Scientific breakthroughs often follow a collective focus on an issue or problem. When a tipping point is reached, the combination of small solutions across sectors spurs a giant leap forward. Renewable energy development has been a growing focus of international research over the last 3-4 decades and advances in clean energy technology have coincided (more…)

DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts (DPTL) is a joint venture between DuPont and Tate & Lyle which provides natural and renewably sourced industrial materials. In collaboration with Climalife, DPTL has developed and launched a new line of heat transfer fluids (HTF) under the brand name Greenway. (more…)

U.S.-based BrightSource Energy has shelved its second major solar thermal project this year as the company and Pacific Gas and Electric terminated the utility’s contract to buy power generated by the plant in south-central California.

In an email, a BrightSource spokesman said the $2.9 (more…)

A U.S.-based company that will soon finish construction of one of the world’s largest solar thermal power plants in the Mojave Desert, is now looking to build an even larger plant in Southern California.

BrightSource Energy, which is expected to begin producing up to 370 megawatts of electricity per day (more…)

We want to get energy from clean energy sources, especially the sun, and if we can make solar power look better, it is possible that solar market acceptance would grow amongst those people who like to combine function and form.

One example of a company that has introduced a (more…)

eSolar is a Burbank, California, solar thermal company that makes solar power plants using flat mirrors, or heliostats, to concentrate sunlight onto a centrally located water tank suspended on a tower. This type of structure is known as “power tower” architecture.

The company owns U.S. Trademark Registration No. (more…)

Here’s a good article on a recently completed solar thermal tower (aka concentrated solar power or CSP) in the desert between Las Vegas and Reno, NV.

The thing to like about solar thermal, as we’ve often discussed here, is that it affords us a fairly low-cost way of storing energy and delivering it when the sun (more…)

Solar thermal energy technology has taken an important step further with a new collaboration between 3M’s Renewable Energy Division and Gossamer Space Frames. The companies yesterday unveiled a new parabolic trough solar collector technology designed to reduce costs and equipment for concentrated solar power systems. CSP is a solar system whereby (more…)

Solar power tends to be big because it covers a large amount of area with its panels. The world’s largest solar thermal power plant (by physical size) is nearly double the size of the original largest in Denmark — is now online in Saudi Arabia, reinforcing the notion that this Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil and a lot of sunlight. As long as the sun shines this sort of power is virtually (more…)

I just received this terse question from a reader: “What’s the ROI (return on investment) on solar thermal?”

I responded, hoping to prompt more discussion: “That’s an interesting but impossible question to answer. What is the nature of your interest in the (more…)