ClarianLabs in Seattle, an energy technology incubator, has published a patent for a device called the Rotary Piston Generator (RPG) which the company hopes will challenge the very concept of batteries, and how they are used, especially in vehicles.
The RPG is a mechanical rather than chemical approach to portable energy storage. Its energy capacity is potentially ten times greater than a typical battery, company representatives wrote in an email exchange with TechCrunch. Keep reading →
Melting chocolate bunnies! Do I have your attention?
LED company Cree certainly hopes so; they use the highly unexpected prop to illustrate the energy efficiency provided by new lighting technology. Keep reading →
Robert Bryce penned another one of his usual contrarian energy pieces earlier this week. In an Op-ed for the New York Times, titled ‘The Gas Is Greener’, he made some poorly formulated arguments in favor of natural gas and nuclear while throwing mud at wind and solar power. It must be desperate times indeed in the conventional power business when wind and solar earn such spleen.
The truth is that all energy sources have costs and risks. Keep reading →
Before last week, IBM’s recent successful implementation of the complete infrastructure for a smart grid throughout the Mediterranean island country of Malta may have seemed distant and even irrelevant for Americans.
That could of course never happen here! Keep reading →
With all the recent talk in Washington of smart meters, transmission may be getting the short end of the stick.
But Clean Line Energy Partners, a Houston-based transmission company that specializes in high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology, which can be effective in transmitting intermittent power generated by renewable fuels, is trying to balance the equation. On Monday it announced that it would partner with Siemens on HVDC technology for the Iowa wind to Illinois Rock Island Clean Line transmission project. Keep reading →
On the heels of yesterday’s White House announcement of a multifaceted initiative on smart grid technology, Siemens undertook a major project of its own.
I have trouble enough keeping up with my e-mail; checking my thermostat 300 times a day isn’t going to happen Keep reading →
Exactly who is in charge of regulating energy in the US?
Most people would probably say the Department of Energy (DOE), but the role of other federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture, as well as appointed commissions like FERC and CFTC, play equally significant but often largely invisible roles. With so many players, and Congress hesitant to provide direction on broad policy direction, the White House has become the de facto setter of energy policy and implementation. Keep reading →
It starts with a ‘C’ and ends with an ‘L.’
Coal may have become the dirtiest word in the energy industry last week when American Electric Power (AEP) finally caved to continued Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation pressures and announced that it would “prematurely” retire nearly 6,000 MW of coal generated electricity by the end of 2014. Keep reading →
