The Production Tax Credit may not be America’s best policy tool for incentivizing clean energy development, but it’s what we’ve got — and it must be renewed

There are three letters on the minds of those in America’s renewable energy sector: PTC. The acronym stands for Production Tax Credit, a critical (more…)

Are you a weather junky? I am. After all, I make plans, dress and tend my garden around what’s happening outside. While utilities have always used weather forecasts as part of their operations, our energy future is becoming increasingly more dependent on predicting the weather in a high-tech, sophisticated (more…)

Previous posts (here and here) discussed the patent litigation involving A123 Systems Inc. (A123), a Boston area lithium-ion battery maker, Canadian utility Hydro-Quebec (H-Q), the exclusive licensee of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,910,382, 6,514,640, 7,955,733, 7,960,058 and 7,964,308 (collectively “Cathode (more…)

The capital of Germany, Berlin, is commonly referred to as one of the global leaders within the renewable energy economy, as, for example, it is the top cleantech exporting country, with more than a 16 percent share within the international cleantech trade. With multiple avenues to promote clean technologies, including an (more…)

A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that an increase in heat waves is “virtually certain” as a result of global warming and that extreme weather events — including hurricanes, floods, and droughts — will likely become more intense in the next century. (more…)

Another oil spill is taking place in the world right now from an off-shore drilling operation.

The incident was at Chevron’s deep-sea drilling operation off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil. The country’s federal police says information released by Chevron does not match what they have seen, that is, the spill is larger, (more…)

London Bridge hasn’t fallen down–yet. But any 117-year old bridge is bound to need a few updates here and there. The latest round of improvements will help cut the amount of energy required to light the landmark by 40 percent.

There’s no denying that London Bridge is an icon–a (more…)

The US Department of Energy’s reputation is now enshrined as the agency that Republican presidential contender Rick Perry wants to dismantle – if only he could remember its name. But a recent report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences offers a different direction for the federal agency, one that (more…)

Contrary to common belief that nothing is really happening in green building at the Congressional level these days, I provide the following two counterexamples.

 An amendment to the Senate Appropriations Bill for Energy and Water introduced by Senators Wicker (more…)

The more I delve into energy and climate issues, the more this seems completely evident: we should prefer energy efficiency and sobriety over renewables.

Making efficiency a priority – whereas renewables are the priority nowadays – will without a doubt benefit the consumer, the society as a whole and our (more…)