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…
Category: General Info
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…
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…
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…
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%…
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…
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,…
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,…
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…
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…