This Week in Batteries: Sifting Through Two Big Bankruptcies GTM², March 15, 2017 The past week was a tough one for cleantech. We had a double feature of bankruptcies — saltwater battery maker Aquion and top-five residential solar installer Sungevity. With so much destruction around us, it needs to be said: This doesn’t mean the whole sector is … Read more
Pouring Saltwater Over Graphene Produces Electricity Gizmodo, April 15, 2014 A team of Chinese scientists did an impossible-sounding thing. They created electricity simply by dragging a droplet of saltwater across a layer of graphene. No big fires, no greenhouse gases, no fuss. They created energy with just a miracle material and one of the most plentiful … Read more
Google Pumps Funds Into Africa’s Biggest Wind Power Project Wired, October 20, 2015. Image credit: DWilliams GOOGLE IS BACKING Africa’s largest wind power project, two years after investing $12 million in the continent’s largest solar power project. This morning, at a conference in Washington, D.C., the tech giant announced its support for the Lake Turkana Wind … Read more
Florida Supreme Court clears hurdle to PACE energy-finance program Sun Sentinel, October 15, 2015. Image credit: Joe Gratz The court rejected a challenge to the PACE program from the Florida Bankers Association, saying the group did not have standing to to fight it. PACE stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy. The program lets people borrow to … Read more
Gita Subramony for Zondits, October 14, 2015. Image credit: Hans-Jörg Aleff GE is spinning off a new company, Current, that ties energy efficiency with Internet technology. The new company’s focus will be on incorporating systems such as lighting, solar arrays, and energy storage via GE’s Predix platform. The business model will offer not only efficient products … Read more
Power to the People The New Yorker, June 29, 2015 Issue. Image credit: geralt Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes … Read more
Ryan Pollin for Zondits, June 5, 2015. Image credit: Avivlirangal California research nonprofit Next 10 has benchmarked a number of climate change-related statistics, and found a new way to quantify global leaders and laggers. Of the fifty largest greenhouse gas-emitting nations, the United States ranks #1 in clean technology investment, #1 in total renewable generation, and … Read more
You Asked – They Answered: Q&A with Smart Wires Scientific American, February 13, 2015 I have received many interesting questions from readers in response to last Sunday’s article “Controlling the Path of Least Resistance with Smart Wires.” This week, I consolidated these questions and took them back to Smart Wires – the start-up company behind … Read more
How smart glass windows slash energy bills SF Gate, December 29, 2015 It’s a kind of disappearing act in reverse. Apply a trickle of electricity, and the window made by View can change from clear to almost pitch black. Control the current, and the window can take on any tint you need. Based in Milpitas, … Read more
Green buildings and smart grids to the fore in latest Canary Wharf clean tech challenge Business Green, February 23, 2015 Canary Wharf’s plan to pilot a host of smart technologies have taken another step forward today, as the company’s Cognicity Challenge announced that 12 more clean tech firms have been selected to take part in … Read more