A town council in North Carolina rejected plans to rezone land for a solar farm after residents voiced fears it would cause cancer, stop plants from growing and suck up all the energy from the sun. [Huffpost Green] European renewable energy stocks rallied on Monday following an agreement over the weekend at the Paris global… Keep reading →
China will reduce emissions of major pollutants in the power sector by 60% by 2020, its cabinet announced today. [The Guardian] Abengoa, the Spanish renewable energy firm with a solar plant in Arizona, could soon become Spain’s biggest bankruptcy case of all time after the company failed to sign a new investor. [NPR] African heads… Keep reading →
The oil and gas industry is pushing a government study that they say vindicates their push to lift the nation’s 40-year-old ban on oil exports. [The Washington Examiner] The Sabine Pass LNG terminal will go live later this year, revealing innovative techniques that will launch the U.S. as a net exporter of natural gas. [Bloomberg]… Keep reading →
The U.S. residential solar segment witnessed record growth in Q3 2013 with 31,000 individual installations. On December 10, 2013, GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released a report analyzing U.S. solar market performance across 28 states and the District of Columbia during Q3 2013. According to the report, Q3 2013 represents the… Keep reading →
Spanish technology firm Abengoa, which operates renewables projects worldwide, has listed its shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange as part of a push effort to raise its profile in the US. Abengoa has singled out the US as a priority market, both for fundraising and for the ongoing growth of its business. “The US market… Keep reading →
The Shams 1 concentrated solar power plant was inaugurated earlier this week in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi, UAE. At 100 megawatts, Shams 1 is currently the largest operational CSP plant in the world. The project is noteworthy because it is a major step forward for renewable energy technology, and CSP in particular, but also because it was developed in an Opec country. Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, partnered with French oil major Total and Spain’s energy infrastructure company Abengoa. Breaking Energy attended the proceedings, along with several other international journalists, as Masdar’s guest. Masdar is a subsidiary of Mubadala, a UAE government-owned investment vehicle.
“With the addition of Shams 1, Masdar’s renewable energy portfolio accounts for almost 68 percent of the Gulf’s renewable energy capacity and nearly 10 percent of the world’s installed CSP capacity”, according to the company. Keep reading →
The development cycles for projects using established technology are famously lengthy in the energy sector, while the length of time it takes for new technology to be developed and brought to commercial scale runs to decades, if not longer.
The advanced biofuels business, lent a generous mandate by US politicians against the background of fears over energy security and rising oil prices in the middle of the last decade, has managed to accelerate the development cycle to a degree that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, representatives for the industry said on a call with reporters recently. Keep reading →
