Call it the Tesla Truck, the Tesla Pickup Truck, or the Tesla-150, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made it clear that the electric carmaker plans to make a pickup truck. In fact, he couldn’t be clearer: he plans to make something to compete with the best-selling light-duty vehicle on American roads: the Ford F-150.… Keep reading →
The U.S. military has said time and again that moving away from a reliance on fossil fuels is in its best interest, for energy security reasons and as a matter of keeping troops safe. Despite this, such efforts – particularly on the biofuels front – have caught flak from Republicans in Congress. But President Obama isn’t backing off, or so it… Keep reading →
The sun set on the federal government’s loan-guarantee program for renewable-energy development on Friday, with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) closing four deals – three for big solar-power plants and another for a 28-state rooftop-to-grid project – worth more than $4 billion. But while there were last-day winners, there were also losers, as four conditionally guaranteed projects that were on the DOE’s Section 1705 scoreboard Friday morning had disappeared by nightfall.
The two biggest of the four to fail: First Solar’s Topaz solar plant in California, and SolarCity’s SolarStrong project to put solar system on the roofs of military housing around the nation. Neither’s fate was a surprise; First Solar revealed on Sept. 22 that it had been told Topaz wasn’t going to clear, and SolarCity made a similar revelation a day later. Keep reading →
