2010 will see extended range plug in hybrids — as well as all electric vehicles start to hit the road in significant numbers. The plugin hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a primarily an electric vehicle with a small non-electric motor to extend their range; it is more of an electric vehicle and less of a gas powered vehicle than current hybrids. This post examines some of the main players in this emerging electic vehicle sector.
Robert A. Peck, Commissioner of Public Buildings at the U.S. General Services Association (GSA), presented a keynote presentation at Ecobuild America this week entitled GSA: Green Pioneer – Green Proving Ground. Peck presented his vision for the GSA as a leader in green building technology and discussed how the 5.5 billion dollar appropriation from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will impact the GSA’s work.
General Electric (GE) one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines has landed a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and related services for Caithness Energy’s Shepherds Flat 845MW capacity wind farm. The Shepherds Flat project when completed will cover an area of 30 square miles, in Morrow County, in the Northeast portion of Oregon, near the town of Arlington and will feature 238 GE 2.5xl wind turbines to be installed in 2011-2012.
The manufacturers of the equipment and production lines that are needed to produce solar cells and modules are an important segment of the overall value chain in the solar PV sector as a whole. These companies are making a wide variety of equipment that finds use in the manufacture of solar cells, ranging from tradition semi-conductor manufacturing equipment that has grown out of the computer semi-conductor industry, to more exotic things like specialized inkjet printers and lasers. Who are these US based solar photovoltaic equipment manufacturers and how are they fairing in the global recession of 2009?
In this survey we are looking at the large US headquartered solar PV manufacturers with a view to examine how they are doing in this difficult economic climate. As basically anyone knows, who has not been cloistered away meditating in some cave, 2009 has been a very tough year for pretty much everyone.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $104.7 million in funding for seven new research and testing facilities located in DOE national laboratories. The announced projects will support the development and improvement of clean energy and efficiency technologies that are in the US strategic national interest. The new funding is supporting research in techniques to reduce the cost to manufacture carbon fiber on a large scale; finding ways to improve efficiency and lower costs for car batteries; and for developing net-zero energy building technologies.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), one of the largest combination natural gas and electric utilities in the United States and based in San Fransisco, CA announced that it has contracted with Iberdrola Renewables, Inc., the U.S. arm of the world’s largest provider of wind power, to purchase and operate a major wind generating plant to be built in Southern California to serve the utility’s electric customers.
NASA scientists from the Moffet Field laboratory in California have proposed an ingenious process to grow algal biofuels in the ocean enclosed within large floating bags made of a special semi-permeable clear plastic membrane. Growing algae in floating bags in the sea solves several major problems that are faced by current land based methods of algal biofuel production in an elegant low energy, low impact manner. This is the kind of out of the box thinking that is needed in order to grow the green economy. Now, in updated news NASA engineers and industry veterans have launched a company, Algae Systems, to commercialize the process.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced a milestone in U.S.-Israel cooperation on clean energy technology. With financial support of DOE and the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures, the bilateral BIRD Foundation Energy Executive Committee has selected four cooperative clean energy projects in the United States and Israel. This initiative will award up to $3.3 million in U.S.-Israel funding for these four projects.
![NASA Wants to Bag Biofuel From Sewage [UPDATED]](http://greeneconomypost.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/semi-permeable-plastic-bags-for-algae-harvesting.jpg "NASA Wants to Bag Biofuel From Sewage [UPDATED]")
