Read my op-ed in @Politico. Let states regulate #energy development. @boblatta
Shifra Mincer
Posts by Shifra Mincer
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What if you could get all the benefits of advanced metering without buying a single meter or hiring a single person? That’s the proposition put forth by SAIC’s “Smart Grid as a Service.”
The $11 billion, McLean, VA-based contractor provides a wide range of information technology services. It does about 90% of its business with the government and the balance with private industry. SAIC has decades of experience serving the defense industry. That gives it deep expertise in security, large databases and complex event processing. Although not as well-known as some of its competing systems integrators, SAIC also has a lot of energy and utility experience. For instance, SAIC manages a large swatch of Entergy’s operations. Keep reading →
Continental Airlines flight is first in U.S. to use biofuel bit.ly/ry3i2c @FlyInsider
Federal officials postponed a crucial permitting decision for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline Thursday afternoon, issuing plans to consider a new route for the project. The pipeline was proposed by Calgary-based TransCanada to link a vast oil patch in Alberta to refineries in Texas. The additional review would not likely be concluded until the early months of 2013, Obama administration officials said, adding that they would, among other things, weigh the impacts of the pipeline on the global climate in making a final decision of whether it is in the national interest.
The delay pushes a decision on the contentious proposal well beyond the 2012 presidential election in November, allowing President Obama to avoid a politically fractious determination in the midst of his reelection bid. Keep reading →
There’s power in smashing apart giant uranium atoms. But the future of energy may actually lie in the reverse process: the fusion of atoms.
In a recent conversation with Breaking Energy, Dr. Michael Gamble spoke of his research with fusion technology, a process that fuses together tiny atoms like hydrogen and water to momentarily release energy. The nuclei of the two atoms initially repel each other, and have to overcome repulsion of the electric force before fusing together into a joint molecule whose nucleus is held stable with the strong force. Keep reading →
A recent Energy Information Administration (EIA) report noted that India and China were going to lead the world in the global increase in energy consumption over the coming decades. Its unclear if that also means those developing countries will lead in carbon emissions.
In its second “Annual Review of Low-Carbon Development in China,” the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) found that under its 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), China achieved a 19.1% reduction in the energy intensity of its economy. But at the same time, overall emissions were up 33.6%, with emissions from building operation and transportation growing 41%. Keep reading →
The GEnx is GE’s latest addition to its growing selection of energy efficient motors, engines and gas turbines.
Made specifically for commercial jets such as the Boeing 747-8 and Boeing 787, the engine promises 15% higher fuel efficiency than previous GE engine models, such as the GE90 and CF6. It will be used first by a Japan Airlines 787 later this year. Watch it in action in this video. Keep reading →
When global demand for solar photovoltaic (PV) panels tapered off this year, Chinese manufacturers were left with stockpiles of supply just waiting to be sold.
When these manufacturers began “dumping” their supply into the American market, prices for panels suddenly plummeted and companies like Solyndra felt the effects. One German solar manufacturer, SolarWorld, decided to take action by filing an anti-trade legislation with the US government. Keep reading →
IEA_OECD IEA If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid climate change
By Shifra MincerIf fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid climate change bit.ly/vCCbsD
@IEA_OECD
Energy nerds may be calculating emissions every time they turn on their cars, but they may not realize that some motors are burning far more energy, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Industrial motor systems burn far more energy and emit much more CO2 than the average person realizes, several GE executives told Breaking Energy in a recent phone conversation (in total these systems account for roughly 25-30% of the United States’ total energy consumption.) They said that if industrial facility operators in the US adopted high-efficiency motors like the ones GE sells, those industries could save $3-5 billion annually in electric bills and could reduce CO2 emissions by 15-26 million metric tons per year, about the same as taking 3-5 million passenger vehicles off the road. Keep reading →
