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Through Innovation and Investment, the U.S. Can Lead in Next-Generation Energy, Nuclear Fusion

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The U.S. innovation system has a rich history of developing transformational technologies that usher in new eras of economic growth. The ultimate success of all energy technologies – whether coal, natural gas, oil, hydropower, nuclear, solar, or wind – has depended upon a tradition of public support during their research and development stage.

Consistent R&D support allowed new technologies to move through the stages of innovation – from basic and applied research, to prototyping, demonstration, commercialization, until they are finally market competitive. This process often takes decades, so returns are uncertain and dispersed, meanwhile, costs are certain, immediate, and focused, – so the private sector underinvests in R&D. Since the private market is not designed to address these problems, there is a clear role for smart government policy. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 3, 2012 at 12:30 PM

Ride-Sharing Software Cuts Energy Use, Carbon Emissions: Profile

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One of London’s growing number of clean-tech startup companies has created an online market place to cut energy use and carbon emissions by linking buyers and sellers of personal and freight transportation.

Carbon Voyage offers travelers a way of sharing rides to save money and fuel, and brokers trucking services to allow companies to ship their goods via reliable carriers who can make fewer trips with empty vehicles. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 3, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Addressing the Blackouts in India: One Company’s Perspective

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Indian passengers sit on the railway tracks near the platform of Sealdah train station waiting for the resumption of services during a power failure in Kolkata on July 31, 2012.

Even on a good day, millions of people in India are without access to electricity or deal with power outages on a fairly regular basis. However, the massive power failures that hit the country during the last days of July were striking in how widespread they were. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 2, 2012 at 11:00 AM

Cleantech IT Revolution Sweeps Number 10 Downing Street

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Luke Nicholson takes a late and frugal lunch of soup and bread in the fourth-floor conference room of a former fabric warehouse in London’s East End. The walls are thinly-painted brick, the floors are bare wooden planks, and there’s a visible gap by a nearby window frame, letting air and light in through a place they shouldn’t go.

It’s an unlikely setting for Nicholson’s company Carbon Culture, a cutting-edge clean-tech startup that writes software to monitor energy consumption, expenditure and carbon emissions in eight U.K. government departments, and is about to roll its product out to the private sector. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 2, 2012 at 8:30 AM

From the Lawyers: A Rock or an Island?

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“No rock is an island,” atoll tale from Herbert Smith, a quote that stands out given the significance of Okinotorishima and its status under the international law of the sea.

In 1931, approximately 350 years after mariners of all stripes began passing by (or over, depending on the tide) a coral reef referred to through the ages as Parece Vela (“looks like a sail”) and Douglas Reef; the Japanese navy (seeing a hydroplane base where others had seen a sail, or less) claimed this unassuming atoll for Japan and named it “Okinotorishima.” Keep reading →

 /  Published August 1, 2012 at 1:30 PM

Financial Education for the Solar Industry

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Each month we see dozens of solar projects; most of them will never get financed. Quite simply, the economics do not support the deal. For promising projects, we perform a detailed viability analyses but in most cases this is not necessary; it does not take much to spot an un-financeable solar project. Why then do they keep coming?

The lack of knowledge regarding a project’s financial viability is not only widespread in the solar community, but it is costing the industry terrific amounts of time and lost opportunities as projects are pursued (sometimes for months) before a check on project economics points out their unsuitability. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 1, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Environmental Scoring Project Aims at Top Decision Makers: Profile

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No-one could accuse AMEE of having modest goals.

Since 2007, the East London-based clean-technology company has been accumulating energy and environmental information from governments, companies and non-governmental organizations around the world with the goal of becoming the leading global source of data that can be used to calculate corporate carbon footprints or supply-chain energy consumption. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 31, 2012 at 11:30 AM

Breakthrough Cooling Technology Rolled Out for Data Centers

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Data-center consumption of energy and water for server-cooling has reached astonishing volumes, but a pair of innovative companies is applying the brakes to this runaway train.

The ambitious partnership and its technologies were presented during a July 25 “analysts day” at the Danbury, CT headquarters of Inertech, which designs, engineers and manufactures modular data pods and energy-efficient cooling systems for a wide range of industries. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 31, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Pennsylvania Court Upholds Local Control Over Gas Drilling

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Natural gas producers in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale will have to comply with local zoning codes after a state appellate court struck down a new law that sought to pre-empt municipal ordinances with a statewide land-use standard.

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court said Thursday that the pre-emption provisions in the controversial Act 13 were unconstitutional because they allow incompatible uses in zoning areas and fail to protect the interests of neighboring property owners. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 30, 2012 at 1:30 PM

London’s Silicon Roundabout Nurtures Clean-Tech Startups

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The traffic circle at the intersection of Old Street and City Road in East London’s Shoreditch neighborhood would be just another ugly piece of urban infrastructure if it hadn’t become identified with the city’s booming technology industry.

The circle – or roundabout, as the Brits call the familiar road features – is at the heart of a cluster of high-tech firms ranging from Google and Intel to hundreds of startups that have opened their doors in the last four years, generating a creative cluster that has invited comparisons with California’s Silicon Valley. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 30, 2012 at 8:30 AM
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