Will new technologies democratize energy much the way the Internet did information?

Industry movement seems to point in that direction with the rise of the smart grid, time-of-day pricing, distributed solar, and the electric vehicle. Together these technologies offer a vision of a less centralized energy system, one where communities and households ‘vote in’ or shape the (more…)

A number of green patent complaints have been filed in the last several weeks in the areas of biofuels, LEDs, gasoline recycling, and smart grid.

Biofuels

Butamax Advanced Biofuels v. Gevo, Inc.; Gevo, Inc. v. Butamax Advanced Biofuels (more…)

We don’t think about energy until something goes wrong, and this week things went wrong on an historic level. As a result, the public and pundits are again focusing on the fragility of big electric grids.

Ten percent of the world’s population – more than 600 million people – lost their power in India on July (more…)

Imagine this scenario: you get an SMS saying there’s a problem in your home of excessive power output (“power leak”) and that an electric company rep is on his way to fix the problem. Sounds incredible? Well, apparently this scenario is not far from being realized. This is what Itai Brezis, Director of Strategy and Business Development at Cellcom, claimed at (more…)

An expert panel of IEEE members, representing the world’s largest technical professional association dedicated to advancing technology, yesterday said that collaboration is key to develop the global solar energy marketplace. They were speaking at the Intersolar Europe 2012 trade fair, which goes on until tomorrow in Munich, Germany. The IEEE expert panel provided leading (more…)

Ask most people to describe vanguard energy technology, and they’ll name LED lights, certain forms of solar energy and new electric storage methods. But how about this – generating energy from a living body?

The Journal of the American Chemical Society is reporting a “real-life scientific tail of the first electrified (more…)

Who among us has not eagerly described the smart meter to a non-energy person only to be greeted by a blank stare, or worse the retort: “Why would I want to track my electricity costs all day?”

You try to explain the profound applications: smart appliances that talk to the power grid, consumer (more…)

Exhilaration swept through the energy efficiency industry as city after city, state after state and nation after nation set aggressive energy saving goals over the last several years. But with target dates nearing in certain jurisdictions, a more sober attitude now permeates. Some governments are asking: Are we reaching too high? (more…)

The success record of smart grid renewables integration is a mixed bag, with European countries boldly plowing forward while many utilities in the United States exhibit what a former California state regulator called “electrotrophobia” – the fear of change linked to greater reliance upon intermittent renewable energy resources. (more…)

The electric industry is good at building things. That’s how it solves problems. Is there a threat of blackouts? Develop a new natural gas-fired plant. Worried about climate change? Build wind and solar power. Does electricity cost too much? Install a transmission line to import cheaper power. (more…)