Could data centers someday stand alongside drilling rigs in the Marcellus Shale gas fields? It is an increasing possibility, says an energy expert at an international buildings efficiency firm.
Data centers are sometimes built for the exclusive use of such giants as Google and Facebook, but most of them are intended for hosting companies, which process data for multiple tenants. Keep reading →
Biofuels could be a “game changer” for both military and commercial aviation, says Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Terry Yonkers, because they’re proving to have advantages over petroleum-based jet fuels that go beyond the environment.
Biofuels are produced from plant feedstocks or organic wastes. Public and private research has been focusing on production from non-food sources like algae, camelina, and jatropha, and on sustainable and economic ways to cultivate them. Keep reading →
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is seen from the beach along San Onofre State Beach on March 15, 2012 south of San Clemente, California.
The head of the Nuclear Energy Institute yesterday said he was optimistic that California’s San Onofore nuclear plant would again start producing electricity and denied that the US industry was troubled by high costs and safety concerns after Fukushima. Keep reading →
Toyota has followed Nissan with the announcement of a vehicle-to-home (V2H) system that can supply electricity from the car battery to a residence for backup or peak power, according to a story from the Green Car Congress. The program will start testing at the end of this year with about 10 households that will have Prius plug-in hybrid vehicles. An onboard inverter converts stored power into AC for home use.
The idea is to store low-cost, off-peak electricity in the vehicle’s battery and for use by the home during peak consumption times. The power flow is controlled via communication between vehicle, charging stand and a home energy management (HEM) system. The HEM system would need some kind of schedule or signal from the utility to know when to charge and when to send power back. Keep reading →
The oil and gas industry can bring new resources to bear in its battle against critics and efforts to achieve a “social license to operate.” A small cleantech firm has developed patented technology that allows producers to recycle up to 100% of their well flowback and produced water during hydraulic fracturing operations.
“We use and have invented an advanced oxidation process to treat water on the front end of the [fracking process] and at the flow rate of the [fracking process], eliminating liquid biocides and chemicals for bacteria growth and scale inhibition, and allowing 100% recycling of the flowback and produced waters,” said EcoSphere Technologies Chairman and CEO Charles Vinick said during a recent radio appearance. Keep reading →
Hundreds of people attend the Earth Show 30 May 1992 in Rio de Janeiro prior to the opening of the Earth Summit which ran from 03 to 14 June 1992.
Forget “climate change” and grand master plans. Focus on “sustainability” and accountability.
Twenty years after world leaders met for the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, the global plans envisioned to limit human damage to the environment have not materialized, but sustainability initiatives are making a difference, experts told Environmental Law Institute (ELI) teleconference this week. Keep reading →
The world needs to invest an extra $36 trillion in clean-energy technologies between now and 2050 in order to have a shot at limiting long-term global temperature rise to 2 degrees C, the International Energy Agency said on Monday.
In its annual Energy Technology Perspectives report, the Paris-based organization said that although the global adoption of clean-energy technologies is lagging behind its goals, there is still time to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that would limit climate change by the middle of the century. Keep reading →
In the farm country of southern Kansas, water is a precious commodity. And not just for farming — for fracking.
America’s oil refiners are preparing to intensify efforts to press the federal government to drop mandates to encourage the development of advanced biofuels and counter the Obama administration’s “war on fossil fuels.”
The Renewable Portfolio Standard requires that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel be blended with petroleum-based products by 2022 under the Bush-era Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Keep reading →
There simply couldn’t be a better time to talk about how renewable energy is financed, and how changes in financing are affecting the entirety of a market that has matured at a rapid pace.
As bankers, project developers, analysts and regulators gather for another year at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum – Wall Street, they will be standing before that overused but apt metaphor: A crossroads. Keep reading →
