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Large-scale distributed energy is here: Recurrent Energy signs 50MW power purchase agreement

This morning, Recurrent Energy will announce that it has signed a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison (SCE) for 50MW of solar. This might not seem like a big deal — California utilities seem to sign solar agreements every week these days — but there’s something special about this one. Recurrent’s power will not […]

What's the equivalent of 'slow food' and 'slow money' for democracy?

For years, environmentalists have been onto something with slow food and, more recently, patient capital. Each of these ideas has succeeded because they work at several levels.

Digging into Obama’s 2011 budget on energy and the environment

The Obama administration released its 2011 budget proposal today and the internets are choked with stories about it. The four biggest green stories are EPA funding, fossil-fuel defunding, nuke and clean energy spending, and the cap-and-trade placeholder. EPA regs are funded The EPA’s budget (PDF), which jumped up by 34 percent least year, will decline […]

Obama’s budget proposal serves up thin gruel for school lunch reform

Twenty of these won’t even get you an apple a day to keep the doctor away. As most readers of the Grist food section know by now, school lunches draw a meager share of the national budget. The federal government reimburses school cafeterias at a rate of up to $2.68 per student per day–a level […]

Turning the Copenhagen Accord into action on global warming

In December 2009, more than 120 Heads of Government attended the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, the largest meeting of world leaders in history (the previous largest one was the funeral of the Pope according to Wikipedia). Many of the leaders came to Copenhagen with new commitments to actions on global warming pollution (as I discussed […]

Why senators don’t see the clean energy boom

You might not have heard, because almost nobody reported it, but new clean-energy projects attracted more global funding in 2008 than fossil-fuel projects did. For the first time ever, investors put more money in solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower than in fuels that must be burned, according to a U.N. report. And when venture-capital funding […]

The Nation’s idea for a Clean Power Agency

Lisa Margonelli’s got a great piece in The Nation on the potential for “Gray Power.” The article makes the case for the Midwest to invest in waste heat recovery and other areas near and dear to my self-interested heart. She also puts out a pretty clever idea for a “Clean Power Authority.” She describes it […]

One step ahead of the carbon cops

What was it that Joe Friday in the old radio and TV show “Dragnet” used to say? “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” Facing just the facts last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that publicly-held companies must disclose their exposure to potential losses from climate change, including carbon emissions that are […]

Obama’s nuclear budget error

President Barack Obama’s proposed FY 2011 budget includes some important proposals to invest in clean energy, but it also includes a nuclear bombshell. The budget will seek at total of $54 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power. This would require a $36 billion increase over the existing $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees, a […]

Lindsey Graham: “Every day that we delay trying to find a price for carbon is a day that China

With 20 million jobs at stake globally, China poured $440 billion into clean energy last year. Our only hope to match them is the bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill It is shaping up to be the Great Game of the 21st century.  To top officials and business executives here at the World Economic […]