A plan to help finance what will likely become mandatory power plant upgrades to withstand more extreme weather in the wake of the February power crisis received preliminary approval in the Texas House.
The new CEO of SunPower Corp. - a veteran of Amazon.com Inc. - wants to make the rooftop solar-buying process easier for homeowners. in an interview Wednesday. “Until we make getting solar as simple as buying a book on Amazon, we’re not going to stop,” SunPower Chief Executive Officer Peter Faricy said. Read more →
The electricity powering most of Tucson, including the University of Arizona, got a little cleaner the week of May 3, as Tucson Electric Power Company (TEP) switched on its biggest solar and wind power plants to date. Read more →
Bloomberg NEF calculates that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement with a combination of zero-carbon electricity and hydrogen would require more than $60 trillion of power sector investment, plus more than $30 trillion of investment in hydrogen production and transport by 2050. Read more →
Decarbonizing energy and other industries globally using hydrogen will require investment of almost $15 trillion between now and 2050, the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) said in a report in April. The ETC is an international coalition of executives from the energy industry committed to achieving net zero emissions by mid-century, a goal set by the Paris climate agreement. Read more →
Cleantech startup incubator Greentown Labs officially opened its Houston facility in April, marking Earth Day and the one-year anniversary of the city unveiling its first Climate Action Plan. The 40,000-square-foot space has room for 50 startups with more than 300 employees working in clean technology. Read more →
NextEra Energy Inc. wants to buy more power lines to tap into rising demand for renewable energy, weeks after closing a $660-million deal for such transmission wires. The Florida-based company plans to expand its business both by developing and acquiring transmission assets. Read more →
Google Earth has partnered with NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab to bring users time-lapse images of the planet’s surface - 24 million satellite photos taken over 37 years. Together, they offer photographic evidence of a planet changing faster than at any time in millenia. Read more →
President Joe Biden has committed to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. The ambition is a significant advance on the previous target, set by President Barack Obama, of a 26-28% cut from 2005 levels. But it stops short of doubling that target. Read more →
Texas came uncomfortably close to another round of rolling blackouts on the night of April 13 because grid operators misjudged the weather. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of the state’s grid, had counted on a mild cold front sweeping the state, lowering demand for power. It didn’t happen. Read more →
CO2 emissions from electricity generation among Europe’s 10 largest economies fell by 7% in 2020, according to the latest figures provided by Wärtsilä’s Energy Transition Lab. Read more →
The worldwide push to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require advances in green technologies - particularly tech associated with renewable energy - but simply waiting for future tools to emerge isn’t a viable solution to climate change. Read more →
Negative net-zero carbon. The phrase sounds redundant or oxymoronic. But it is a real thing. You can have less than net-zero carbon emissions if you capture and use emissions that otherwise would be released as greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Read more →
