SOLAR TODAY’s January/February issue launches the magazine’s first major redesign since its launch in 1987 with a free online digital edition.
Issue highlights include –
— American Solar Energy Society [ASES]
Shai Agassi has a conversation with Tim O’Reilly about his Better Place model from Web 2.0 Summit ‘08 (32:52)
earth2tech has a related article in which Governor Jennifer Grandholm makes a trip to Israel to visit Shai and Better Place: Michigan Governor Looking for A Better Detroit?
For solar to become a primary source of electricity, vast amounts of affordable storage will be needed. And today’s options for storing electricity just aren’t practical on a large enough scale.
Enter MIT chemist Daniel Nocera, who has mimicked the step in photosynthesis in which green plants split water into hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight and an inexpensive liquid catalyst. read article in Technology Review
…from the last two weeks – notable with the PTC/ITC incentives! [EERE=?]
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EERE Green Power Network RSS feed 
Click on map through to your state to find out which organizations offer green power in your state. The results will include utility green pricing programs, retail green power products offered in competitive electricity markets, and renewable energy certificate (REC) products sold separate from electricity. For additional information about these distinct products, see the EERE Overview of Green Power Markets.
AK AL AR AZ CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA ID IL IN KS KY LA MA MD ME MI MN MO MS MT NC ND NE NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VA VT WA WI WV WY
from The U.S. DOE – Energy Effieciency and Renewable Energy
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AND… don’t forget to check the DSIRE resource:
Federal Incentives
Please support The Institute for 21st Century Energy’s Blueprint for Securing America’s Energy Future (PDF full – 4.43Mb) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. With more than 75 energy policy recommendations (PDF summary) for the next President and Congress, the Institute’s bold energy blueprint is worth your attention.
The blueprint puts specific recommendations behind the 13 fundamental pillars for a comprehensive energy strategy outlined in the Institute’s Open Letter to the next President and Congress.
Aggressively Promote Energy Efficiency
Reduce the Environmental Impact of Energy Consumption and Production
Invest in Climate Science to Guide Energy, Economic, and Environmental Policy
Significantly Increase the Funding for Research, Development, and Demonstration of Advanced Clean Energy Technologies
Immediately Expand Domestic Oil and Gas Exploration and Production
Commit to and Expand Nuclear Energy Use
Commit to the Use of Clean Coal
Increase Renewable Sources of Electricity
Transform our Transportation Sector
Modernize and Protect U.S. Energy Infrastructure
Address Critical Shortages of Qualified Energy Professionals
Reduce Overly Burdensome Regulations and Opportunities for Frivolous Litigation
Demonstrate Global Leadership on Energy Security and Climate Change
Well, it was mostly business as usual this past week on Capitol Hill. The US Senate voted down a national energy bill which was said to be a comprehensive approach to reducing carbon emissions. The bill included requirements for utilities to produce 15% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and provided $21B in tax incentives for the production of clean energy (production tax credit, or PTC) . Both the two-year extension of the PTC and the small wind credit fell one vote short of the 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. Those wind credits, the solar investment credit and most federal renewable energy tax credits are set to expire in 2008. The bill buckled under pressure from Republican minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, who threatened to filibuster the bill due to it’s repeal of $13B in oil company tax breaks.
After negotiation, a revised bill was passed in which a $13B tax increase on oil companies and the requirement for utilities nationwide to produce 15% of their electricity from renewable sources, was left out of the bill.
Freedom Fuels takes an in-depth, solution orientated look at renewable fuel sources, such as biodiesel, ethanol and vegetable oil. It explores the petroleum industry’s suppression of alternative fuels and examines the potential positive and negative impacts of biofuels.
Download the free full version at Mofilms.org
(Running time: 50 min, File size: 196.05 MB)
Spend a buck and get 30 cents worth of food to make it through ’till lunch. That is synonymous to the energy balance for ethanol production from corn; = 1.3. Let’s just think outside the barrel for a moment, ethanol we can make today from corn kernels is just a sub-mediocre fuel source; the low energy return, the crop’s intensive fertilization/herbicide/pest control for cultivation pollutes waterways, and increased demand drives up food costs (corn prices doubled last year). And anyway, the corn ethanol industry is projected to produce, at most, the equivalent of only 15 billion gallons of fuel by 2017.
Cellulosic ethanol, in theory, is a much better bet. Most of the plant species suitable for producing this kind of ethanol — like switchgrass, a fast- growing plant found throughout the Great Plains — aren’t food crops. And according to a joint study by the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy, we can sustainably grow more than 1 billion tons of such biomass on available farmland. Cellulosic ethanol yields roughly 80 percent more energy than is required to grow and convert it.
Continue reading ‘Food Deficit for Inefficient Fuels – Thinking Outside the Barrel’
Traditional photovoltaic solar cells use the sun’s energy to knock electrons away from the positive charges (holes) in doped silicon. In this manner, the two cannot recombine until the electrons have traveled the entirety of the circuit with an applied load. The University of Delaware have devised solar cells being far more efficient, as they could implement up to some six different material substrates to generate power from different parts of the solar spectrum. The solar light coming into the cell is concentrated 20 times and passes through a high-energy absorbing material (purple) to a reflective splitter that directs medium (green) and low (red) energy light to the other appropriate absorption materials.
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above 3 from becauseaction network
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