Climate Technology

Critical List: Protesting a Chinese solar plant’s pollution; Solyndra will never go away

Solar power isn’t all rainbows and puppies. In China, protesters have spent the past few days outside a solar panel plant, which they say polluted a nearby river.

A U.S. wind turbine company is suing a Chinese company for paying an employee of American Superconducter more than $1 million to steal wind turbine technology.

China's also put $15 billion into Alberta's tar sands in the past year and a half.

We're going to keep hearing about Solyndra all next year.

Solyndra ‘scandal’ vs. the Defense Department's biggest boondoggles

Philip Bump of Green for All responded to our request to create an infographic comparing the cost of the Solyndra "scandal" to the Defense Department's greatest boondoggles. We think it speaks for itself.

The most damning account of the Solyndra scandal comes from … the Daily Show?

Solyndra is the next 'Climategate'

Conservatives are trying to use the bankruptcy of solar firm Solyndra to tar the whole renewables industry and all efforts by government to support it.

Fossil-fueled Republicans grandstand against Solyndra, solar energy

At a hearing in Congress today, GOP representatives used Solyndra's collapse to declare that government investment in clean energy is a bad idea.

The iPhone game that will make you ashamed for having an iPhone

Aw look, it's Phone Story, a fun little game where you produce things and catch things and shoot things at people! It's like Farmville AND Cut the Rope AND Angry Birds! Except that instead of saving your eggs or feeding your dinosaur, you're simulating the production of your iPhone -- which means you're actually abusing workers and manipulating consumers in order to score your points.

Google, Facebook reap benefits of building hot data centers in cold Scandinavia

Data centers are the gigantic, Borg-like assemblages of computers that run everything we take for granted on the web, from email to social networks. They take a lot of energy, because they do all the things, but more than that they take a lot of cooling; keeping data centers from overheating requires up to half […]

Gigantic flywheels recover, recycle subway trains' energy

If subway stations could harvest the energy of incoming trains as they hit their brakes, they could re-use that same energy to launch the same train as it leaves the station. That's the idea behind Vycon flywheels, which are gigantic spinning wheels that act as temporary energy storage mechanisms.

Google gets carbon offsets from hog poo

In its recent report on the company's carbon footprint, Google said that it offsets its emissions with high-quality offsets. We are happy as a pig in shit about that. Which is appropriate, because here's one example of what that means: energy powered by pig poop.

The company has invested in a North Carolina project which collects the methane from the waste of 9,000 hogs. A power plant burns the methane to create power for 35 homes a year.

World solar market to increase 130 percent by 2020

In 2010 the world spent $30 billion on solar panels. By 2020 that figure will be $70 billion, says Korean electronics giant Samsung.