solar power
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Critical List: Federally backed solar company closes; London drops carbon offset plan for Olympics
Solyndra, a solar company that had received more than $500 million in federally backed loan guarantees, is shutting down.
Vermont's still reeling from Irene.
Oklahoma lawmakers are looking for ways to block the Keystone XL pipeline locally.
The organizers of the 2012 London Olympics are dropping their plan to offset the Games' carbon emissions. Weak.
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'Solar home rule' could power the D.C. economy
Citizens of Washington, D.C. could generate jobs and keep more electricity dollars at home with rooftop solar power.
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American solar exports increased 83 percent in 2010
Who says America doesn't make things? Last year, we exported $5.63 billion worth of solar products: photovoltaic cells, modules, investors, capital equipment, polysilicon, and more, according to a new report from GTM Research and Solar Energy Industries Association. That's an 83 percent increase over the previous year
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Mapping Solar PV CLEAN Contracts in the U.S.
The price of solar is dropping fast, opening new opportunities for community-scale renewable energy across the country. But despite the improving economics and tremendously sunnier skies, the United States lags far behind Germany in installing new solar power. The biggest difference is policy. The U.S. has two major federal incentives (a 30% tax credit and […]
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Why we should democratize the electricity system — part one
A serialized version of ILSR‘s new report, “Democratizing the Electricity System,” part one of five. The 20th century of electricity generation was characterized by ever larger and more distant central power plants. But a 21st century technological dynamic offers the possibility of a dramatically different electricity future: millions of widely dispersed renewable energy plants and […]
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Teenage genius improves solar panels using math and trees
You gotta heart teenage geniuses: this one, Aidan Dwyer, age 13, figured out a way to make solar panel arrays more efficient after taking a walk in the woods. Here is his basic thought-process, broken down for us non-geniuses:
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Solar PV makes most sense at modest size
Benefits of smaller-scale solar operations far outweigh any potential savings from building bigger.
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Infographic: How many jobs would solar create?
Stronger solar policies could create over 100,000 jobs in just a few years, according to this (excerpted) infographic from One Block Off the Grid. That's not a lot, proportional to the unemployment crisis, but given that CERTAIN PEOPLE are always talking about sustainable energy as a job-killer, it's pretty good. And jobs would only go up […]
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'Floatovoltaics' energize otherwise boring bodies of water
'Flotovoltaics,' solar panels that float on existing reservoirs, leads to all kinds of unexpected side benefits. At the Far Niente winery in Napa Valley, which pioneered the technology in the U.S., their floating solar grid reduces evaporation from their irrigation pond and inhibits algae growth. It also saves the winery from giving up valuable grape-growing land, even as it produces more electricity than the winery uses.