April 17th, 2013 
Eric Wilson 
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports today that despite the impressive increase in renewable energy – energy produced by wind is up 42% and solar 19% from 2011 to 2012 alone – carbon emissions have not abated worldwide. As relayed on Marketplace Morning Report today, rapidly industrializing economies, as well as Europe which has resorted [...]
Posted in Behavior, Economics, Eric Wilson, News, Policy, Renewable Energy, Sustainability 
Tags: Alternative Energy, Carbon Dioxide, Clean Energy, Coal, Environment, IEA, Natural Gas 
No Comments » April 5th, 2013 Justin Manger 
The following facts come from a piece in the New York Times on the cost of the break-neck pace China’s economic growth is having on the environment. Political ramifications will be large if the country cannot reign in some of the side effects of runaway development. In 2010, the cost of environmental degradation in China [...]
Posted in China, Five Friday Facts, Justin Manger, News, Policy Tags: Carbon Dioxide, Coal, Environment No Comments » February 14th, 2013 Chris DeArmond 
As you’re probably aware, natural gas prices in the United States have plummeted in recent times with the development of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The controversial, but very effective drilling technique has freed a glut of natural gas from shale rock formations, reducing domestic natural gas prices substantially. Between 2009 and 2011, the wellhead price [...]
January 14th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
A report from the Energy Information Agency has laid out the future diminution of coal fired electricity. Once the stalwart of electricity generation, coal has begun to cede its crown to natural gas. In fact, overall electricity generation has flattened out. Many anticipated this day would come, but envisioned carbon pricing playing a significant role [...]
Posted in Agriculture, Behavior, Clean Technology, Conservation, Energy Efficiency, Eric Wilson, Green Economy, Local Energy/Food, News, Renewable Energy, Sustainability Tags: Biogas, Coal, Electricity Generation, Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas, New Belgium Brewery, Solar Energy, Waste, Wind Power No Comments » December 19th, 2012 Justin Manger 
There are a lot of them – 62,500 power plants operating today, in fact. That number includes everything from coal-fired power plants to wind farms to hydroelectric dams with a capacity of 30 megawatts or greater. The map comes from a recent GE report and really makes it easy to see where the various plants [...]
Posted in Economics, Justin Manger, News, Renewable Energy Tags: Alternative Energy, Coal, Electricity Generation, Energy, Power plants, Solar Energy No Comments » August 24th, 2012 Eric Wilson Former Massachusetts Governor and presumptive Republican presidential Mitt Romney nominee released his energy plan yesterday, which can be found here. According to the document, Romney “will make every effort to safeguard the environment, but he will be mindful at every step of also protecting the jobs of American workers. This will require putting conservative principles [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, News, Policy, President Obama Tags: Cap and Trade, Coal, election, Energy, Government, Jobs, Mitt Romney No Comments » August 13th, 2012 Eric Wilson In June the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its 2012 Annual Energy Outlook (PDF). According to the press release, the report includes various “assumptions regarding market, policy, and technology drivers affect projections of energy production, consumption, technology, and market trends and the direction they may take in the future.” Among the most pertinent projections for [...]
July 12th, 2012 Eric Wilson Fast becoming the funding mechanism through which solar energy research expands, the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, which aims to bring down the cost of electricity generated via solar power, has announced its latest investment in the field. In May we reported that SunShot announced a funding opportunity to further the development of so-called “plug [...]
June 15th, 2012 Eric Wilson In his post earlier this week, Nick mentioned one of the pitfalls of renewable energy. It is not “energy dense” compared to other sources. As a point of reference, today’s Five Friday Facts provide the energy density for the five most commonly used fuels over the past 150 years in the United States: wood, coal, [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Five Friday Facts Tags: Biomass, Coal, Energy, Natural Gas, Nuclear No Comments » April 20th, 2012 Justin Manger Mobile internet services based in the “cloud” are a part of daily life and continue to proliferate. Given the huge amounts of energy needed to power the data centers that are the backbone of our online life, Greenpeace recently released a “How Green Is Your Cloud” study comparing which internet companies are the most environmentally [...]
