Climate Technology
All Stories
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If the ‘smart grid’ gets too smart it will destroy itself, says study
If our utility company gives us too much information about the price of electricity -- a cornerstone of the "smart grid" -- we'll probably use that information to crash the grid and cause massive blackouts, says a new study from MIT.
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Wind turbines are about to become way more awesome
Wind power is pretty bad-ass to begin with, but conventional wisdom is that it's a "mature" technology that, unlike solar and other breakthrough energy technologies, won't be seeing much improvement in the coming decades. WRONGITY WRONG WRONG.
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A green giant passes: Ray Anderson, sustainable-biz pioneer, dies at 77
Years before every business started angling to be seen as green, Ray Anderson set out to make his company Interface truly sustainable. He passed away today.
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U.K. media down on renewable energy
The news media often gets flack for its "balanced" reporting on climate change that gives undue credence to climate skeptics. But in the U.K., at least, high-circulation newspapers can’t even claim balance when it comes to renewable energy. The Guardian reports on a study of news coverage of renewable energy in July 2009, when the discussion was largely about the "pros and cons of low-carbon energy sources.” The results:
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Forget China; largest rare earth element deposit is under this Nebraska town
Perhaps you've heard that China has a worldwide monopoly on rare earth elements, without which the high-tech and cleantech world -- electric cars, computers, cell phones, wind turbines, smart meters, advanced batteries, the whole enchilada -- would grind to a shiny, clanking halt.
But now, instead of relying on Chinese imports to keep the rare-earth economy humming, we can destroy our OWN local environment! A small town in Nebraska has volunteered to be turned into a giant open-pit mine in the name of powering the post-fossil-fuel revolution.
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How to cover 100 percent of your car expenses by renting yours out
Getaround is a car-sharing service like ZipCar, except instead of borrowing the company's vehicles, you're borrowing your neighbors'.
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Solar-powered oil field runs on sunshine, irony
Put on your coal-fired vegan anti-irony helmets, because Oman is building a solar-powered oil field. Not because it will make them feel good or help them tamp down their emissions (I mean, this is oil they're digging up) but because it makes economic sense.
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Nissan wants you to power your house with your electric car
What if you could buy power at night, when it's cheap, and run your house off it by day, when it's expensive (and, in Japan at least, in short supply)? Nissan wants to give customers who buy its Nissan Leaf just this ability, by selling them special chargers for their electric cars that can be reversed to feed power back into a home.
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China working on solar yaks
China is going to increase its solar capacity 10-fold in the next five years. Driving this solar great leap forward will be the "feed-in tariff" -- Chinese citizens who install solar panels will be paid 15 cents for every kilowatt-hour they produce. Germany uses the same strategy, and as a result it has more solar power than any other country in the world.
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Critical List: Wind power can be dangerous; the U.S. gets average marks on clean energy
Wind power's not entirely safe: A watchdog group warns that "one of these days, a turbine's going to fall on someone.”
The U.S. gets a C for renewable energy development from an alternative energy analyst.
Colorado's going to require fracking companies to disclose what's in their fracking fluid.
The natural gas boom is also creating demand for silica sand.