Apparently the coal industry used a craigslist ad to hire astro-turfers to support dirty energy at the EPA’s May 24th public comment hearing on greenhouse gas reduction. A clever catch from The Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago has revealed the latest attempt by the fossil industry to subvert the justice being delivered by this administration’s EPA in reducing greenhouse gases. People needed to attend a public meeting (Tinley Park /Chicago) Reply to: px6mq-3031150602@gigs.craigslist.org (email address no longer valid) Looking for people THIS THURSDAY, MAY 24 who want to make a couple of dollars for a few hours of your time. All you need to do is wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project for two hours during the public meeting. We ... Continue reading →

Is the sun finally rising on Israeli solar? After a very slow start in solar energy production, Israel is finally beginning to join her Arab neighbors fast-forwarding into a solar future, like the Saudis’ $109 Billion Solar Plan to Power a Third of Saudi Arabia. Arava Power Company, Israel’s only solar developer to make any headway against the entrenched bureaucratic resistance, now has financing and power agreements for eight solar power projects totaling 58.5 MW, valued at (a comparatively high by U.S. standards) $204 million. In March, the company was given the go ahead by the country’s Public Utility Authority (PUA) to install a 40 MW project, once it got funding from the Obama administration in February. (Related: Arava’s 40 MW Solar to Power a ... Continue reading →

One of the avoidable costs of going solar is the current unnecessary bureaucratic delays in getting the solar permits. When we went solar in 2010, it only took half an hour for the solar salesperson to convince us to go solar, but then it took another long eight months for our city building inspector to bring himself to believe that (industry leaders SunRun/Petersen Dean/Yingli panels/SMA inverter) knew what they were doing in designing our installation. Having agreed to go solar in February it was mid October before our roof began shipping its clean electrons into the California grid. The building inspector kept putting off a decision due to uncertainty and inexperience with solar, so it was not a cut and dried decision with any kind ... Continue reading →

Qatar to tap the solar potential of the middle east to supply 10 percent of its electricity by 2018. Qatar is the latest of the Middle East/North African (MENA) nations to make bold solar plans to trap a world-record insolation to supply energy for its rapidly growing economy – one that bolted an incredible 20 percent last year. This week a senior official of Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) announced the replacement of over 10 percent of its conventional forms of energy used to produce electricity and water with solar power by 2018. With an incredible daily supply of 16 hours of solar insolation, Qatar has the chance to build a solar-based electricity supply which is far more efficient than any other part of ... Continue reading →

The movie Melancholia is far from the usual disaster movie with its urgent teams of people hunched over computers and racing against time to stop impending doom, that can be stopped by one man alone! Everyone busy and shouting, competent and efficacious. In this movie, we see no teams of scientists and engineers working closely with governments to sensibly and rapidly stop an impending calamity, as an unprecedented event draws close: a rogue planet that might collide with Earth. In our reality too, there is similarly no racing to beat the clock on the possible calamity of a destabilized climate. The warnings of scientists are ignored. Lobbies prevent us from hearing and acting. We are in a dreamlike not-knowing. image via Wikimedia Commons We know ... Continue reading →

image via Shutterstock A revolutionary renewable energy bill could become law in California as soon as this September. It will allow customers of the big three utilities in California to buy power directly from renewable energy projects developed in their neighborhoods for the first time. They would get a credit on their regular utility bill for their share of renewable energy delivered to the grid. SB843 is designed to expand solar power in the state by opening it up to those who would like to go solar but lack the roof space, the credit rating or the home ownership needed. The policy cleverly leverages the two greatest solar resources of the state: the sizable numbers of urban renters who want to go solar but cannot ... Continue reading →

TXU Energy in Texas is offering the first free energy rates in the nation, between 10 PM and 6 AM. Its daytime rates are 11 cents. Wind power tends to be greatest in the wee hours. Texas wind power sometimes has to be curtailed or wasted because there’s no one to use it at night. The more wind power on the grid the more this happens, as it already has in Texas, and in the Pacific Northwest. All electricity must be used right away, as generated, or generators must be turned off, or curtailed. Grid storage is being considered by utilities, to try to move the time of wind’s energy to the time customers need it – by day. But rather than move the energy ... Continue reading →

This wood waste may not look like fuel for a solar power plant, but it soon could be. A consortium of European governments, universities and research institutions are funding an innovative solar/biomass hybrid power plant test, coordinated by Italy’s national energy agency, ENEA. The EU is funding the pilot Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project in Egypt with 11,755,049 Euros, through the EU Seventh Framework Programme. The project will test units that can produce electricity from two renewable sources. The solar energy is to come from a concentrating solar power technology using molten salts as the heat transfer fluid, the same way that Masdar’s Gemasolar plant in Spain works, in the first 24-hour solar power plant in the world. (Related: Masdar Opens First Baseload Solar in ... Continue reading →

Artist David Hockney: California pool series A fundamental change in how Californians get electricity is shaking up the largest utility in the country, and one that will be getting 17 percent of its power from utility scale solar by 2020. PG&E is the nationwide leader in distributed solar, where it credits solar ratepayers for their production via net metering, running their meters backwards by day, forwards by night. About a third of all the rooftop solar nationwide is located in PG&E’s territory in Northern California, where 65,000 solar rooftops (including mine) generate clean electrons for the California grid, and about 1,000 new ones are coming on line every month. Distributed solar systems have put the equivalent of 3 or 4 natural gas power plants on ... Continue reading →

Is 24-hour solar that includes storage cheaper than PV with gas augmentation in the evening? Is this why SolarReserve contracts are over MPR? This is the second part of an interview I had with Tom Georgis, the SVP of SolarReserve, about the new wave of solar Power Purchase Contracts (PPAs) being signed with California utilities, including theirs. I had noticed that their contracts with California utilities were a bit above the price of BrightSource PPAs without storage. (Part I covered What is night solar worth to California utilities?) These SolarReserve PPA contracts – which include storage for night solar power – appeared to be for more than 8 or 9 cents a kilowatt hour, the Market Price Referent (the price of a natural gas contract), ... Continue reading →