Tech

Low-Carbon Investment

Citigroup Inc. recently pledged $100 billion for sustainability, renewable energy, and climate change mitigation. This is yet another sign that global capital markets are enormously interested in delivering capital into clean, renewable sources of energy. But you don’t have to be Citigroup to invest in the clean energy future.[read more]

Energy Storage Tech

Several technologies can be used to store energy on the electricity transmission and distribution grid, including pumped storage hydro (PSH), compressed air energy storage (CAES), electrochemical batteries, flywheel systems and thermal energy storage systems.[read more]

Who is the Apple of Energy?

Last March, NRG CEO David Crane wrote a passionate letter to investors. “There is no Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Google in the American energy industry today,” he lamented. The plan, said Crane, was to make NRG the company “that enables the consumer to make their own energy choices.”[read more]

Workers and Energy Economics

What is the real story of energy and the economy? We hear two predominant energy stories. One is the story economists tell: The economy can grow forever; energy shortages will have no impact on the economy. We can simply substitute other forms of energy, or do without.[read more]

Following up on the late March announcement of its post-2020 emissions reduction commitment, Mexico has now provided a bit more detail on how it aims to achieve its goal of reducing 22% of greenhouse gas emissions and 51% of black carbon emissions by 2030.[read more]

Nuclear Energy History

I came across a fascinating little book by Richard Meehan titled 'The Atom and the Fault: Experts, Earthquakes and Nuclear Power.' Meehan is a geotechnical engineer who participated in several controversial nuclear plant projects in California, including Bodega Head, Malibu, and Diablo Canyon.[read more]

SolarCity has just announced another important collaboration in the home energy space, this time with Nest Labs. Importantly, the announcement indicates that a common technology framework or platform is emerging that will integrate and address both home energy management as well as home solar generation.[read more]

Mitigating Climate Change

Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming. It is most often thought of in terms of carbon dioxide removal or solar radiation management but another approach sits in the cooling of ocean surface waters.[read more]

U.S. Renewables Goals/shutterstock

In 2008, when Al Gore called for America to get 100% from its electricity from renewables, he was widely mocked. Even supporters who understood it was a rhetorical point understood how difficult it would be to achieve. But suppose the timeframe were stretched out to 2050. Would it really be that crazy?[read more]

Renewables and Fuel Costs/shutterstock

No fuel costs. That is renewables' powerful, seductive selling point. No need to discuss climate change with all its emotional hot buttons. No need to explain and justify how much carbon is avoided. No need to politicize the discussion. It’s simple. It’s sexy. It’s seductive. And it will drive investment. No fuel costs.[read more]

Keystone XL and Public Rancor

Green groups are contemplating what the next battle will be after the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline is over. While no one knows what the ultimate fate of the pipeline will be, the decision will come soon and activists will need to move on to other issues.[read more]

In the Dominican Republic during the day you might not even realize the power is out until you hear diesel generators around the neighborhood start to kick in. When it goes out at night you sweat, the only respite from the thick Caribbean heat often being nothing more than a small electric fan.[read more]

Drought and Hydopower Impacts

The diminished hydropower capacity of California’s dams cost electricity customers a total of $1.4 billion in the past three years, according to a study from the Pacific Institute. When the 2007 to 2009 drought is taken into account, the figure rises to $2.4 billion.[read more]

In a new Integrated Resource Plan released for public comment this week, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said it no longer has plans to finish the partially complete Bellefonte Unit I nuclear energy reactor for which construction started in 1974.[read more]

Drilling and the Energy Transition/shutterstock

The Department of the Interior will soon issue rules for new (not existing) oil drilling operations set to be released on the 5th anniversary of the deadly explosion of a BP oil drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the New York Times, the rule is expected to tighten safety requirements.[read more]