Custom Energy Efficiency: Hotels

I don’t think I have ever appreciated a hotel as much as I did during a trip to Houston for a cleantech tradeshow. The humidity was off the charts and it felt like I was slowly melting into the sidewalk going to and from the show each day. But the second I stepped into that hotel, everything was perfect. The temperature was just right-...

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Solar PV’s 44% Efficiency Record, Thanks To NREL & Solar Junction

 Here’s a great solar PV story from the good folks over at NREL (note that we’ve already covered Solar Junction’s 44% solar cell efficiency record, but this post below goes above & beyond that first one): An operator inspects a photolithography tool used to manufacture high-efficiency Solar Junction concentrator...

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Bamboo Bikes, Build Your Own At Bamboo Bicycle Club’s Monthly Courses

 The Bamboo Bicycle Club, a bicycle company located in east London, is now offering monthly courses where they will teach you how to build your own custom bamboo bike. And for comparatively cheap, too â€" the total expenses are only £389 for the full weekend course and bike frame. That’s compared to the £1,199 or so for...

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Big Storms and Fracking: What's at Stake?

Amy Mall, Senior Policy Analyst, Washington, D.C.Here in Washington, D.C. the winds are fast, furious, and loud as we await the brunt of Hurricane Sandy. Winds have been clocked up to 90 mph as the storm hits land with the lowest pressure ever recorded in the northeast. Images of a crane dangling off a Manhattan skyscraper are as scary...

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Will Alberta clean energy “firsts” add up to more in 2013? Here’s hoping…

If Alberta was a book, it wouldn’t be fair to judge Canada’s third-largest economy only by its oil-soaked cover. Sure, the oil and gas sectors are the largest contributors to Alberta’s economy. Yes, documents recently obtained by Greenpeace reveal a far too cosy relationship between the provincial government and industry, if pipeline...

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Show Me The (Fossil Fuel) Money

 Have you ever read news coverage of an energy or climate issue and thought to yourself, “Why is that spokesperson defending fossil fuels, slamming clean energy, and denying climate change?” As you may suspect, it’s because they receive financial support from pro-fossil fuel interests â€" a fact rarely mentioned in media...

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Can Obama Really Force a Chinese Owned Company to Sell a Wind Farm?

In a word â€" yes. Last week the President issued an order requiring Ralls Corporation, which is owned by Chinese nationals (and is closely associated with the Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Sany), to cease development activities and divest its interest in four wind farms in Oregon. The order was issued based on recommendations from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). CFIUS is responsible for...

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New class of power inverter could mean cheaper, faster hybrid vehicles

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2012) — With a laboratory breakthrough once thought impossible, an Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis assistant professor has invented a new class of power inverter that could put cheaper and more efficient renewable energy products on the market. Professor Afshin Izadian, a researcher at the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at IUPUI, has invented a...

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Community Power: Renewing Communities Through Renewable Energy

 This is a post that was shared with me quite awhile back and offered up for reposting. Thanks to Christmas, I finally got the time to take a look and repost it. Enjoy! A joint article by Samantha Go and Devika Narayan, SolSolution Mümtaz Derya Tarhan, The Community Power Report ”…achieve something extraordinary,...

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Energy Efficiency Saves New England $260 Million In Transmission Costs

 Energy efficiency represents the biggest potential to cut consumer costs and reduce power demand â€" one report has found America is just 43.8% efficient. While individual projects show small results, when they accumulate across a regional grid, efficiency savings add up quickly, as New England’s grid operator recently discovered....

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Doctoral student developing next generation of lithium-ion batteries for longer lasting mobile devices, electric cars

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2012) — Sometimes even batteries can use a boost of energy, according to the focus of a Kansas State University graduate student's research. Steven Arnold Klankowski, a doctoral candidate in chemistry, La Crescent, Minn., is working under Jun Li, professor of chemistry, to develop new materials that could be used in future lithium-ion batteries. The materials look to improve...

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How Your EV Battery Could Save Your Life One Day

 The Department of Defense has been experimenting with microgrids that can suck the energy out of electric vehicle batteries whenever some extra juice is needed. The aim is to help provide military facilities with energy independence in case of massive grid disruptions. If EV battery microgrid technology proves...

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Green Storage: New Funding for Catching the Shine of the Sun, and the Stirring of the Wind

 When the sun shines, illuminating and inciting photosynthesis for plant life, we also catch it with our solar panels. We catch these rays to use them for our electricity needs, and we catch them to hold for times when the sun is hidden away. When the breeze blows, when wind stirs and incites, green...

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Green Storage: New Funding For Wider Use Of The Sunshine & Wind

 When the sun shines, illuminating and inciting photosynthesis for plant life, we also catch it with our solar panels. We catch these rays to use them for our electricity needs, and we catch them to hold for times when the sun is hidden away. When the breeze blows, when wind stirs and incites, green...

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Cost Of Solar Systems In US Continues To Decline

 A new report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has shown that the installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems across the United States fell substantially in 2011 and continued the decline through the first half of 2012, supplanting solar as an integral part of...

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