In a recent story published in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and other institutions in Germany and France claim that an emphasis on bioenergy from West Coast forests would increase carbon dioxide emissions from these forests at least 14 percent, if the efficiency of such operations is optimal.

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Friends,

Happy Halloween everyone.  After my kids plowed through our 12 pumpkins de-seeding them and carving them up (there are some pretty sad designs), I have batched up a special set of pumpkin seeds for my colleagues at Bracewell as I do every year and I must say… this year the seeds are particularly good.   This year’s batches feature Corona/Lime, Jose Cuervo/Southwestern spices, Garlic, a spicy Worcestershire/cayenne combo, traditional Seas Salt and my regular Old Bay/Soy mainstay.

Trying...

By John MacDonald, October 27, 2011

Legislation can’t change the fundamental laws of science. 

Big solar on public lands in the U.S. West has gotten a big bump in the two-plus years of the Obama administration, and now the federal government is narrowing the focus for siting new projects, hoping the move will “make for faster, better permitting of large-scale solar projects.”

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) said today that after receiving 80,000...

Earlier this month, General Motors announced it will help millions of GM vehicle owners to rent out their cars. The new peer-to-peer car sharing service—a ...

A new report published by WWF UK finds that 60% to 90% of the UK’s electricity could come from renewable energy sources such as wind, tidal, and solar energy by 2030.

“By using...

“Every commercial building can power itself,” Elizabethtown, Ky.-based Wind Energy announces on its website homepage. And yep, the company thinks wind is the way to do it, using its new WindSail turbine, engineered with help from Segway-developer Dean Kamen’s DEKA Research. And unlike Kamen’s seemingly fanciful inflatable wind turbine, Wind Energy...

China and U.S. solar manufacturers traded shots in the wake of the SolarWorld-led effort to slap big tariffs on Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar panels. China denied breaking trade rules, saying its solar industry was good for the global economy and environment, and it urged the U.S. government to reject the ...

While Henry Fisker, CEO of Fisker Automotive, spent much of last week defending himself and his company against charges that he spent portions of a $529 million direct loan received from the Department of Energy in 2010 on creating manufacturing jobs in Finland rather than the US, his sales team, it seems, had other things to occupy its time — selling cars.

Fisker recently...

I had the pleasure this week of attending two conferences, the ESAT conference on energy storage systems in San Diego and the Great Lakes Symposium on Smart Grid in Chicago.  Both conferences were excellent.  But I finished the week with an uneasy feeling that while smart grid advocates and storage advocates are both trying to address the same problems, they are talking about different solutions and not talking enough about each other.

A new report from Pike Research confirms what the United States, Europe and even Google are banking on: offshore wind is going to be huge. The cleantech market intelligence firm...

Say what?

285 top investors who represent $20 trillion in assets pushed leaders of the world to take urgent climate change and clean energy action in a letter last week.

The 2011 Global Investment Statement on Climate Change starts out with the intro (...

Leading universities from around the country have come together to fund the Billion Dollar Green Challenge, which invites and encourages colleges and nonprofit organizations to invest a total of $1 billion in self-managed green revolving funds to finance energy efficient upgrades.  Inspired by the successful performances of existing green revolving funds, whose return on investment averages 32 percent, the creators of the Challenge hope these investments will create...

Wind turbines in Texas, in the service territory of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) — which is the main Texas electric grid — set a new electricity output record on October 7, it was reported this week.

The record? 15.2% of ERCOT’s electricity demand was supplied by wind on the afternoon of the 7th — 7,400 megawatts (MW).

“This new record set by wind on the main Texas grid is good news for consumers,” Michael Goggin, the America Wind Energy Association’s (or AWEA’s) Manager of Transmission...

Remember Back to the Future? Remember that wicked cool car that could time travel (the DeLorean)? Yeah, well, it’s coming back… DeLorean Motor Company announced on the weekend a “brand-new, all-electric DeLorean” (pictured above and below). The electric deLorean made its debut at the DMC Texas Open House Event on October 14 (last Friday).

From the company’s website: “For several years, DeLorean Motor Company of Texas has been reconstituting the fruit of John Z. Deloreans’s troubled loins (phrasing!). Now we are working with electric-car...

Arista Power, which earlier this year reported selling an order of “Mobile Renewable Power Stations” (MRPS) to the FBI, is now touting a line of small wind turbines intended for military use – including one designed specifically to be carried by an individual soldier. Arista...

Infographic courtesy of The Solar Foundation

The US solar industry created jobs at a 6.8% pace in the year through August 2011. That compares to the expected 0.7% job growth rate for the US economy overall economy and a 2% net job...

Solar installations on university and college campus in the United States have boomed over the last three years. Those are the findings compiled from a new database created by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

According to the data, solar capacity has grown 450 percent over the last three years in the higher...

After decades of venture capital investment, growth and exit, the traditional focus areas of venture capital (such as IT, web and software) have developed strong entrepreneurial ecosystems. A high percentage of start-ups in these traditional areas come to market with one or more experienced entrepreneurs, or with a strong and active network of investors/advisors who have “been there, done that.”   They know what it takes to raise capital and to build a great fast-...

Back on Oct. 3, I wrote a post about the Dept. of Energy awarding $3 million for Connecticut’s FuelCell Energy to carry out a three-year project that entails evaluating the use of the company’s Direct Fuel Cells (DFC) to efficiently and cost-effectively separate carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plant emissions and use it to produce clean electricity. Readers...

Kohl’s Department Stores will soon build its new stores from a design that has been pre-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as Leader in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) Gold. Kohl’s announced the new store  prototype recently.

The new prototype has achieved the pre-certification under the LEED for...

OK, this is fun.  What is a day living and working in London really like?  What are the systems required to support it?  Invest four minutes and enjoy.  You're welcome:

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment.  For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Offshore wind project scheduled at Block Island

The date is not etched in stone, but Deepwater Wind hopes to build the first U.S. offshore wind farm near Rhode...

In the current “bigger is better” mindset of energy developers, small wind turbines often take a back seat. But, as governments begin to see customer and community ownership of power generation as an economic development issue, distributed wind turbines are becoming an increasingly important part of the renewable energy market. Success stories from Europe show that small wind turbines are...

Ontario’s Hydrogenics has won a contract to supply a hydrogen production, storage and fuel cell system to the German city of Herten, the Mississauga-based company announced today....

Calling all cleantech entrepreneurs! If you’re a cleantech startup in need of capital (and who isn’t?), here’s your chance: Greenstart, a company that provides funding and mentoring to cleantech startups is looking for you.

Greenstart announced that applications for its three-month accelerator program will be taken until Nov. 18. Companies and...

By Robbie Harris, Sierra Club Green Home

You may have gotten the mailers or seen some items in stores marked “Eligible for the Energy Efficiency Tax Credit!” Maybe you bought that new storm door, window, or even the entire energy-efficient heating and cooling system qualified for the credit. Then, if you noted it on your federal income tax return, you got some money back—the government’s way of thanking you for doing the right thing for your home and the planet.

“The goal...

Parliament OKs plan to cut carbon to 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020

Under a controversial plan passed today in the Australian parliament, Australia's 500 biggest greenhouse gas emitters will pay $23* for every ton of carbon they emit. The carbon pricing scheme, which will go into effect next July after the Senate's likely nod in November, has been a political hot button for the Australian government and for prime minister Julia Gillard.

Even though packed...

By Kate Gordon, Think Progress/Center for American Progress

The statement by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) that we can’t compete with China on clean energy manufacturing is not only untrue, it’s frankly un-American. Lest we forget, the U.S. is a major manufacturer,...

Oltmans Construction, a California-based industrial and commercial general contractor, has announced that it has completed construction of the largest rooftop solar installation in North America. The 8.6-megawatt (MW) rooftop photovoltaic (PV) system...

Steve Jobs made a lot of amazing products that made a lot of people's lives more enjoyable. He made a ton of money for his employees, his investors and himself. But I can't help but consider his passing with some regret. Jobs had opportunities to use all that power for...

Are solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) on their way to crashing? That what Photon Consulting suggests in a new, private report it is offering for sale. If true this could have huge implications for solar development. SRECs have been important in driving solar power installations in a number of states, most notably New Jersey, which...

By Peter Lehner, Natural Resources Defense Council

It should come as no surprise that fossil fuel companies are trying to discredit their biggest competitors: the clean energy industry. Together with their allies in Congress, they are trying to use the failure of one solar company to paint the entire renewable sector as a dangerous risk.

The people actually in charge of keeping this country safe, however, know the...

For environmentalists protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, the battle is about more than just transporting tar sands oil from Alberta. It’s about whether the United States — and the rest of the world — will finally come to its senses about global warming.

by Bill McKibben, 350.org founder, in a repost from Yale e360...

Where will you charge your electric vehicle? That was the question posed by the information survey group Chartwell, which reported that 89 percent of the 1,500 North American consumers it polled said they would be “likely” or “extremely likely” to charge their plug-in cars at home.

Not only did most people surveyed believe that home would be...

The sexy movie stars of the solar panel business are photovoltaic (PV) panels, but you might not want Hollywood deciding what to put on your roof. My colleague, Glenn Meyers, has discussed how solar PV panels work in a concurrent article. I will not cover that here. But every star has their working relatives. For PV panels, the older working brothers are solar thermal panels and “...