February 1st, 2013 
Eric Wilson 
Following the lead of other cabinet officials, Dr. Stephen Chu submitted his resignation from the Department of Energy (DOE). Chu, a former academic from the University of California Berkeley and past winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, stepped down today. He led the DOE during President Obama’s first term in office. Like many other [...]
October 5th, 2012 Eric Wilson Despite a continued weak economy, solar energy installation is going strong. Here are five facts about the growth in the US solar industry from April to June of this year. A related Five Friday Facts a few weeks ago looked at some of the figures behind the investment in new renewable energy projects during the [...]
September 4th, 2012 Nick Grue The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently released a technical potential report for the entire United States that gives a solid limit to the amount of renewable energy generation that can be achieved. Technical potential refers to the amount of energy a certain technology can produce while observing technological, land use, and environmental constraints.
Posted in News, Renewable Energy, Transportation 
Tags: Concentrated Solar Power, Nick Grue, NREL, Photovoltaic, Solar Energy, Wind Power 
No Comments » July 25th, 2012 Eric Wilson As a follow up to last month’s post “Global Investment in Renewables Hits All-Time High in 2011” comes the International Energy Agency’s projections for renewable energy over the next five years. According to the press release, “global power generation from hydropower, solar, wind, and other renewable sources is projected to increase by more than 40%” [...]
Posted in China, Eric Wilson, News, Oceans, Renewable Energy Tags: Biomass, Brazil, Concentrated Solar Power, Geothermal, Hydroelectricity, IEA, Photovoltaic, Solar Energy, Wave Power, Wind Power No Comments » 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 27th, 2012 Eric Wilson Despite a somewhat sluggish global economy, renewable energy investments reached an all-time high in 2011. A report titled “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2012” released by the Frankfurt School – UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate Change & Sustainable Energy Finance takes a detailed look at the state of renewable energy. According to the report’s [...]
March 12th, 2012 Eric Wilson A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) looked at what it deemed as “One of the most important emerging challenges facing the grid . . . the need to incorporate more renewable generation in response to policy initiatives at both state and federal levels.” At issue is the intermittent nature of many [...]
February 15th, 2012 Eric Wilson The United States’ Department of Energy (DOE) is working to bring down solar energy costs. The program, known as the SunShot Initiative, “is a collaborative national initiative to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade.” The goal is to drive down the costs of solar energy [...]
Posted in Economics, Eric Wilson, News, Renewable Energy Tags: Concentrated Solar Power, Department of Energy, Solar Energy, Stephen Chu, SunShot No Comments » December 15th, 2011 Eric Wilson A number of large solar projects have been dogged by issues of environmental degradation, of all things. Last year, several concentrated solar power installations ran afoul of environmentalists due to the sites chosen. One in particular, the Blythe Solar Power Project, which was the largest installation at the time, was planned on critical habitat for [...]
August 23rd, 2011 Eric Wilson Until costs of renewable energy can compete with traditional sources like coal and nuclear, it will be difficult for them to gain a large foothold. Recent news of hydroeletric power surpassing nuclear, at least temporarily, indicates that some shifts in electricity generation are occurring. However, finding reliable data to compare these alternative sources to extant [...]
