Thin Film Solar Panels Are Here
A new analysis by the European Wind Energy Association finds that the European Union (EU) is going to exceed its target of producing 20% of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.
The reports looked at all forms of renewable energy. It found that 13 of the 27 EU countries are set to meet their target, 8 are set to exceed it and the remaining 6 are expected to fall short.
A new analysis by the European Wind Energy Association finds that the European Union (EU) is going to exceed its target of producing 20% of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.
The reports looked at all forms of renewable energy. It found that 13 of the 27 EU countries are set to meet their target, 8 are set to exceed it and the remaining 6 are expected to fall short.
A lunch box staple is the core idea behind solar technology that could bring cost effective solar-heated hot water to cold climates. Solar Panels Plus has come up with a solar hot water heater based on evacuated tubes similar to those popularized by Thermos. Last year two of the company’s models were certified as eligible for Canada’s ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat program, but the real test will occur in southeastern Idaho, where Solar Panels Plus has installed a solar hot water system at the Homestead Family Restaurant in Blackfoot.
If the installation keeps the solar hot water coming in cold weather, it’s another big step forward for the ability of solar energy to compete with fossil fuels. Restaurants are hot water gobblers, and a low cost solar installation that works in cold weather would have a relatively short payback for high volume users — especially if it receives solar energy incentives from its utility, as was the case here.
Surprisingly, after Obama’s announcement to give $8 billion to High Speed Rail (HSR) projects across the country, popular support for HSR has dropped, but it is still 88%. Not bad.
Of course, more money is needed to make HSR the reality people dream of.
A new survey shows that 83% of people think HSR and mass transit should be getting more money.
As a short sequel to “Climate Skeptics’ Leading Scientist Funded by Dirty Energy“, this is a brief look at the close connection between Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (ok, not Kingpin, but close) and Fox News, one of the leading media outlets in the world regularly promoting climate denier and anti-clean energy “news” and information.
Prince Alwaleed is the world’s 5th richest man and has decided to put a large chunk of money into this US media company.
By 2050, 69% of utilities expect that a combination of central power stations in tandem with distributed renewable energy (typically rooftop solar PV and small wind) will supply most of the nation’s electricity, according to a survey by Black and Veatch.
But a surprising 13% of utilities believe that an “Al Gore Electra-net” model of distributed rooftop power will be the dominant way we get our electricity in the US by 2050.
“Most of our respondents (69%) see a hybrid electric utility industry model embracing a combination of both central generation and distributed resources evolving by 2050. Such a system would include both centralized base-load generation and distributed renewable generation made feasible by advanced smart grid technology.”
Imagine if you believed your whole industry would be obsolete by 2050. That’s only forty years from now!
If you believed your industry would be gone in forty years, would you make long term capital investments in electric power generation? I sure wouldn’t. Expect more blackouts on the central grid as we get closer to the half-century!
If you are gardening, you have to pay attention to the plants you want to grow, but you also have to pay some attention to the weeds. We seem to be at the beginning of a true clean energy revolution, but even as we admire the nutritious, delicious-looking clean energy crops sprouting up, we have to spend a little time keeping an eye on the weeds.
Climate change and the breakthrough of clean energy technologies are linked, since climate change is a major factor spurring clean energy development and growth.
And one of the leading ways dirty energy titans of the past (and present) who do not want to lose their business or their income try to keep clean energy from growing is through continual attempts to undermine the scientific findings of some of the world’s greatest scientists.
Well, it is no surprise to find out that one of the climate skeptics’ leading scientists — probably the “independent” scientist most often used by the media to present the climate change deniers’ arguments — makes quite a bit of money working for dirty energy companies. But it took a little investigative research (not by me, I have to admit) to uncover this carefully guarded information.
Yesterday the California legislature just raised the allowable limit on rooftop power from 2.5% of our grid to 5%, because we were in danger of exceeding the 2.5% – within a matter of months. The net-metering limit was about to be breached.
Net metering is like roll-over minutes on cell phones. It means our utilities must credit us for our excess generation while we are at work on sunny afternoons, so that our night time electricity use is credited by the afternoon’s excess electrons stored on the grid in our “account”.
Under prior law, any net energy generation remaining at the end of each 12-month period was granted to our electric utility. (We got no end-of-year roll-over kilowatt-hours.)
But yesterday that got better, for us.