Solar Energy

Greening Earth and creating Jobs, Biden to slash Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Extend Wind, Solar Credits

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Reuters reports that President Biden intends to slash tax subsidies for fossil fuels like coal and petroleum and to use taxes instead to encourage renewable energy. Since jobs in the coal industry are plummeting, and since job growth in renewable electricity is over 3 percent a year, Biden’s plans will […]

Germany

Germany’s State Rails, already 61%-renewables Fueled, to add 190 GWh of North Sea Wind toward being 80% Green by 2030

Clean Energy Wire

By Charlotte Nijhuis | – ( Clean Energy Wire) – State-owned German railway company Deutsche Bahn and utility RWE extend their renewable energy contract with an additional 190 gigawatt hours (GWh) of offshore wind power annually, the railway writes in a press release. The contract will run for a period of fifteen years from 2025. […]

Climate Change

How Solar technologies can speed up vaccine rollout in the Global South

The Conversation

By Cyrus Sinai and Rob Fetter | – There’s hope that some industrialised countries will achieve near-universal vaccination against COVID-19 in the coming months. Yet the effort to vaccinate even the most essential workers in developing countries has only just begun. By current estimates, achieving herd immunity (to current strains) will require at least 75% […]

Climate Crisis

America is ‘Can-do’ again: Biden’s $3 trillion infrastructure Plan includes $500 bn for Green Energy and Transit and Massive Innovation

Juan Cole

Jeff Stein and Tyler Pager at WaPo report that $500 billion of the proposed $3 trillion Biden infrastructure plan, or 16 percent, will be devoted to dealing with climate change. They write, “The infrastructure component is expected to include $400 billion in spending to combat climate change, including $60 billion for infrastructure related to green […]

Education

A Green New Deal: Arkansas School District goes Solar, Gives Teachers $1000s in Bonuses with Savings

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Climate Wire reported last fall on a remarkable story about the way renewable energy not only saves the earth from the destructive climate emergency but can at the same time improve our lives and those of our children. Our hero is Michael Hester, who some years ago became the superintendent […]

Australia

Against the odds, South Australia is a renewable energy powerhouse; and they’re showing the world how to do it

The Conversation

By Michael McGreevy and Fran Baum | – Less than two decades ago, South Australia generated all its electricity from fossil fuels. Last year, renewables provided a whopping 60% of the state’s electricity supply. The remarkable progress came as national climate policy was gripped by paralysis – so how did it happen? Our research set […]

Featured

Morocco beats U.S. in Green Energy Future Index with Massive Saharan Solar Plant

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The MIT Technology Review has released its Green Future Index. Among Middle Eastern countries, Morocco ranks number one, and it also leads Africa. I have a big problem with the index, though. One of its criteria is technological innovation in the area of green energy. These are the bases for […]

Batteries

Number of residential solar batteries increases by 50% in Germany

Juan Cole

By Sören Amelang | – The number of battery storage systems linked to a residential solar pv array rose by around 50 percent in Germany in 2020 for the third year in a row. The country’s solar association BSW estimates there were 88,000 new residential installations, taking the total number of solar batteries in Germany […]

Solar Energy

Top Three Ways Solar Power can Help Low-Income Families

The Conversation

By Galen Barbose, Eric O’Shaughnessy, and Ryan Wiser | – Until recently, rooftop solar panels were a clean energy technology that only wealthy Americans could afford. But prices have dropped, thanks mostly to falling costs for hardware, as well as price declines for installation and other “soft” costs. Today hundreds of thousands of middle-class households […]