Climate Technology
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A global green economy: ‘Let no man say it cannot be done’
America was able to convert from a peacetime to a wartime economy at a stunning speed.We need an economy for the 21st century, one that is in sync with the Earth and its natural support systems, not one that is destroying them. The fossil fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy that evolved in Western industrial societies is no […]
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Visiting a house in Germany that generates more energy than it uses
During my trip to Germany last week, one of my hosts from the Böll Foundation and I took a morning commuter train up to Borgsdorf, north of Berlin, to visit an experimental passivhaus built by architect Oliver Jirka for his own family. Here’s your faithful correspondent on the scene: Digital readouts show hourly/daily/weekly output of […]
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Google invests $100 million in giant Oregon wind farm
Google is helping to create economies of scale for clean energy.Photo: T.J.Another day, another $100 million invested in clean energy. Google has been on a green tech investment roll of late. Last week, the search giant put $168 million into BrightSource Energy’s 370-megawatt solar thermal power plant, currently the world’s largest solar project, which is […]
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Google antes up $100 million (more) for advanced wind farm
Google's latest investment in wind power is much more than just the latest chapter in the company's support for renewable energy. It's part of a larger strategy that could see the search giant turn into a (very profitable) behemoth in the world of energy. According to Katie Fehrenbacher, veteran renewable energy reporter at Earth2Tech: The Shepherds […]
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Germans pay extra for clean energy — is it worth it?
Germany has become a world leader in renewable power thanks in part to its Renewable Energy Act (EEG), which came into force in 2000. It established a feed-in tariff program that guarantees producers of carbon-free power an above-market rate of return for 20 years. EEG pays tariffs to solar PV, concentrated solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydropower, and […]
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What if the $152 billion to clean up Fukushima were spent on geothermal instead?
Here's a crazy idea: why not use the enormous geothermal resource under Japan — which is after all sitting on a "ring" made of "fire" — as a source of nearly always-on baseload power? I asked Alex Richter, an Icelandic financier of geothermal energy projects, how much geothermal energy $152 billion would buy. (That's the […]
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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 […]
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The ultimate hippie mobile: An electric VW bus
Volkswagen has unveiled an electric concept vehicle based on the classic VW bus. The Bulli has a driving range of 184 miles, so if it goes into production, it could get you and your friends to Bonnaroo from as far away as Atlanta. It's smaller than the original bus, but it still seats five — […]
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Texas to install world’s largest wind energy storage system
The Notrees wind farm.Photo: Duke EnergyThey like to do things big in Texas, so it’s no surprise that the Lone Star state will launch the world’s largest wind battery storage project. Duke Energy is not a Texas company, but it owns the aptly named Notrees wind farm in the Texas panhandle. The North Carolina power […]
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CFLs are not a significant source of mercury, says EPA
If you've heard that CFLs are lousy with mercury, you've heard wrong. In the past 10 years, "reductions in the most used types of fluorescent lighting have decreased [mercury] content over the last decade by 60 – 80 percent," says Melissa Klein of the EPA. Plus, Americans are recycling more of them than previously reported. […]