Solar Energy

By David Timmons | – The main solution to climate change is well known – stop burning fossil fuels. How to do this is more complicated, but as a scholar who does energy modeling, I and others see the outlines of a post-fossil-fuel future: We make electricity with renewable sources and electrify almost everything. That […]

Climate Change

Bernie Sanders’ Manhattan Project: The Game-Changing Green New Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sen. Bernie Sanders’ breathtaking Green New Deal, with an advertised price tag of $16.3 trillion, is aimed at nothing less than saving the planet from the worst consequences of global heating. The plan aims to create 20 million new, well-paying jobs. It should be noted that one possible outcome of […]

Solar Energy

Saving the Planet: Can Global Solar Power be Crowd-Funded? Germany’s “Green Energy Valley”

Clean Energy Wire

By Freja Eriksen | – German start-up Ecoligo has created a crowd investment structure to encourage the expansion of solar power in developing countries, writes business daily Handelsblatt. The two founders, Martin Baart and Markus Schwaniger, saw high interest rates on loans and high investment risks as hurdles for solar power expansion in countries like […]

Green Energy

Denialists Keep Saying Wind and Solar make Electricity Expensive: Proof they’re Wrong from Australia

The Conversation

By Zsuzsanna Csereklyei | – Wholesale prices in the National Electricity Market have climbed significantly in recent years. The increase has coincided with a rapid increase in the proportion of electricity supplied by wind and solar generators. But that needn’t mean the increase in wind and solar generation caused the increase in prices. It might […]

Featured

Solar Growing by leaps and Bounds in India, fueling Irrigation and Jobs

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Solar energy is one of the fastest-growing energy sectors in the world, and has the great advantage of producing no carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is raising the average surface temperature of the earth. India is now for the first time in history investing more in solar energy than […]

Employment

Renewable Energy Employed 11 Million People last Year, 8% Growth Forecast

Clean Energy Wire

In the US, “The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that wind turbine technician jobs will be the second-fastest-growing occupation through 2026

Solar Energy

Europe’s largest solar plant unveiled amid Spanish renewable rebirth

Climate Home News

€300 million [$340mn] investment plan comes amid buoyant optimism for Spain’s long suffering solar sector Spanish utility giant Ibedrola has laid out a plan to build Europe’s largest solar power plant in the country. The company is currently consulting the environment ministry over building a 590-megawatt solar farm in the Western region of Extramadurra, it […]

Climate Change

Should we cover the Sahara Desert with Solar Panels to Fight Climate Disaster?

The Conversation

By Will de Freitas |- You may have seen a variant of this meme before. A map of North Africa is shown, with a surprisingly small box somewhere in Libya or Algeria shaded in. An area of the Sahara this size, the caption will say, could power the entire world through solar energy: Over the […]

Featured

US hits milestone of 2 Million Home Solar Installations, to double by 2023

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) just released a report showing that there are 2 million solar home installations in the United States. That is enough to power 12 million homes. (There are 127 million households in the US, and about 64% of Americans […]