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technology

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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 […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • Debate: Roberts v. ‘clean coal’ flack Joe Lucas

    In early April, the excellent investigative journalism show NOW on PBS ran an episode called “Can Coal be Earth-Friendly?“ In conjunction with the episode, NOW hosted an online debate between me and Joe Lucas, spokesflack for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). We were given a series of five questions. We each answered […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • 10 ways to change the world through social media

    Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President. Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Max Gladwell, a blog specializing in social media and green living. Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. […]

    Ashley Braun Culture

  • Businesses struggle to profit from sewage sludge

    Part 2 of Grist’s special series on poop. “We’re trying to get the pieces bigger — ideally the size of pencil erasers,” said John “Rus” Miller, handing me a plastic packet of a brown, dry, crumbly material with the texture of couscous and the odor of manure. That’s because it was manure — in the […]

    Catherine Price Technology

  • Washington state can lead the way to a green economy

    Since 1970, Americans have set aside April 22 to celebrate the wonders of the big blue-green globe we call Earth — and to renew our resolve to protect it for our children and grandchildren. On this Earth Day, I want to remind us all that there is no more time to waste. The respected writer […]

    Chris Gregoire Technology

  • What should Microsoft do on climate?

    Caught up today with Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s smartie-pants green dude, who elaborated on CEO Steve Ballmer’s TOP-SECRET memo to his 90K employees laying out the company’s ambitions on energy and climate change. The memo contains juicy nuggets like: “Our goal is to reduce our carbon emissions per unit of revenue by at least 30 percent […]

    Chip Giller Technology

  • California utility bets on space-based solar power

    A conceptual image of what a space-based solar power plant would look like. The image was commissioned by the National Space SocietyMafic Studios, Inc. Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of PG&E. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new technologies, to seek out new sources of renewable energy and new revenues, to boldly […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • PG&E signs first-of-a-kind space solar power deal

    Not many people I know think space solar is a low-cost, scalable solution. Certainly it is worth pursuing any genuine low-carbon baseload power source if it can be practical and scalable — and affordable, which I would put at $0.15 a kilowatt hour or less for.  The problem with space solar is that, like hydrogen […]

    Joseph Romm Technology

  • Drill, baby, drill

    A veteran of the Manhattan Project is developing technology that could make it easier to tap geothermal energy locked deep underground. Potter Drilling It’s the archetypal Silicon Valley story: Unknown entrepreneur toils away on a Big Idea in an anonymous office park until discovered by one of the Valley’s legendary deep-pocketed investors. Another boy wonder […]

    Todd Woody Technology