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An environmental activist and two business executives walk into a bar…and they start a solar power company. While this may not make your favorite jokes list, it serves as an interesting background story for an innovative residential solar startup.

“The solar power industry is at an inflection point,” and with low cost cells produced in China and elsewhere, companies like Sungevity are on the cusp of putting solar everywhere – “it’s becoming ubiquitous,” the company’s President and founder Danny Kennedy recently told Breaking Energy. Keep reading →

Asia is the world’s largest infrastructure market, with $4.1 trillion in power market spending expected over the coming decade, experts told industry participants and journalists at a recent quarterly power sector briefing held by infrastructure firm Black & Veatch. Keep reading →


A plan by Delta Air Lines to buy a Pennsylvania refinery and save itself $300 million a year in jet fuel costs is an audacious move that may prompt its competitors to follow suit in a bid to control their biggest single expense, analysts said.

But the airline may also face bigger bills than it expects for restarting the currently idle plant and more than doubling its previous output of jet fuel. Keep reading →


In the race to commercialize the next generation of advanced biofuels created from inedible plant material, 50/50 BP – Dupont joint venture Butamax is pushing to make biobutanol the next big thing. The company is moving toward the commercial phase of its program to make biobutanol the US fuel blend of choice.

“We are very excited about this product – biobutanol is the highest value biofuel that can be made,” Butamax CEO Paul Beckwith recently told Breaking Energy. Keep reading →


You might think rising gasoline prices at a time of flat demand and surging domestic oil production would convince Americans that we need to find alternatives to oil. But no. A new survey shows the public increasingly tilting toward doubling down on oil, on the apparent assumption that if the United States just produces even more, all our $2.50-a-gallon dreams will come true.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted this month found 52 percent of Americans consider developing alternative energy a more important priority than expanding domestic fossil fuel exploration (coal, oil, natural gas), down from 63 percent a year ago. Keep reading →


Coal producers are under fire in the US from stricter environmental regulations and stiff competition in the face of low natural gas prices, but it is far from the end of the line for this cheap and abundant fuel source.

The US has been dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of coal” for good reason, with 237,295 million tons of reserves at the end of 2010, the country held over 27% of the world’s coal, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. That represents more than 240 years of supply at end-2010 production rates. Keep reading →


Canada’s oil sands industry has taken a major leap toward greening their operations and their image. The 12 largest producers – accounting for 80% of oil sands production – have come together to form Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, which has committed to accelerating the pace of environmental improvement, COSIA CEO Dan Wicklum told Breaking Energy recently.

Numerous environmental oversight organizations sprung up organically over time to ensure oil companies were honoring their commitment to the environment. While these ad hoc sustainability initiatives made positive strides, the public wanted more. As a result, COSIA was formed and the chief executives of each member company signed a charter on March 1st committing them to specific activities and behavior. Keep reading →


While natural gas is the hot topic in North American energy, many other parts of the world – particularly developing countries – are adding more coal-fired power generation capacity and consuming more of the black fossil fuel.

Speaking at the annual conference of the American Society of Public Administrators (ASPA) held March 5th in Las Vegas, Dean Oskvig, President and CEO of Black & Veatch’s Global Energy Business, made the point that B&V is not aligned with any single energy source and the company designs and builds all kinds of energy infrastructure. Keep reading →


Renewable energy resources, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), are poised to meet over half of EU’s electricity demand by 2030. In a statement released in mid-January 2012, Justin Wilkes, EWEA’s Director of Policy, said that the EU had already achieved the 21% target set in a 2001 directive for the end of 2010 by generating somewhere between 665-673 TWh from renewable resources, or 21% of total EU consumption of 3,115-3,175 TWh in 2010.

That is an impressive feat. But even more impressive is what Mr. Wilkes says can be achieved by 2020 and 2030 if EU merely stays the course. If renewable electricity production in the EU continues to grow at the same rate as it did from 2005 to 2010 it would reach 36.4% and an amazing 51.6% of electricity consumption within EU block by 2020 and 2030, respectively. Keep reading →

London at night as viewed from the International Space Station

The fuel of the future is very different depending on where in the world you live. Keep reading →

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