Will the Smart Grid Be Made of Dumb Pipes?: Utility executives at the Clean Energy Venture Summit in Austin, Tex. this week debated whether utilities should focus on adding value-added services on top of the power network (like phone companies have rushed to do on their data networks), or remain content to provide the basic [...]
It’s a new world for Aptera in its quest for federal funds today. The startup, which is developing a futuristic-looking, ultra aerodynamic three-wheeled vehicle called the 2e, can now be considered for funding under a highly competitive Department of Energy loan program for green cars.That’s thanks to an 80-17 vote in the Senate yesterday in [...]
Want to hit it big in cleantech? Sign your Chief Financial Officer up for Mandarin lessons. “The hottest commodity today is a Chinese-speaking CFO with an MBA from an American school –- that person is worth a mint,” venture capitalist Steve Westly said this week at a conference sponsored by Silicon Valley law firm Cooley [...]
The match has started, says Guido Bartels, General Manager of IBM’s Global Energy & Utilities industry, in reference to the increasingly competitive smart grid industry. IBM, which sells a long list of networking and integration software as well as consulting services to utilities, has been selling “smart grid” technology since 2004, says Bartels (who was [...]
One-sixth of the world’s servers — computers that run web services — are not being used at all, wasting $24.7 billion a year, including $3.8 billion in energy-related costs, according to a new report published Thursday. Researchers at the Alliance to Save Energy, Kelton Research and 1E, a software IT company, found through surveys of server [...]
The technology behind the first “Green Revolution” in agriculture, during the 1960s and ’70s, focused on boosting crop yields, to help feed growing populations and spur economic growth in Latin America and Asia. But that revolution wasn’t all that green in the 2009 sense of the term, relying heavily on chemical fertilizers and increased irrigation. [...]
When it comes to the smart grid, utility executives seem willing to embrace the dumb pipe status that their cousins in the telecommunications world are so leery of. That’s because the history of heavy regulation — and near-monopoly — has created an environment where competition and innovation aren’t commonly baked into the utility business model. [...]
Even though the “smart grid” industry is a hot topic these days — with $4 billion in federal stimulus funds set to be doled out in weeks and a potential $210 billion in revenues between 2010 to 2015 — the term can still be a dirty word for some utilities. That’s because some in the [...]
Climate-Security Connection: National security fears loom large for politicians who might otherwise oppose carbon legislation. That’s why John Kerry, rather than Barbara Boxer, has become the face of the Senate climate bill and why environmentalists are hitching up with veterans groups. — TNR’s The VineRedox Flow Batteries for EVs: “Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for [...]
Solar thermal power company Solel Solar Systems has found an exit. Less than a year after Solel raised a gigantic $105 million investment from London-based firm Ecofin to help finance a plant in California’s Mojave Desert, Siemens has announced today that it is buying the Israeli company from Ecofin (and another unnamed major shareholder) for [...]
Waiting for the cellulosic ethanol industry to move into commercial production is like watching grass grow. This morning cellulosic ethanol developer Coskata unveiled that it’s demonstration plant in Madison, Penn., is now up and running and ready to produce 50,000 gallons of the biofuel per year. It’s a big milestone for the company in terms [...]
While utilities and companies are eagerly awaiting the upcoming announcement about which of the hundreds of applicants managed to grab a piece of the $4 billion from the federal stimulus package for smart grid projects, it looks like states could offer smaller runner-up prizes. Smart meter tech maker SmartSynch says that it’s been awarded a [...]
Green building geeks now have a more powerful tool for developing next-gen building designs with minimal environmental impact. Software engineers at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory launched this week an update of their plug-in for SketchUp, Google’s open-source 3D building modeling tool. With a growing list of features, the latest version of [...]
State law requires the California Energy Commission (CEC) to assemble a report every other year with recommendations for policies to “conserve resources; protect the environment; ensure reliable, secure, and diverse energy supplies; enhance the state’s economy; and protect public health and safety.”That’s a massive task, particularly during a time of flux for how we generate, [...]
