Clean Energy Digest

There has been a lot of chatter about feed-in tariffs lately as a way to jump start the solar industry in North America. Here are some recent news links. Feed-in tariff to aid solar weighed Arizona utility regulators are designing rules that would require power companies to buy electricity from solar developers at prearranged prices. [...]

A recent story about how solar power plants are now more cost effective  to build than nuclear power plants in Carolina has created quite a bit of buzz especially amongst staunch advocates of renewable technology. Here’s how the New York Times framed the issue on July 26th. Solar photovoltaic systems have long been painted as [...]

This is sure to stir up some controversy about the reliability of renewable energy. The following video shows a news report from Minnesota about 12 wind turbines that won’t operate in cold weather due to an issue with the hydraulic fluid. The Minnesota State Municipal Power Association paid $300,000 for each of the turbines. What [...]

Bill Gates has a new website called Gates Notes where you can find out more about Mr. Gates, his charitable foundation and his thoughts on a variety of topics. One of the posts on his site is a podcast series on energy. There are four audio files in the series in both Windows Media and [...]

Google has done a good job throwing mainstream media reporters off of the scent when it comes to their recent filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The New York Times Bits Blog (which is a tech focused blog) seemed to take the following quote from a Google rep at face value. “We want [...]

About a year ago we mentioned that Google was investing in an enhanced geothermal energy company called AltaRock Energy. In fact, both Google and the U.S. Department of Energy made significant investments in AltaRock’s plan to drill deep into dry but hot caverns in Northern California in a bid to, “…create an EGS reservoir that [...]

An operating wind turbine collapsed at the Noble Altona Wind Park in upstate New York this past Friday. The Press Republican, a local upstate New York newspaper reported on the story. Neighbors around the Altona wind park reported hearing loud explosions before the turbine apparently snapped in half around 10 a.m. and then caught fire. [...]

The credit market freeze, stock market devaluations and commodities markets collapse are having a chilling effect on clean energy projects around the globe. Pickens delays world’s biggest wind farm project T Boone Pickens, a renowned Texan oilman who is raising the capital for the wind farm, told a US television station today that the twofold [...]

The San Jose Mercury News reports that the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in California has rejected a contract between PG&E and Finavera Renewables. The chief reason given for the rejection was related to viability of the project. According to the story, “The commission noted that a prototype buoy deployed by Finavera off the Oregon [...]

The outlook for clean energy projects has started to change as a result of the current economic situation in the U.S. and around the world. A pair of news items underscore the wider issues that are likely to develop. Wind-farm Workers Laid Off Noble Environmental Power has stopped work at its Bellmont and Chateaugay wind-energy [...]