General Info
Calculate Your Solar Energy Savings
The National Renewable Energy Labs has an online tool to help you calculate how much you might save by installing solar panels at your exact location. The program, entitled In My Backyard (IMBY) allows you to draw a solar array on your rooftop using the Google satellite maps system, calculates the amount of sunlight available… »
Renewable Energy Tax Incentives
The end of the year is coming, and that means the last chance for new tax deductions for 2008. There has been a lot of press about federal and state tax incentives for solar panel and wind turbine installations, both commercial and private, but few people I’ve spoken with know what their state is doing… »
Using Thermal Systems for Energy Storage
Energy storage is key to developing usable renewable systems, because both solar and wind generation is by nature sporadic. While batteries are the first thought when looking at storage, other methods need to be developed to make new equipment viable as a reliable energy source.
One storage system being explored is thermal, where the energy stored… »
Solar, Wind, Nuclear, and Coal: Diversity Is Key To Success
The Reading (PA) Eagle has a great article by Darrin Youker today, dealing with that state’s attempts at energy diversity as a means to energy independence. In areas that were once relatively thriving coal communities, the now declining towns are welcoming alternatives such as wind and solar cogeneration as a means to provide both new… »
Renewable Energy Increases One Percent Per Year
According to the Boston Globe, Massachusetts is ahead of the planned yearly increases in available renewable energy for the state’s utilities, rising to more than 3% green. The plan is for this 1% increase to continue until 2020, when 15% should be coming from renewable sources.
The state has a renewable energy ‘trust’ that utilities must… »
Small Wind On The Rise
While most of the wind energy press is going to the large-turbine wind farms, more stories these days are focusing on the smaller installations that are privately owned. Last Sunday’s Boston Globe had a spread about a convent that is installing its own wind turbine in hopes of getting off the grid. Today’s Buffalo News… »
IBM and the Intelligent Power Grid: Accommodating Alternative Energy
If only I had bought $100 in IBM in 1950, today I’d have… The same statement gets made about almost every big corporation: If only I’d known then what I know now. I can’t think of anything else to regret, so I might as well regret my poor investment (non)decisions. Whether Wall Street or personal… »
Renewable Energy Wars: Who Will Be The Winners?
Gas prices are down. Credit is drying up. Government subsidies for alternative energy projects are subject to continual reevaluation. The realities of renewable energy are becoming clearer, with big wind projects showing far lower efficiencies than had been hoped for, and it becomes clearer every day that nothing is free.
This situation holds throughout America and… »
Cheap vs. Cool – Which Technology Wins?
Just a quick note on this grey and dreary (in Massachusetts) Sunday morning. I ran across this column by John Peterson over at Seeking Alpha, in which he talks about his own history of buying the best technology and finding often that it turned out not to last. Good enough and cheap tends to beat… »
Better Motors For Energy Conservation
Our good news this Friday comes courtesy of Fox Business Channel. A common thread running through these posts has been that conservation is always preferable to new generation of power. Fox reported on the Power Efficiency Corporation, whose specialty is motor controllers. These devices do exactly what the name implies: by controlling the output of… »