Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released a new study on the bill savings received by residential customers with solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems, under the net metering rates currently offered by California’s two largest electric utilities. The report focuses on California, as it is the largest PV market in the United States.

The study shows that the bill savings per kilowatt-hour (kWh) generated by a PV system varies by a factor of 4 to 5 for residential customers of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) within the study sample, and by a factor 2 to 3 for Southern California Edison (SCE) residential customers in the sample.

Net metering is a billing arrangement that allows customers with PV systems installed on-site to offset their monthly consumption with PV generation, whether or not the demand for power coincides when their systems are generating power. In conjunction with other policy support mechanisms, net metering has been instrumental in jump-starting the market for distributed PV in California and elsewhere in the U.S. However, alternative compensation methods are under consideration in some jurisdictions. Continue reading… » 

LEED, the building standard that has lightened the footprint of tens of thousands of structures, announced a new standard yesterday that amplifies the idea to neighborhood scale.

The standard has been in the works for years and more than 200 test sites are already built or underway, including the Olympic village that opened in Vancouver this winter. Now any neighborhood or large development is eligible to apply. Continue reading… » 

Last week electric vehicle services company Better Place demonstrated a fleet of electric taxis that will operate in Tokyo and have batteries that can be replaced in about two minutes. The taxis will utilize Better Place’s battery swapping stations, which today cost around $1 million each for the equipment to automate the process.

Urban taxis are a suitable application for battery swapping because they:

a) Take frequent short trips.
b) Don’t often stray far from a geographic area.
c) Need to be kept on the road for as much of the time as possible.
d) Idle frequently (when stopped, or running the engine in between customers to control the vehicle’s temperature). Continue reading… » 

The Norwegian government has delayed until 2014 a highly touted project to capture and sequester carbon dioxide on a large scale, saying the project had become too complex to develop in the next several years.

The project, to be located at Mongstad in western Norway and developed in conjunction with the oil firm Statoil, was designed to capture carbon on an industrial scale, proving that the technology could safely and effectively be used to sharply reduce carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants.

The Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Sotltenberg, had called the proposed Mongstad facility Norway’s “moonlanding” project. Continue reading… » 

Two Tales of Ocean Energy: Major events in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico laid out the U.S.’s energy choices in stark contrast. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill made landfall in Louisiana, a week after the offshore rig caught fire and sank. Oyster beds and wildlife are at risk, and the spill may grow to be one of the largest in U.S. history. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave the green light to the Cape Wind installation, the first offshore wind farm to be approved in U.S. waters. Its 130 turbines, projected to be up and running by 2012, will provide 75 percent of the electricity needed on Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket Sound.

Climate Bill Stalls: The U.S. Senate’s version of a climate bill was yanked at the last moment when Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, withdrew his support to protest the Democrats’ sudden crusade for immigration reform. No definite plans for a new bill have emerged. Continue reading… » 

In France it is known as la Marée Noir, the “Black Tide.” The waves of oil that are rushing to choke the shorelines of Louisiana are well-known to the residents of the Galician coast of Spain and the shores of southwestern France where I used to live.

It was there in 2002 that the giant oil tanker Prestige broke apart in rough seas, a nightmare that would bring death to more than 20,000 birds and other wildlife, a nightmare that would spell destruction to the fishing and tourism industries for years afterward.

Living near Bordeaux at the time, I witnessed the results of the disaster first hand. For those concerned about the effects of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, past tanker calamities such as the Prestige and the 1989 wreck of the Exxon Valdez are instructive; they help us understand the magnitude of the damage such accidents can have on a region’s habitat, and the dangerous consequences of insufficient government regulation and political wrangling. Continue reading… » 

The energy world operates under the premise that more is better.  If we build more power plants, we’ll have ample supply, and electricity prices will drop. Even better, if those plants are clean and green, we’ll displace older, dirtier plants and reduce emissions. That will help our economy by producing jobs.

But is that the right way to think about power?

Truth be told, new energy sources are likely to play a smaller role in economic recovery than advances in energy efficiency, according to speakers at a recent symposium held by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, as part of its 30^th anniversary celebration.

“Cost-effective investment that can reduce the amount of energy necessary to support a dollar of economic activity is the single most important driver of economic productivity within the United States and around the world,” said John A. “Skip” Laitner, director of economic and social analysis, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Continue reading… » 

BP, the global oil giant responsible for the fast-spreading spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will soon make landfall, is no stranger to major accidents.

In fact, the company has found itself at the center of several of the nation’s worst oil and gas–related disasters in the last five years.

In March 2005, a massive explosion ripped through a tower at BP’s refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring 170 others. Investigators later determined that the company had ignored its own protocols on operating the tower, which was filled with gasoline, and that a warning system had been disabled. Continue reading… » 

A music video released last week as part of Earth Day celebrations looks at consumer culutre and the very real effect it is having on our oceans, as seen in the Pacific Ocean garbage patch.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a Texas-sized vortex of marine litter consisting of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris in the Northern Pacific ocean.

Musician Peter Buffet uses his song to urge people to change their wasteful habits, and in turn, lessen the effects of plastic waste products on the planet.

The video, released in conjunction with DoSomething.org, is shown below: Continue reading… » 

This post is part of our series on free resume help. Learn why the format of your resume (and cover letter) is important.

If you’re a consultant, graphic designer, advertising or marketing guru, or other service provider, your roster of happy clients is likely one of your biggest accomplishments. But what happens when your client list grows to unwieldy proportions? On your resume, you want to convey the breadth and depth of your experience; but you don’t want to overwhelm readers with information that doesn’t pack a powerful punch.

Keep these tips in mind when choosing what clients to list and how to handle them on your resume: Continue reading… »