My article 5 Reasons Wi-Fi Will Take a Back Seat for the Smart Grid stirred up a lot of debate in wireless circles — while some agreed with it and some pointed out reasons they felt I’d overlooked, others flat-out disagreed with what I wrote. Among them was the Wi-Fi Alliance, the trade group whose [...]

  “Utter market failure.” That’s how Mark Cooper, research director for the consumer advocacy group Consumer Federation of America describes the U.S. vehicle supply. For the 2010 model year, just 44 models (4 percent of all EPA-rated vehicles for the year) get 30 MPG or more, despite widespread consumer interest in more fuel efficient vehicles, according [...]

  Best Parts of the New Smart Grid Stimulus Awards: Smart grid analyst Jesse Berst sees three high points in the latest round of stimulus funding awards for smart grid projects: roughly 30 percent of the money went to long-overlooked utility-scale energy storage, much of the money went to projects that show how smart grid tech [...]

  In an interesting twist involving how the $4 billion in smart grid stimulus funds are being allocated, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu this morning announced that energy storage technology received 16 grants for a total of $185 million from the U.S. federal government. While the list of awards included funding for some well known energy [...]

  Tesla Motors’ long-planned Model S electric sedan may finally get a home — that is, if property negotiations scheduled to take place tonight in Downey, Calif., go as planned. According to the town’s mayor, Mario Guerra, a deal that would see the electric car startup set up an assembly line for the Model S on [...]

  Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has just announced another $620 million in stimulus funds for 32 smart grid demonstration projects. As we explained this morning, this latest funding combined with the $3.4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants allocated last month, is delivering $4 billion to utilities for smart grid technology. Chu said the $620 [...]

  Updated: Chu just announced $620 million for 32 smart grid stimulus demonstration projects, including 16 awards worth $435 million for general smart grid projects and 16 awards for a total of $185 million for energy storage technology. Here’s a list of the winners.According to the trade group the GridWise Alliance, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu [...]

  A new rule in California meant to help keep vehicles cool in the sun (and thus cut the need for fuel-chugging air conditioners) could interfere slightly with signal reception for GPS devices, but probably won’t block most mobile phone signals. Those are some of the findings in a report released this month by the California [...]

  If and when Tesla goes public, it could become the biggest and possibly the first public offering for a U.S. car company since Ford Motor's IPO more than 50 years ago. It will also offer a glimpse at the role IPOs will play in the green car market.

  Time for Contingent Climate Commitments: Should the Obama administration get out ahead of Congress, pledging to set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that 67 senators may not be willing to ratify? — GristGM Marketing Volt to…Middle Schoolers?: “On November 30th, hundreds of middle school students and teachers will assemble at the Harvard-Westlake School in Los [...]

  Thin-film solar PV maker First Solar has been aggressively buying solar projects, hoping to drive down project costs while spurring demand for its solar modules during the economic downturn. But First Solar isn’t in the business of holding onto these projects over the long term. In the latest indication of its strategy to develop and [...]

  So you think you’ve come up with the next game-changing greentech idea and now you just need to score some funding to get your new firm off the ground? Well, if you were eying the greentech bigwigs at Kleiner Perkins to back your fledgling startup, maybe you should rethink your strategy. In a presentation from [...]

  The cost of solar equipment has been steadily dropping over the last decade, but as the economy hit the skids over the past year, the cost to finance solar projects actually increased. In other words it became more expensive for a utility or company to raise capital to build solar projects this year than in [...]

  Sure, buying stuff isn’t exactly good for the environment — all products take energy to make and ship and, thus, contribute to carbon emissions — but Black Friday is upon us, and we’ve decided to put together an Earth2Tech slant on the annual holiday gift guide. These gifts range from gadgets that are super energy-efficient [...]