There are people who talk about reducing, reusing, and recycling -- and then there's Maren Engelmohr. Engelmohr, a St. Louis architect with an impressive set of green credentials, her husband, and her two children are embarking on a year-long "waste diet," and are challenging you (and me) to do the same: The Waste Diet is a campaign to encourage people to reduce their Household landfill waste. Our household is committing ourselves to not sending any waste (or very minimal waste) to the landfill for the entire year of 2008. We are challenging every household in the country to try it …

New project and technology announcements have kept solar energy in the news lately. But, as with wind, the issues of intermittency and the grid still lurk in the shadows. Some still argue that intermittency isn't a problem, or that it can be solved without storage. In a new piece in the Arizona Daily Star, reporter Tom Beal talks about those issues. As we've previously argued here, here, and here, energy storage has a big role to play in enabling solar and wind to compete with the big boys -- coal, gas, and nuclear. The engineers that actually operate the grid …

First a caveat: When it comes to electricity generation, I (Jason) am an agnostic. In other words, I try to evaluate energy sources on their own merits, from cradle to grave, and I try my best to keep ideology out of the analysis. When we're talking about our energy future, it is essential to look at the big picture. We should evaluate each fuel source -- its pros, cons, and its potential for the future -- in light of all the geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges we face. We should develop a comprehensive plan that maximizes energy potential, minimizes risk, …

Two years ago, one of us (Jason) was at an energy industry conference planning committee and he made the point that whether or not everyone around the table agreed on global warming, the issue was just about to break out and dominate the public conversation on energy. Because of global warming, he went on to say, getting a new coal-fired power station built was just a "prudency review waiting to happen." For those of you that remember, it was, in many ways, the prudency review process that killed the nuclear industry back in the 1980s. In the past several weeks, …

This just in from the St. Louis Business Journal: "Salt extracted from batteries earns kosher approval." Details below: St. Louis-based The Doe Run Co. received kosher approval for its sodium sulfate, a salt commonly used in the manufacturing of starch, which it extracts from the recycling of lead-acid batteries, the company said Tuesday. "Though none of the sodium sulfate we produce is contained in food, it is used in making an industrial, corn-based starch that goes into papermaking or cardboard production," Lou Magdits, Doe Run's director of raw materials, said in a statement. Doe Run's sodium sulfate is also used …

For those who have long been frustrated with the pace of progress in energy storage for electricity, we are happy to finally report a bit of good news. Two weeks ago, Jason moderated a panel at "Investing in Energy Storage Technologies," a conference in New York City sponsored by Financial Research Associates, LLC. Unlike most industry conferences on storage (meetings where we all sit around preaching to the already converted), bona-fide, real-life energy tech investors attended this one. Plus -- and here's where it gets exciting -- there were actually two presentations that together could very well signal the increase …

In David Cay Johnston's NYT article "A New Push to Regulate Power Costs," he writes about the fact that many states are rolling back their deregulatory initiatives. The main reason, he says, is price. Ahh, price. That magic number at the nexus of supply and demand. The problem with price in electricity markets is that it is not determined by supply and demand, as in a free, deregulated market -- even in those states where there was, supposedly, deregulation. In fact, we've long argued that deregulatory initiatives, as they were designed and implemented, had nothing to do with what most …

The electricity grid doesn't like surprises. Sudden voltage spikes or sags do not a healthy grid make. So proponents of large-scale solar and wind are working to create tools to smooth over volatility issues, so these generating resources can be integrated seamlessly onto the grid. If we're going to be in a position to rely on more solar and wind power and use these to replace significant amounts of power generated from coal, the grid planning and dispatch issues must be addressed. Which brings us to yesterday's announcement by Tucson Electric Power (TEP) that they have received a $100,000 federal …

In their July 16th piece on solar energy technology in The New York Times, Andrew Revkin and Matthew Wald wrote that, "With more research, the solar thermal method might allow for storing energy. Currently, all solar power is hampered by a lack of storage capability." They are certainly right. In fact, a lack of storage capacity hampers a lot of things. While there's been a lot of talk about coupling energy storage to solar (and wind) power, there are additional reasons for addressing our lack of storage capability. In fact, storage technologies can act as a "shock absorber" for the …

In coming days, we'll be talking about how to "power up" renewable energy. Everyone's talking renewables. G8 leaders are talking about reducing CO2 emissions and increasing renewables; federal and state officials are talking about tough new renewable portfolio standards; many in the general public seem eager to embrace renewables as the only logical way to address global warming (although whether or not they are aware of the price of renewable energy remains unclear). There's a fundamental problem, however. The one thing no one is talking about is perhaps the one thing that would make the transition to renewables work, namely …