasibility of placing wind turbines in urban areas was once problematic, new [...]

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This is the final article in a seven part series on careers in wind farm development. (Be sure to read the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth parts, as well.) A wind farm can’t be created without input from an electrical engineer.  Their initial role involves identifying transmission constraints and determining the cost to [...]

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With a “high” unemployment rate, many people are scrambling to find a job.  Whether you or someone you know is hunting for work or simply considering a different career path, turbine maintenance is not only challenging, it is guaranteed to have you reaching for the stars. Combining climbing and caving techniques with green technology, specialized [...]

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On Saturday the Chinese legislature passed an amendment to a 2006 renewable energy law that requires utilities to buy power from renewable sources, if it is available. The amendment should provide a major boost to renewable energy development for the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The new legislation is also an example of how [...]

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After installing a record 8,600 MW of wind energy capacity in 2008, 2009 will look like a letdown in comparison. Most of the projects that did go online this year were started under a different economic climate, where credit was plentiful. These are some of the factors shaping the industry in 2009: Electricity Demand Down [...]

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The future of plastics once fossil fuels run dry or the price for it becomes too expensive is bioplastics. But that alternative future is distant, measured in terms of decades, says Frederic Scheer, chairman, president and founder of Cereplast Inc., a Hawthorne, CA, company that designs and manufactures bio-based, sustainable plastics. Which is not to [...]

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Are we ready for the brave new world of electric vehicles? And is the EV era truly upon us? Maybe, but the coming year likely will clarify the answers to those questions. There are still major worries about batteries, storage capacity, EV range, charging stations, and by the way, the current low cost of oil, [...]

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Fuel cells of all types could help fuel an impressive growth curve for renewables in the Asia-Pacific region over the next 10 to 15 years. Many countries there say renewables will comprise 8 percent to 20 percent of their energy portfolio by 2020 to 2025, according to a recent report out of Singapore from the [...]

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Renewable energy is desperately needed to combat climate change, and communities should support developers of solar and wind energy projects. However, the acronym NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) still expresses well the sentiment of some folks. Take a recent Los Angeles Superior Court case, for example. The Tesoro del Valle Master Homeowners Association (HOA), a [...]

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This is the third article in a seven part series on careers in wind farm development. The first, second, third, and fourth parts can be viewed here. Wind turbines are frequently sited on parcels where the wind rights are leased from the landowner. A long-term contract must be created that covers many aspects of the [...]

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This is the third article in a seven part series on careers in wind farm development. The first and second parts can be viewed here. Wind energy data is collected and analyzed to determine the wind resources of a given site. This involves erecting a meteorological tower with anemometers, wind vanes, a data logger, and [...]

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At Tuesday’s Academy Awards of Cleantech (The Cleantech Open), attendees were all abuzz about Seattle-based HydroVolts, winner of the $20,000 Cleantech Open sustainability prize. HydroVolts has created a floating in-stream hydrokinetic turbine that generates distributed renewable energy anywhere around the world.   Hydrovolts’ vision is to provide renewable energy to millions of people around the world [...]

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Have you ever wanted to know how many companies give their employees the chance to recycle or compost?  Ever wonder how your company stacks up to others in terms of sustainability initiatives?  Ever ask, “why is my boss such a jerk?”– only because your boss said no to your suggestion for installing a programmable thermostat? [...]

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Solar power satellites are the yin to the yang of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s Star Wars fantasy, and almost as old. Scientists for decades have explored the potential of using space-based solar cells to beam power to the Earth. It’s an idea with very long legs, as they say, but now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [...]

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Target Corporation, one of the largest general merchandise store chains in the U.S., focused on making its stores more energy efficient in 1989 when it began using an energy management system (EMS) to conserve energy. The system at the company’s headquarters allows for company-wide energy policies to be implemented. In the early 1990s, Target began [...]

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Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Climate Change legislation on the Hill has proven to be exactly what we should have expected all along – a partisan bickering match comparable to playground scuffles I recall from my elementary school days. On cue, the Republicans moved to boycott this week’s work session on a climate change [...]

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At a press briefing this morning, the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from leading U.S. companies, discussed key points from their just-released report entitled Unfinished Business: The Missing Elements of a Sustainable Energy and Climate Policy (pdf). Building on the organization’s previous reports, More Diverse, More Domestic, More Efficient (pdf) and The Balancing Act [...]

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