solar power
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Tales from Spain: baseload renewable energy means hope in the fight against global warming
Hola, amigos y amigas. I write to you from Spain. I’m here courtesy of the Catalan government, who brought me in to explain the California solar market to local solar companies. Why does Spain care about California? Spanish solar companies are going through a really difficult time right now. Briefly, the story goes like this. […]
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Lockheed-Martin to build large CSP plant with thermal storage in Arizona
What is the best evidence that concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) aka solar baseload is indeed a core climate solution with big near-term — and very big medium-term — promise? One of the country’s biggest companies, Lockheed-Martin, with 2008 sales of $42.7 billion, has jumped into the race to build the biggest CSP plant with […]
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The future of fusion (solar) power
Replacing all of the electricity used in a typical home with photovoltaic panels is presently not cost effective–too expensive. We use too much electricity. The panels cost too much. But there is another way to look at residential solar. Installing just enough panels to offset your refrigerator and dryer can be viewed as a fancy […]
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In solar biz, simple and cheap are keys to success
Skyline Solar is betting that its High Gain Solar technology will beat competitors on total costs and speed to market.Photo courtesy Skyline Solar There is, it seems, always something new under the sun in Silicon Valley. Which is why I’m standing behind a chain-link fence at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus depot, wedged […]
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World’s largest solar plant with thermal storage to be built in Arizona
Concentrated solar thermal aka solar baseload has definitely come of age in the United States. Just a few weeks ago, I posted “World’s largest solar power plants with thermal storage to be built in Arizona” about a 200-MW plant and a 280-MW plant planned for AZ. But “The technology that will save humanity” is on […]
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Pinko bastion spawns capitalist solution to solar financing
Berkeley is Fox News’ nightmare. The city’s political spectrum runs from center left to left of Lenin. Malcolm X not only has an elementary school named after him but his birthday is a public holiday. The best pizza in town comes from a workers’ collective (veggie only) located across the street from Alice Waters’ Chez […]
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Ask Umbra on living off the grid
Q. Hi Umbra, You’ve made several mentions of living off the grid in previous columns, and I was wondering where someone should find such things? It seems as though there are secret communities and communes that everyone seems to know about but me. How would you find an off the grid community, or go about […]
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Environmental Organizing as Solution to Family Discord
This weekend, The New York Times Magazine ran as its cover story an article entitled “Why Isn’t the Brain Green?” (i.e. why humans don’t generally make environmental choices automatically, even though it’s good for us in the long term). And a front page Monday story in The Washington Post, chronicled how “going green” could lead […]
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Solar powered pogies and other assorted oddities
A few weeks ago I rode my hybrid electric bike from Fremont, which is at sea level, over Capitol Hill, down into the Rainier Valley and back. It was about 15 miles round trip. I took mental notes on the discomfort I experienced along the way.Biodiversivist Although I had on thick gloves my fingers still […]
