The EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy and Winter Fuels Outlook finds US households heated with natural gas, propane and electricity face higher heating bills this winter. Projected changes in residential expenditures from last winter are: 13% higher for homes that heat primarily with natural gas 9% higher for propane 2% higher for electricity 2% lower for… Keep reading →
Korean engineers may have found a way to allow electric vehicle batteries to recover and reuse energy from braking. “These guys have built high-performance supercapacitors out of graphene that store almost as much energy as a lithium-ion battery, can charge and discharge in seconds and maintain all this over many tens of thousands of charging… Keep reading →
The failed nomination of Ron Binz to be the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which was formalized with his withdrawal from consideration last month, was unprecedented in Washington. The role of FERC has never been the subject of public of political interest – and I’d argue that few people (in Congress or otherwise)… Keep reading →
In BBC News’ Ten Things We Didn’t Know Last Week, we discovered the following: A study has found that zinc oxide-based solar cells – which are less efficient than silicon-based cells – convert sunlight into electricity more efficiently when rock or pop music is being played, and while much of the debate about wind power’s effect on… Keep reading →
The solar industry has been very hot. Record amounts of new solar capacity have been installed over the past two years. The accelerating pace of adoption of solar panels for distributed generation (installed at the point of use, rather than sold into the power grid) and the downward trend of module prices have created exuberance… Keep reading →
According to the International Energy Agency, power generation from non-hydro renewable sources including solar, wind and bioenergy will exceed gas and nuclear by 2016 and renewable power is expected to increase by 40% in the next five years. “Combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, is the simultaneous production of electricity and heat… Keep reading →
There are plenty of money-making opportunities from reducing energy use that go above and beyond implicit savings, but the market for energy reduction assets is opaque, and financing opportunities for smaller-scale projects are few and far between. Energy efficiency financing and insurance firm Joule Assets has introduced new services designed to grow that market, by… Keep reading →
Electricity prices plunge to 2.75 cents per kilowatt-hour as renewable energy dominates on Germany’s Reunification Day. Wind and solar power peaked at 59.1 percent of German power generation earlier this month. It happened at noon on a very windy and sunny October 3, which is the German holiday commemorating reunification. (Germany also hit peaks of… Keep reading →
The EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy and Winter Fuels Outlook finds US households heated with natural gas, propane and electricity face higher heating bills this winter. Homes in the northeast that use heating oil will pay slightly less for the fuel than last year. These price movements are primarily due to changes in underlying commodity prices,… Keep reading →
The US oil and gas market offers something that virtually no other market in the world does – easy entry for non-traditional investors, who are helping to bolster the capital available for much-needed infrastructure buildout. The US oil and gas market is one of few in the world, if not the only one, that features… Keep reading →
