Government funding has played a key role in launching the microgrid market, especially at the federal government level. Yet there is, at present, few “microgrid” line items in most federal, state or local government budgets. In the Obama Administration’s ARRA stimulus package, there are categories for “customer-owned systems” and even “microgrids,” but these were never (more…)

In this week’s State of the Union address, President Obama once again made it clear that one of his top priorities is ensuring U.S. global leadership in the emerging industries of clean energy  and energy efficiency.

Clean energy not only represents one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century, it is also critical to our nation's (more…)

A new study identifies the high-speed rail corridors in the U.S. with the greatest potential to attract ridership in the nation’s so-called “megaregions.” The study by the group America 2050 scores 7,870 potential rail corridors using 12 critical factors, including population, employment concentrations, rail transit accessibility, and air travel markets. (more…)

Mexico is a solar energy opportunity without parallel, according to a report from Greentech Media (via Rhone Resch’s Twitter post).

The report, Solar Energy Sector, was prepared by Mexico’s energy department, SENER, formally known as the Mexican Secretaría de Energía. Resch, in case you didn’t know, is president and CEO of the (more…)

In the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon, BP’s stocks have rallied, Halliburton has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and many people are wondering if the world has slipped into a self-induced amnesia.

But not Mark Mills, founding partner of Digital Power Capital, a private equity firm that invests in energy-oriented technologies. To Mills, a (more…)

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

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A new EPA proposal is taking aim at reducing emissions from power plants that affect people living downwind. Air pollution from these sources has been shown to cause thousands of asthma cases and other cardio-respiratory impairments. The proposed regulations have been termed (more…)

“There’s a lot of impact still to make here and important work to do.  I also think in some ways we and I are uniquely suited to do that.”  – Seth Goldman, CEO Honest Tea

KissMyCountry had the rare opportunity to interview Seth Goldman, CEO of Honest Tea - in person!  When Seth realized we live near his company in Bethesda, Maryland he invited us to his office for the interview.  Enjoy our talk with Seth Goldman as he talks about building Honest Tea, taking it to national distribution (more…)

Today, President Obama visited Solyndra, Inc. in Fremont California – a solar panel manufacturer that is building a new facility (and creating new jobs) thanks to funding from the Recovery Act. So far, construction of the new facility has created over 3,000 construction-related jobs and the new factory could create up to 1,000 long-term new jobs. And this is just one of countless stories that together account for the up to 2.8 million jobs the Recovery Act is responsible for by the CBO’s count. (more…)

One of the core issues surrounding the planting of trees and maintenance of crops or plantations is how to efficiently water them. Currently 1/3 of the world’s population lives in regions where water is scarce and this number is expected to double by 2025. These areas of dry land also have other soil issues, like erosion, which mean that the substrate is no longer able to support plant life.

A device created by Dutch inventor, Pieter Hoff, has the potential to mitigate some of the issues faced by farmers and business in areas of drought – the Groasis Waterboxx. The Waterboxx was recently listed as one of Popular Science’s top 10 inventions of 2010, and is designed to trap condensation that falls from the plant’s leaves during the night. (more…)