The stimulus has had an underwhelming impact on the cleantech sector. Very little of the $36.7b of The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) allocated $36.7b to the Department of Energy (DOE) has gone to cleantech. Nuclear waste cleanup projects and state governments have received most of the money to date. Cleantech funding has been negatively impacted by delays at the state level and states reallocateing funds to address shortfalls in state budgets.
Oil has monopolized America’s transportation sector, but this is changing. By the end of 2010, several major automobile manufacturers, including Nissan, General Motors, Volt, Nissan,GM, Ford, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Volvo, BMW, and Mercedes will release their first generation electric vehicles – vehicles that allow you to run partially and even fully on electricity. The US government has also committed to spending millions of dollars to help prepare our cities and communities for the coming wave of electric vehicles.
Our nation’s electricity infrastructure will be upgraded into an efficient, secure, reliable, adaptable machine! But the slow smart grid evolution will be achieved with smaller steps. What does short term smart grid future look like? Read on for current smart grid trends.
As our nation’s electrical grid needs to be transformed in to a Smart Grid to avoid becoming even more of an economic and security risk. It’s time for a major overhaul complete with automation, two-way communication, real-time information, and decentralized production & distribution networks.
All during this month we have been spotlighting the achievements of women in green careers. So far, we have profiled 29 women who are excelling in solar and wind power, sustainability, and conservation. Today, we are showcasing women who have found success in the cleantech sector in the United States. While men dominate in pretty […]
The drive to extract and store CO2 from coal-fired power plants is gaining momentum, with the Obama administration backing the technology and the world’s first capture and sequestration project now operating in the U.S. Two questions loom: Will carbon capture and storage be affordable? And will it be safe? by David Biello, Editor of Scientific […]
Women’s History Month is here! Let’s take a look at some of the women who are shaping wind and solar energy as renewables plays an expanding role in all our lives.
A well-crafted green lease provides an opportunity to improve landlord/tenant collaboration on sustainability issues, leading to increased building performance, including energy efficiency. Green commercial leases provide incentives to reduce energy use and water, and increase recycling and the use of sustainable materials. A green lease detailing the sustainable use of a building by landlord and tenant is critical to the performance of a green building.
The Department of Energy is awarding $47 million to support the development of new technologies and knowhow aimed at improving energy efficiency in the information technology (IT) and communication technology sectors. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that 14 projects across the country will share in this award. Information technology and telecommunications are vital and rapidly growing sectors of our overall economy and will become even more central as the smart grid is deployed. As our country increasingly comes to rely on an information economy in sector after sector the underlying physical infrastructure that supports it, such as the data centers, networks, routers and so forth, is expected to continue to rapidly grow.
