I heard a really good talk about lifecycle analysis (LCA) yesterday that took wind energy as an example, and examined the overall ecological footprint associated with an individual large turbine. On average, about 7.8 megawatt-hours of energy goes into extracting the materials, forging the pieces, transporting, assembling (more…)

Electricity produced by wind energy in the U.S. now equals the output of 11 nuclear power plants, according to a new report from the American Wind Energy Association, a trade organization.

As congressional leaders consider the extension of a tax credit for the emerging wind energy sector, the (more…)

In my last post, I talked about the harm caused by generating electricity to feed the internet (and all our other electrical needs). Today I’m going to look at what happens when we use so much energy that our utilities no longer have the capacity to meet the demand. Think darkness. And empty wallets. (more…)

With the shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and Once-Through-Cooling plants, Southern California Edison has serious local capacity constraints. So much so that that SCE is warning their customers that blackouts will result if they don’t conserve energy. The question is: what’s the long term solution? Will it be increased renewable distributed generation and (more…)

Now that you’ve installed efficient light bulbs in your house, do you think: “Guess I’ll leave my lights on all night. What the heck – it won’t cost me any extra.”

Probably not. But some extreme critics of energy efficiency would have us believe this is the end result of appliance standards and energy savings (more…)

Recently we blogged about a project by the Kyoto Journal called Fresh Currents, a magazine designed to offer thinking fodder for post-nuclear disaster Japan. The idea of the magazine is to dispel myths about nuclear power and to take a fresh look at alternative energy as a possibility for Japan. (more…)

The rising costs of living definitely has an impact on our everyday lives. You have to budget everything, from the food you eat to the utility bills that you have to pay for every month. It’s no longer strange that most people today are looking for alternate energy sources in order to save a few dollars from their electric bills. Compared with most types of alternative energy (more…)

In a previous post, I wrote about the New Energy Symposium held last month in New York City. The first day of the event featured a startup quick pitch competition, and the three winners of the competition were recently announced.

They are, in alphabetical order, Dynamo Micropower, (more…)

A new study by researchers at the University of Texas has found that dozens of small earthquakes occurred in a shale region of north Texas within a two-year period, with many occurring close to injection wells associated with oil and gas drilling projects.

In an analysis of seismic data, study author Cliff (more…)

California power utilities are now achieving more than 20 percent of the state’s electricity needs with renewable energy sources, state regulators say. In its latest quarterly report, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said that the state met 20.6 percent of its electricity demand with renewable sources — including wind, solar, and geothermal — (more…)