solar
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U.S. finally catching up to rest of world on solar
In the U.S., solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are, somewhat unexpectedly, suddenly the belle of the renewable energy ball — and their dance card is wide open. There is now more solar PV capacity planned for the immediate future than any other renewable you can name. Wind, solar thermal, geothermal — it's like they all showed […]
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Saudi Arabia scrambling to get off own oil, build 5 gigawatts of solar power by 2020
What do you do when you're basically a giant welfare state whose stability depends on keeping the money tap open, yet your population is set to double and your electricity consumption to triple by 2032? If you're Saudi Arabia, the answer is build renewable energy as fast as you can. The first volley is a […]
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Is the future of solar centralized or distributed?
Solar power produces only a tiny fraction of America's energy, but that hasn't stopped greens — who are always up for expending at least as much energy fighting each other as fighting fossil fuels — from commencing a debate that we'll probably be having for decades, if not centuries to come: Is it better to […]
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Holy crap: giant oil company buys giant solar company
What's Exxon going to do with this years' record-breaking profits? If you said "buy a 60 percent stake in America's largest solar panel manufacturing company," you have wildly underestimated the degree to which its CEO would find that profoundly emasculating. Cheese-eating surrender-monkeys have no such qualms, however, which is why French oil giant Total just […]
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Solar PV gets grid parity for 78 million Americans with 'balance of system' best practices
Cutting non-module solar photovoltaic (PV) costs with best design practices could make solar PV cost less than grid electricity for more than 25 percent of Americans. Half of the installed cost of a solar PV array is the solar module, but the other half (the “balance of system”) involves labor, assembly, and other components. With […]
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Bloomberg wants to cover New York City’s landfills with solar panels
New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg puts birds on things, if by "birds" you mean solar panels and "things" you mean the city’s myriad defunct landfills. The so-called greening of brownfields is a nationwide trend, since landfills and other plots of ruined land close to or even within cities are often not suitable for other […]
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Mosaic sells solar panels to people who don’t even have roofs
How many times has this happened to you: You're sitting in your crappy apartment, watching Colbert on stolen wifi, drinking boxed wine and trying to get high on whatever charred resin is left in your roommate's bowl. All of a sudden you're just, like: "Damn, why is it only homeowners with well-sited, south-facing roofs get […]
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Boeing to build recyclable 787’s with 100% renewable energy
The 10 acre roof of the new Boeing 787 airplane factory in North Charleston, South Carolina will be covered with enough thin-film solar panels to provide a fifth of the plant's power. The rest will come from a nearby biomass facility, which will be powered by shrub and tree waste. The key to keeping costs […]
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Physics breakthrough could mean solar panels made of nothing but glass
Exploiting an effect previously thought too small to be worth anyone's time, a bunch of researchers at the University of Michigan have figured out how to exploit the magnetic properties of light in a way that could ultimately lead to solar panels made entirely of glass or transparent ceramics. "We've all been taught that this […]