Tag Archives: organization
Australian Scientists Printing Solar Cells Down Under
Scientists have produced the largest flexible, plastic solar cells in Australia—10 times the size of what they were previously able to—thanks to a new solar cell printer that has been installed at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). The printer is relatively cheap, uses common industrial chemicals and the resulting solar cells have a [...]
In Focus: Connecting the Americas 2022
By 2022, the Obama administration hopes to finish off an electrical grid that will connect all of the Americas, from northern Canada down through the Caribbean and ending at the southern tip of South America. The idea behind ”Connecting the Americas 2022″ is to make electricity universally available – and is part of the US State Department’s broader effort, the Energy and Climate Partnership [...]
Everybody Solar: Solar Crowdfunding in California
Youness Scally founded Everybody Solar in 2011. Its mission is to help nonprofits go solar, thereby benefitting not only the environment but also the nonprofit’s budget. By reducing its power bills, a nonprofit can focus resources on its programs instead of on operating costs. And that helps the community the nonprofit serves. Everybody Solar focuses [...]
The Future of Consumption: Sustainability
According to research entitled ‘Consumer Futures 2020’ the future of consumption is going to be radically different from what we see today. This research presents four scenarios exploring possible patterns of consumption in 2020, all of which indicate that consumerism will become more sustainable. Based on these two parameters, Prosperous vs. Less prosperous – by [...]
Report: Unsustainable Water Requirements for U.S. Energy Policy
A new report reveals that traditional electricity generation technologies require huge demands on increasingly scarce water resources, while solar and wind power plants require relatively little water. The report, “The Hidden Costs of Electricity: Comparing the Hidden Costs of Power Generation Fuels,” analyzes the indirect and externalized costs of six fuels used to generate electricity: [...]
We Have to Fight to Win Our Future
A few months ago I was having a routine beer with my good friend Ken, who is the director of our local sustainable business network. He had met with one of the business people that belonged to his network earlier in the day and was caught off guard by a question. “What do we do [...]
The Philippines Passes Renewable Energy FiT
In a historic day for renewable energy in The Philippines, the country approved a feed-in tariff (FiT) that convers small hydro, biomass, wind, and solar. It postponed including ocean energy for further study. The government previously announced the FiT for geothermal separately, in what it calls a “geothermal crash program.” It raised the rates to provide incentives to [...]
In Focus: GRID Alternatives
Established in 2001, GRID Alternatives is a nonprofit organization that provides low income communities access to solar energy. GRID Alternatives was founded by two engineers who are driven to make clean energy accessible to the low-income communities that need solar energy the most. The people at GRID Alternatives are on a mission “to empower communities [...]
GE Drops ALEC Membership
Six more major companies are cancelling their American Legislative Council membership (ALEC), bringing the new total to 38. The latest to abandon the controversial right-wing lobbying group and let their memberships lapse include technology company General Electric, financial services giant The Western Union Company, wireless telecommunications carrier Sprint Nextel Corporation, software developer Symantec Corporation, consumer [...]