Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Trump Outlines ‘America First’ Energy Plan: Coal, Oil, Gas
May 26th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Ok. Well. Here we go. Solar and wind are already cheaper in some markets than coal and they are just getting started. Even in a place like New Zealand, with maximum hostility toward solar, the number of installations keep doubling. The same sort of doubling […]
Apple Explores Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles
May 25th, 2016Via: Reuters: Apple Inc is investigating how to charge electric cars, talking to charging station companies and hiring engineers with expertise in the area, according to people familiar with the matter and a review of LinkedIn profiles. For more than a year, Silicon Valley has been buzzing about Apple’s plan to build an electric car. […]
Portugal Runs on Wind, Solar and Hydro-Generated Electricity Alone for Four Days
May 19th, 2016Via: Guardian: Portugal kept its lights on with renewable energy alone for four consecutive days last week in a clean energy milestone revealed by data analysis of national energy network figures. Electricity consumption in the country was fully covered by solar, wind and hydro power in an extraordinary 107-hour run that lasted from 6.45am on […]
Oil Giant Total to Acquire Battery Maker Saft for $1.1 Billion
May 18th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — *chortle* If you can’t beat ’em… Via: GTM: Total, a French oil and gas giant with a $120 billion market cap, just offered to acquire French battery specialist Saft for $1.1 billion. That represents a 38 percent premium over Saft’s recent closing stock price. The […]
Inside the Gigafactory That Will Decide Tesla’s Fate
May 6th, 2016Via: Bloomberg: The $5 billion Gigafactory was born of necessity. Tesla needs a hell of a lot of batteries, for both the forthcoming mass-market Model 3 sedan and the Tesla Energy product line. The timeline for getting those batteries made just became much shorter, too. On Wednesday, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk stunned investors by […]
The Price of Solar Power Just Fell 50% in 16 months – Dubai at $.0299/kWh
May 3rd, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: electrek: Dubai received bid of $.0299/kWh for 800MW of solar power. This price represents the lowest yet recorded for solar power (and might not represent the end of the price drops…). Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has received 5 bids from international organisations […]
The Secretive, Billionaire-Backed Plans to Harness Fusion
May 1st, 2016Via: BBC: Inside a laboratory near Vancouver in British Columbia, an alarm is blaring. In the middle of the industrial warehouse stands what looks like a cannon from a spaceship, about five metres long and festooned in wires. None of the lab’s red-coat-wearing technicians seem fazed by the noise. The siren, which alerts workers to […]
Nevada: First-Of-Its-Kind Rail Energy Storage Project
April 29th, 2016Via: Utility Dive: The newest entrant into the energy storage market bears a passing resemblance to cutting edge 19th century technology. It is a rail car with no passengers or freight that goes nowhere. But if the California company working on this technology is right, its rail cars could make big inroads in the energy […]
German Nuclear Plant Infected with Computer Viruses, Operator Says
April 27th, 2016Via: Reuters: A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility’s operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station’s operator said on Tuesday. The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, […]
‘Scientists Can Now Make Lithium-Ion Batteries Last a Lifetime’ *
April 22nd, 2016* Using gold. (sigh) In, ARPA-E Batteries to Challenge Tesla?, I wrote: If you’re interested in energy generation and storage technologies that will actually be for sale in the near to medium term, you can safely ignore most press releases about new energy technologies working only in labs. That stuff might as well be on […]
