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Will BGE Kiss $200M in Stimulus Funds Goodbye?

Baltimore Gas & Electric could give up its $200 million from the DOE if it doesn’t get its smart meter proposal approved fast.

It's supposedly D-Day for Baltimore Gas & Electric. After the Maryland Public Service Commission rejected BGE's initial smart grid proposal, the utility resubmitted a revised proposal to the PSC just two weeks ago to keep $200 million in federal stimulus funds that the Department of Energy has reportedly threatened to revoke if the project does not move forward soon.

In a recent statement the utility prodded the PSC to action, noting… Read More ›

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Chinese Demand Could Boost These 3 Clean Energy ETFs

Around the world, stock markets have been very rocky as of late, with investors fearing a return to a recession in many developed countries.

This fear has compounded with weak earnings out of many large banks, and tempered growth predictions for mainland China to reduce expectations for one of the main drivers of growth in the emerging world. The government has stepped in to cool down the red-hot Chinese economy, in order to avoid inflationary pressures but still keep the economy growing at an acceptable rate. This has forced China to end a variety of stimulus programs, and… Read More ›

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Japan Rising: NECO Puts Another $17M Into Los Alamos Project

The Japanese are hoping to show why their technology rocks in a smart home, microgrid and 2-megawatt PV facility.

A collaboration between the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, a government-backed R&D agency in Japan, and the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities just put together a $27 million shot in the arm to build a demonstration project that will bring utility scale photovoltaics into a smart grid, and also to build a 'smart home.'

Although we already covered some of the cool technology that could come out of the NEDO… Read More ›

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California Removes EV Charging Hurdle as Consolidation Looms

The California Public Utilities Commission has cleared the way for electric car charging companies to sell power, which, ironically, is something that might help kill most of them. The decision has been expected.

Until the ruling, only utilities could sell power in California. (The rule applies in most states too.) Carving out an exception for charging stations essentially will allow them to erect public charging stations and sell power by the… Read More ›

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GM Ups Volt Production to 45,000 in 2012

Demand for the hybrid Chevy Volt must be strong.

General Motors today said that it would up the production of the Chevy Volt in 2012 from 30,000 cars to 45,000.

The announcement came as President Barack Obama was touring GM's Detroit-Hamtramck facility, where the Volt will be produced.

The nation will be electric-car crazy over the next few years. Later this year, Nissan will release the all-electric Leaf, Fisker Automotive will come out with its plug-in hybrid Karma and GM will release the… Read More ›

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The Natural Gas Era?

It is cleaner than coal and somewhat plentiful, but market swings and other issues loom, says Dirk McDermott of Altira Group.

Why is natural gas now being pushed to top-tier energy prominence? In a word -- 'supply.'  Five or so years ago, pundits were predicting a natural gas crisis.  Natural gas was declining according to just about every measurable metric.  Since then, technology has created a natural gas renaissance, enabling us to unlock vast resources from reserves previously perceived as uneconomic.

Additionally, these new reserves have been exploited by a large… Read More ›

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Smart Window Maker Soladigm to Site Factory in Mississippi

The company claims its windows can curb power consumption in buildings.

Soladigm will open a factory in Mississippi to see if a decades-old green building technology can finally take flight.

The company specializes in electrochromic windows which change tint when an electric current is applied. The idea is that building owners can turn down air conditioners and save energy on hot days by tinting the windows and blocking solar heat. Alternatively, office lights can be dimmed in the morning by keeping the windows… Read More ›

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Is America the Next Lithium Powerhouse?

California’s Salton Sea is like an open-air prison. It has lots of lithium for batteries and electric cars, too.

The local unemployment rate has hit 37 percent in recent years. The mummified remains of a murder victim were found in the area in March. Crystal meth is a cottage industry.  

But compared to Afghanistan or Bolivia, the Salton Sea just might prove to be an easier place to extract lithium for car batteries and consumer applications. And it's only two-and-a-half hours from San Diego.

Simbol Mining in approximately 18 months will open its first… Read More ›

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Rush Limbaugh, Electric Vehicle Expert, on the Chevy Volt

Is Rush Limbaugh right about the Chevy Volt electric car?  Obama Motors?

Obama Motors?

Rush Limbaugh, popular radio personality and thought leader for the U.S. Republican party, weighed in on electric vehicles.  Here are some quotes from the transcripts of a recent Rush Limbaugh talk show:

• "Everybody's all excited today, the Chevy Volt has announced a price at 41 grand.  However, you can get it for less -- there's a $7500 tax credit which means that Obama and the government are admitting that nobody wants this,… Read More ›

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Nevada’s Big Bet on Geothermal

How the Silver State will become a lab for a growing renewable

Most of Nevada remains sparsely populated, but the state now generates more geothermal power than all but eight of the world's nations, according to the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA). And that's only an indication of geothermal's potential as a player at the renewables table.

"It was only five or six years ago that people had no idea what geothermal could be," Karl Gawell, the Executive Director of the GEA, said. "There was tremendous… Read More ›

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First Solar Drops Cost to 76 Cents a Watt

But the solar panel giant is cautious on sales outlook

First Solar offered a cautious outlook on sales this year, but said Thursday it cut manufacturing costs and promised a rapid expansion in utility-scale projects.

The thin film giant reported second-quarter financial results with a 12 percent increase in sales. However, earnings were down, primarily due to lower module selling prices.

The world's largest solar maker acknowledged replacing some modules made from June 2008 to June 2009 because of… Read More ›

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Molycorp: Another Dud Green IPO

Tesla, Jinko above water; Molycorp, A123, Codexis and Energy Recovery below

The green industry is right one out of every three times.

Molycorp, which wants to mine rare earth elements for use in car batteries and electronics from a big pit in southern California, held an IPO today. The company said earlier in the month that it planned to sell 28 million shares for $15 to $17 a share. It dropped the price to $13.25 a share in the IPO yesterday and on the first day of public trading the stock is hovering between $12 and… Read More ›

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Renewable Energy Would Create More Jobs Than Nuclear Power

The Union of Concerned Scientists weighs in on the nuclear vs. renewables debate.

If Christine Todd Whitman were really serious about promoting jobs in the energy industry, she would be talking about wind and other renewable energy resources, not nuclear power. Her July 9 op-ed, co-written with Florida State Rep. Juan C. Zapata, overstated the benefits of nuclear power and mentioned none of its drawbacks. 

Whitman claims that constructing new nuclear plants has the potential to create "as many as 70,000 jobs," but how long… Read More ›

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LS9’s Genetics Breakthrough: Will it Produce Biofuels at Scale?

A genetic discovery could allow LS9 to produce biofuels by converting sugar directly to alkanes and fuels.

Biofuels startup LS9 just announced a breakthrough that could lower the cost of producing “drop‐in” hydrocarbon biofuels that are low‐carbon and compatible with the existing fuel distribution infrastructure.    

In the article “Microbial Biosynthesis of Alkanes,” a team of LS9 scientists identified genes that, when expressed in E. coli, produce alkanes, the hydrocarbons that make up gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.  This discovery is the first… Read More ›

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SolarReserve’s Salty Solution for Solar Thermal

Salt holds its heat better, but will the advantages get swamped by the trade-offs?

SolarReserve says it can beat the competition by bringing salt one step closer to the sun.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company has created a solar thermal technology that uses heliostats -- relatively flat, independently mounted mirrors -- to focus the sun's heat on a large tank atop a 653-foot tower.

But unlike the heliostat power plants designed by BrightSource Energy and e-Solar, SolarReserve's tank isn't filled with water. Instead, the… Read More ›

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Meter Data Management: Get a Roadmap!

Smart meter data has endless applications, but only if you have a careful plan about how to use it.

It's not just about doing a pilot and then collecting data off of smart meters. Utilities looking to manage data coming from smart metering must have a multi-tiered plan in place, Larsh Johnson, director and CTO of eMeter, said during a GTM Webinar on Wednesday moderated by Chet Geschickter, Smart Grid Analyst with GTM Research.

While many people argue that smart meters are an end point and represent just one part of the smart grid, Johnson said… Read More ›

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The Looming Consolidation in Car Chargers and Other EV Predictions

Electric cars and plug-in hybrids like the Leaf and the Volt are on the way. Here’s how the market will shake out.

Ten years ago, a secretive startup was putting the final touches on an electric vehicle that billionaires, investors and analysts speculated could fundamentally change the way humanity moved around.

It was the Segway.

We've certainly come a long way since then. Startups like Tesla Motors have made the case that electric cars don't have to be clunky, utilitarian people-movers. Over the next two years, Nissan, General Motors, Ford, Toyota,  Read More ›

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Sulfurcell—the Other CIGS—Inks Deal for 16MW in China, India

New forms of thin-film solar spread their wings.

Sulfurcell has reported that it has signed deals to sell 16 megawatts of panels to projects in Asia: 10 megawatts worth of panels will go to China and 6 megawatts will end up on commercial roofs in New Delhi.

The German company specializes in copper indium sulfur (CIS) solar panels, which are close cousins to the copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells promoted by Miasole, Solopower, Heliovolt and others, as well as the emerging copper… Read More ›

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Photo Gallery: Plug-In 2010

Car enthusiasts gathered in San Jose this week for Plug-In 2010. Here are some of the highlights.

Electric transportation. It is probably the most popular topic when it comes to green technology with the public and interest keeps growing. 2010 will mark a watershed year in the industry as major manufacturers like Nissan and General Motors roll out cars. Several charging station manufacturers will begin to roll out services, as well. We attended Plug-In 2010 this week and took some shots of the latest technologies and products coming your… Read More ›