Combined heat and power (CHP) has changed the face of energy generation for the better. Instead of the old, outmoded, and inefficient process (which can waste as much as two-thirds of total energy generated), CHP utilizes the energy that’s squandered through heat in normal generators. Continue reading… » 

When we were kids, carpooling was a fact of life. Whether it was piling a bunch of kids into the mini-van or station wagon after school or going to little league practice, it seemed like carpooling made sense. Parents shared responsibility with other parents and took turns from time to time. Kids could continue their playground antics a little while longer. At some point, Continue reading… » 

The glaciers on Mount Everest and the surrounding region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last five decades as temperatures have risen and snowfall has declined in that section of the Himalaya, according to a new study.

Using satellite imagery and topographic maps, a Continue reading… » 

Each day, our industry sits down and whittles the unsightly knots off the tree we call solar energy. We, as a group, spend more time than we should pointing to one of a growing number of reasons why solar energy isn’t taking hold in America: that perhaps our government incentives were cut too quickly, that our state’s SREC program is broken, that the net metering Continue reading… » 

Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming. Who should do it and when? Anything done has the possibility of affecting everybody so who should be consulted? Who decides such world spanning concepts? A new study investigated these concerns. The findings are the Continue reading… » 

With the year nearly half done, here’s the solar scoreboard–updates from things we’ve been working on, and a selection of other notable solar victories.

New state solar programs

New York is our biggest market-building campaign in the East. Last month the Senate unanimously Continue reading… » 

We fret about turning off the lights to save pennies on energy. Meanwhile, electricity worth billions of dollars gets lost or stolen on the world’s power grids every year.

In industry jargon, the problem is known as ‘line loss.’ A certain amount of electricity generated by a power plant never makes it to the consumer – or at least Continue reading… » 

A team of scientists is enlisting public support to help produce a more comprehensive inventory of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants globally, urging citizens to identify power plants in their communities with a new digital app.

While data from some of the world’s industrialized Continue reading… » 

How often do we hear warnings for people with respiratory conditions to stay inside to avoid high levels of poor or toxic air in their communities? There are good reasons for those warnings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sees how damaging these sky-high air pollutant levels can be and, as a result, are focusing more closely on urban air quality Continue reading… » 

A previous post discussed advanced battery maker Electrovaya’s lithium ion polymer technology, which the company says provides faster, more efficient transport of lithium, and therefore greater energy density.

Several years ago, Electrovaya partnered with Tata Continue reading… »