We asked Robert for his views on petrostates, dirty governments and people who own superyachts. Brace yourselves!
I don’t remember how slide rules came up in a conversation recently. It may have been when Nancy recalled her dreaded chemistry classes in college and noted that she never learned how to use the...[more]
You can—and should--do more to help Ukraine than waving a digital flag on social media. You can stick it to Putin, weaken his war machine, and drive a stake through the heart of oil oligarchs,...[more]
The call for more nuclear power - already loud when the debate was “only” about whether NordStream 2 made sense or not - has grown significantly since the war against Ukraine has started and...
Environmentalists advocating new state restrictions on oil and gas drilling have seized upon confirmation last week that two idle wells were leaking methane near a residential area in northeast...
Germany’s economy and climate ministry today announced a more ambitious target of clean energy making up 80% of its power mix by 2030 – a bump up from its previous target of 65%. Currently, 40.9% of...
The good news, if any is to be found in the relentless slaughter of innocents, is a global convergence of security and ecological imperatives in response to Putin’s War. Cutting off Putin’s oil and...
What unites these two crises is combustion. Burning fossil fuel has driven the temperature of the planet ever higher, melting most of the sea ice in the summer Arctic, bending the jet stream, and...
Many years, ago, there were plenty of stories about journalists making hapless trips by EV - with no seeming intent of doing any kind of homework before. In the age of expanded rapid charging and...
Our 2020 Chevy Bolt’s traction battery was replaced under warranty on 6 May 2022 by our local Chevy dealer.[more]
In following online discussions of EVs, there’s often reference to the type of traction battery used. Eric Way of News Coulomb fame is one who is comfortable talking about the benefits and drawbacks...[more]
The Chevrolet Bolt EV has a lot of great features, the best of which may be its relatively low purchase price. However, one of its biggest shortcomings is its DC fast charging capabilities.
The World Wind Energy Association announced that for the first time new wind turbine installations reached nearly 100,000 MW in 2021. The announcement was made on the eve of Global Wind Day and the...[more]
Cheaper and more competitive are not the same.
Herr Fedor Seidler has forwarded a link to several lengthy documents summarizing the work of Albert Betz, Ludwig Prandtl, and their colleagues at the University of Göttingen. [more]
I’ve posted two new videos of historic wind turbines in operation. [more]
Ten years of the turbine in our backyard has shown we can coexist with wind energy.
I receive a fair amount of mail of the “What do you think of this” variety. Often it’s a quick push of the delete key and I am off about my business. Occasionally I’ve been known to go “Hmm” and...[more]
A waterfront lantern festival powered by a 'wind tree' was the last gasp for a failing business. In the final in a three-part series, Jonathan Milne reports how Evan Price's chickens came home to...
Guy Dauncey’s novel Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible has been extolled by a who’s who of Canadian environmental thought leaders from Elizabeth May, onetime leader of Canada’s Green...[more]
David Toke's China’s Role in Reducing Carbon Emissions: The Stabilisation of Energy Consumption and the Deployment of Renewable Energy provides a valuable service in explaining--in English--China's...[more]
Germany’s Energy Transition is a compilation of articles on the progress of Germany's revolutionary transition to renewable energy from fossil fuels and nuclear power. It joins a growing list of...[more]
For those who've fought the wind wars and done battle with renewable energy skeptics, climate denialists, and the "wind turbines cause cancer" crowd, Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Communicated Disease by...[more]
Erik Grove-Nielsen has confirmed that the Tvindkraft wind turbine was designed to be slightly larger than the Smith-Putnam wind turbine and become the world’s largest wind turbine in 1978.[more]
Thirty years ago Cornish farmer Peter Edwards, his late wife Phillipa, and his son Martin installed Great Britain’s first wind farm despite the attacks of those who said it couldn’t or shouldn’t be...[more]
Minnesota’s community solar program grew to 822 megawatts of operational capacity in November 2021. The chart above shows the progress of projects through the program since August 2015, and the...
France has increased feed-in tariffs for all PV system categories, ranging from €181.40 ($190.90)/MWh for installations below 3 kW in size to €96.90/MWh for arrays ranging in capacity from 36 kW to...
Germany’s cumulative installed PV capacity for all subsidized and unsubsidized PV systems stood at around 58.2 GW by the end of March.
Experts cite Scottish example, with turbines along roads and rail lines, as a way to make better use of ‘cheap, clean’ energy source
Germany has come up with new measures that could lead to a cumulative installed PV capacity of 215GW by 2030. Higher feed-in tariffs for rooftop PV will likely be announced soon.
France's Ministry of Ecological Transition introduced, in October, a new package of measures to support PV systems of up to 500kW which included a feed-in tariff bonus for solar tile-based...
Included in the correspondence from Palmer Putnam to Herman Drees is a letter from Richard Heckscher who was involved in blade development on the Smith-Putnam project. (See Palmer Putnam to Herman...[more]
18-page scan of documents in the archives of Wally Thompson of correspondence from Palmer Putnam to Herman Drees in 1979.
Wally Thompson forwarded to me some fascinating correspondence from Palmer Putnam to Herman Drees of Pinson Cycloturbine fame.[more]
Taiwan has announced the split of the feed-in-tariff available to geothermal power plants for sizes under and above 2 MW in installed capacity.
Minnesota’s Carleton College is among a growing list of schools investing in the centuries-old technology as part of a path to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.
Chingshuei Geothermal Power (CGP) has inaugurated a geothermal power plant in Yilan County, northeastern Taiwan - the first established by private investors for commercial operation in Taiwan,...
Citing a market participant, Jenkins noted on Twitter that roughly 26 gigawatts of thermal energy is offline because natural gas is being diverted to provide heat instead of power. Only about 4...
Further confirmation of Bernard Chabot's "Silent Revolution" in large wind turbine design.
Contrary to the ideas promulgated by some opponents of wind generation, most of the substantial investment in wind farms in South Australia is not being paid for by taxpayers or electricity consumers...
According to Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory (AECEA), this huge capacity may not be met by actual demand in the global market. Furthermore, the consultancy reveals that solar module prices...
France has announced a new 10-measure plan to facilitate solar deployment, featuring new and existing provisions. It is designed to support the installation of more than 3 GW per year throughout the...
Solar PV deployment on rooftops in the UK is forecast to exceed 500MWdc in 2022, representing a landmark moment for the UK solar industry.
