By sitting around and watching opportunities pass by Warren Buffet, the legendary investor who has been at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway and made a fortune for himself and his shareholders, was once asked how to make a million. His answer: Buy an airline for a billion and watch your investment shrink to a million.… Keep reading →
With the announcement today of continued growth in residential and utility-scale installations in the third quarter and a forecast of a robust fourth quarter, the leading American solar industry group said new capacity additions in the U.S. in 2013 will likely exceed those in Germany for the first time in 15 years. In a way, this isn’t… Keep reading →
The March 2011 Fukushima accident destroyed four and shuttered most (currently all) of Japan’s 54 nuclear plants. Japan replaced nuclear energy with discomfort, sacrifice, and costly fossil fuels, because utility oligopolies suppressed renewable competitors and national energy efficiency languished. Two and a half years later, power reserves, though easing, remain tight, fuel bills exorbitant, and… Keep reading →
Half empty in the West, half full in a handful of centrally planned economies Nuclear power’s prospects appears to be doomed in the West where markets and private investors tend to make the decisions and assume the risks, that is, if they can get the public’s support and regulator’s approval. In other parts of the… Keep reading →
The promise of solar grid parity is near The news about solar PV costs keeps getting better as price of modules falls as do installation and balance of system costs. A team of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has been tracking these developments in the US, with their latest report released in… Keep reading →
Electricity prices plunge to 2.75 cents per kilowatt-hour as renewable energy dominates on Germany’s Reunification Day. Wind and solar power peaked at 59.1 percent of German power generation earlier this month. It happened at noon on a very windy and sunny October 3, which is the German holiday commemorating reunification. (Germany also hit peaks of… Keep reading →
Quick Take: The respected Economist magazine is out with a story documenting the “existential threat” to Europe’s electric power utilities titled “How to lose half a trillion euros.” It is valuable reading for anyone in Europe, of course. But important for the rest of the world, especially North America, which seems to be heading down… Keep reading →
On the heels of a hope-inspiring report that patents for wind and solar technologies are way up, comes this downer: Global investment in clean energy is plunging. Again. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which has been tracking these numbers for nearly a decade now, toted up $45.9 billion in clean energy investment in the third quarter of 2013,… Keep reading →
“The Christian Coalition believes that energy efficiency is a family value issue,” writes the group’s CEO in an op-ed. Whether or not you follow the logic, it will be interesting to see whether this helps advance efficiency legislation in Congress. [The Hill] Germany is finding out that its efforts to shift toward cleaner energy – while cutting… Keep reading →
IBM is looking to capture a share of Europe’s growing “smart” electricity market. IBM has inked a deal with the metering division of EOn, Germany’s largest utility, to deliver a data and analytics platform, the Intelligent Energy Service Enablement Platform, for Smart Grid customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with plans to expand offerings to… Keep reading →
