Amid all the negative publicity that Solyndra’s failure has brought to the Administration’s cleantech efforts, one cleantech program has received broad bipartisan support: DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e). In 2012, ARPA-e will receive $275 million, a 53% increase from the prior year with both the House and the Senate supporting significant (more…)

There is a lot of discussion lately about domestic energy production and American energy security. For the Obama Administration, moving towards the goal of energy independence has been a clear priority since day one. When President Obama took office, the United States imported 11 million barrels of oil a day. The President has put forward a plan to cut that by (more…)

The United States has implemented a variety of policies in the effort to cut back gasoline use. For example, the Obama Administration has invested federal dollars into GM’s electric vehicles. The EPA has introduced new fuel economy standards which are to be implemented over time, gradually becoming stricter. The government has also promoted (more…)

A recent Bloomberg survey of key energy decision-makers concluded that China shows more government support than any other country for funding renewable energy. It also shows equally high support for transformational clean technologies, like smart grids and electric cars. With the right government backing, China could address its own energy security (more…)

The good news is that on 8 November the International Energy Agency released its 2011 “World Energy Outlook.”

While it will cheer nuclear advocates, overall the report makes for grim reading.

Pulling no punches, the report states at the outset, (more…)

At events such as the recent EV Roadmap 4 conference in Portland, panelists quibble about when plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) will be ready for mass adoption, and how best to roll out the charging infrastructure. But to understand why the PEV movement is here to stay, it only takes two words: energy security. (more…)

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has just approved the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, a 550-megawatt (MW) solar power project to be built in the California desert east of Palm Springs. The solar-photovoltaic facility will create more than 630 jobs at peak construction and infuse an estimated $336 million (more…)

The idea that electric vehicles could be used as power storage for the home is not new, but in current blackout-prone Japan, the country needs to find ways to secure some level of energy security.

Enter the Nissan LEAF. Recently, in Japan, Nissan unveiled a system for using its LEAF electric vehicle (more…)

Chevron is a multinational energy corporation located in the United States but active in over 180 countries worldwide. Chevron is engaged in a number of industries, including gas, oil and geothermal energy. Chevron is known as one of the six “supermajor” oil companies in the world. In the last five years, (more…)

Jordan’s growing economy has been hobbled by the fact that it currently imports 95 percent of its energy needs.

During the “Energy Security in the Middle East and the Gulf Region” seminar held in the capital Amman earlier this week, a number of analysts stated that the country could benefit by shifting (more…)