Category Archives: Yale Environment 360
A123 Systems Announces Battery Breakthrough
The promising but financially troubled A123 Systems lithium-ion battery maker was expected to announce today that it has made a significant advance in battery technology that will enable electric car batteries to last longer and cost less. A123 has been a leader in the race to develop improved batteries for electric cars and has received [...]
Apple’s Data Center: 100% Powered by Green Energy by 2013
Apple Inc. has received approval to build two solar power installations at its main data center in North Carolina, allowing the technology giant to run the center entirely with renewable energy by next year. The two solar farms, which will cover 250 acres near its core data center in Maiden, N.C., will utilize high-efficiency solar [...]
China’s Energy vs. Water Dilemma
If you were to fly over the great continental expanse of China at night, you would find clusters of bright lights hugging near the eastern coast — sprawling, populous cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. But the farthest west you travel, the fewer such illuminated megalopolises you would encounter. To be sure, [...]
Hybrids Less Carbon-Intensive Than EVs in Most States
The U.S.’s continued reliance on coal and natural gas to generate electricity makes efficient gasoline-powered vehicles a lower-carbon alternative to electric vehicles in most states, according to a new report by Climate Central. In an analysis of life-cycle emissions from vehicles, based on how electricity is generated in each state, researchers found that the hybrid [...]
Solar ATM Machines in India
For many villagers in rural areas of India, personal banking comes at a high cost. In addition to the expense of traveling to the nearest branch, often in distant cities, they must often forego a day’s work Vortex Engineering, a start-up incubated at Chennai’s Indian Institute of Technology, has come up with a solution that [...]
Cap and Trade Auctions Could Reap Billions for California
The state of California stands to raise billions of dollars annually — and as much as $14 billion a year by 2015 — after it launches its ambitious carbon cap-and-trade system later this year. According to a report by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, the auctioning of CO2 pollution credits, which will begin this fall, [...]
Is the U.S Ditching Clean Energy for Fossil Fuels?
The story of American energy used to be that we consumed and imported too much, that fossil fuel reserves were finite, and that a technical breakthrough in clean alternatives would save us. How 20th century. The new narrative of American energy is this: We’ve been using less. A national boom in oil and gas production [...]
Denmark: 35% Green Energy by 2020
The Danish government has approved a series of goals to significantly reduce its carbon emissions and increase its use of green energy by 2020, an “ambitious green transition” officials say will affect all levels of society. The agreement, which was approved by parliament last week, targets cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent by 2020, [...]
Innovators Make the Case for Renewables at MIT Conference
MIT’s annual Energy Conference, held last Friday and Saturday, featured an impressive array of young engineers, scientists, and renewable energy entrepreneurs. It also included a sizeable number of more established players in the energy field. And the question left hanging at the end of the conference was whether this group of inventors and dreamers could [...]