Category Archives: Energy Refuge
Energy Refuge is green blog focused on renewable energy and green issues.Established in 2006, it has been growing steadily with fresh andwell-written reports published on a daily basis.Articles l Homepage
Panasonic’s New Compact Thermoelectric Solution
Capturing excess heat to convert it into electricity can help the world become more energy-efficient, but currently technologies are expensive and not efficient enough. Panasonic is hoping to change that in the coming years with a tubular thermoelectric technology it has developed to tap wasted heat from sources such as hot springs and factories and [...]
SolarCity+Honda=Solar Financing Enterprise?
Solar energy company SolarCity and automaker Honda have joined forces to increase access to solar power for their customers. The partnership establishes an investment fund to finance $65 million in solar projects to assist Honda and Acura (Honda’s luxury division) customers with the initial cost of solar power installation. Millions of Honda and Acura customers [...]
The Potential of Alternative Energy in the Midwest
A new study called Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest shows how marginal lands deemed unsuitable for food crops can be used to grow grassy and non-woody plants as biomass for alternative energy fuels. According to a Phys report, faculty members and a Ph.D. student from the Department of Geographical Sciences [...]
SWITCH LED Lights Gain U.S Popularity
SWITCH Lighting, a maker of Light Emitting Diodes lights to replace incandescent light bulbs, is now retailing at over 350 participating Batteries Plus stores across the U.S. The company’s LED lights, a more sustainable lighting alternative to incandescent bulbs, save up to 80 percent energy compared with traditional lights. Another innovation behind SWITCH LED bulbs [...]
Google Powers Up Renewable Energy Portfolio
Google kicked off 2013 with an announcement about a new, $200 million equity investment in a wind farm in west Texas. The wind farm can generate enough electricity to power 60,000 average U.S. homes. The Spinning Spur Wind Project is located in Oldham County, which is about 35 miles from Amarillo. The 161 megawatt facility [...]
Air + Water = Sustainable Fuel
It sounds like magic but it’s actually based on sound science. A British start-up called Air Fuel Synthesis is developing a technology to make gasoline using renewable energy to capture carbon dioxide and water from the air. It then electrolyzes the water to make hydrogen and reacts the carbon dioxide and hydrogen together to make [...]
Grid-Connected Solar Farm Comes to São Paulo
Brazil is known for its non-fossil energy matrix largely thanks to its reliance on hydropower, which comes with its fair share of controversy as the case of the mega dam Belo Monte exemplifies. Wind power is starting to grow in the country but solar photovoltaic is still a minuscule, virtually non-existent industry. Therefore, it comes [...]
The Solar Pocket Factory Concept Launched on KickStarter
A KickStarter project shows how solar panel factories could become a feature of any neighborhood, producing cheap solar panels for an age when these would become truly mass consumption items. Devised by inventors Shayne Frayne and Alex Hornstein, the duo has come up with a concept called “solar pocket factory” to produce cheaper small-scale panels [...]
The Politics of Solar
Bill Powers, of Solar Done Right, tells Business Week in a timely article about the political hitches holding solar back in the U.S., that “economically and technologically, the game is over. The hang-ups in the U.S. are strictly political,” he said. Oil and gas still dominate the agenda of the political debate and alternative energy [...]