By: Brian Keane

As we near the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, what better time to take the pulse of the American people on solar energy?

For decades solar has been marketed to the American people as a product that is “good for the environment.” And indeed, it is good for the environment. The problem is, as a marketing and sales technique, simply being good for the environment won’t get you a lot of customers.

Fortunately, like Earth Day, the solar industry is growing up! We’re learning just how vital strong consumer research, solid messaging and aggressive marketing campaigns are to creating a vibrant solar market.

New consumer market research by my organization, SmartPower, shows that reducing one’s long-term energy costs is often more compelling to consumers than the obvious environmental benefits. In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone — least of all President Obama, who clearly understands our country’s energy’s challenges. (His pledge of $3.4 billion in Recovery Act funds to modernize America’s electric grid seems to be just a first step toward modernizing our energy infrastructure.) But these good policies must be driven by a solid understanding of how to market solar energy to the American consumer.

(more…)

By: Andre Amado

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently granted sugarcane ethanol the status of “advanced biofuel” after recognizing — based on scientific studies — that it reduces the emission of greenhouse gases by 61% when compared to gasoline.

The world’s top economy is justifiably concerned about climate change, which increasingly threatens the quality of life on our planet. We all know that without energy, there can be no development, but the production and use of energy and industrial activity are large carbon emitters. The greatest challenge of our times is precisely to try to reverse the current trend of environmental degradation without disrupting economic growth in its role of generating employment, particularly in developing countries where the most shameful pollution is poverty.

Brazil has much to say in this debate. In the 1970s, the response we gave to the sudden increase in oil prices, when the country imported about 80% of our fuel, came in the form of the Pro-Alcohol Program. With ups and downs, government, businesses and research centers engaged in developing a competitive fuel — sugarcane ethanol — which quickly proved to be the product with higher agricultural productivity, higher energy efficiency, and more opportunity for socially-inclusive development, as wages paid in the sugar-alcohol industry are the highest in farming.

At the same time, the adoption of flex-fuel technologies ignited the process that enabled Brazil not only to develop the world’s cleanest energy matrix — with a 46% share of renewable energy against a world average of 13% and just 6% in industrialized countries — but also to prevent releasing carbon emissions to the tune of 850 million tons since the Pro-Alcohol program was enacted. It is worth stressing that Brazil is now the only country in the world where gasoline — not ethanol — is the alternative fuel.

(more…)

By: Sean Casten

The smart grid conversation is stupid. Policies to encourage smart grids are at best minor distractions, and at worst contrary to the public interest. Smart grids are also the key to cleaning up and modernizing the electric system.

These sentences are not in conflict with one another.

The smart grid is the cart, not the horse. There is no doubt that better access to real time data could facilitate a much more rational use of our electric infrastructure, shifting usage patterns (both in time and in space) to reduce the costs of grid construction and operation. But we don’t need new technologies.

Don’t get me wrong — new technologies are great, and they’ll keep getting greater. But since when do we need to invent a way to share real time data? The internet is here — get used to it! I installed a biomass-CHP plant at a lumber mill in northern Vermont four years ago that included a $1000 bit of communication hardware to remotely monitor and control the unit through the ethernet. In so doing, that generator could participate in ISO-New England’s Forward Capacity Market, getting paid for avoiding new central generation and transmission assets. In other words, that system did everything that the Smart Grid is promised to do, with pretty cheap, off-the-shelf technology.

(more…)

By: Erich Pica

On Feb. 16, while President Obama was in Maryland announcing an $8.3 billion taxpayer-backed loan guarantee for Southern Company to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia, inspectors at the Vermont Yankee reactor were finding dangerously high levels of tritium, a radioactive cancer-causing chemical, in the groundwater near the plant.

The next week, the Vermont state Senate voted overwhelmingly to shut down Vermont Yankee when its current license expires in 2012.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R) called the timing of the nuclear loan guarantee announcement and the Vermont Senate’s decision “ironic.” More than just some coincidence, though, the Vermont Yankee situation demonstrates that from the mining of uranium ore to the storage of radioactive waste, nuclear reactors remain as dirty, risky, and as costly as they ever were. If President Obama’s recent enthusiasm for nuclear reactors has led you to believe otherwise, you’ve bought in to the administration’s greenwashing of nuclear.

(more…)

By: Ashley Braun

The internet loves mysterious product unveilings, especially those promising to revolutionize the world and how we live in it. (Think Apple’s iPhone.) But few (except for maybe the iPhone) actually live up to the hype. (Or so I hear. Anyone wanna get me an iPhone?)

CEO K.R. Sridhar is starting to peel back the layers of secrecy from his magic boxes like a Bloomin’ onion.

Now, after nearly a decade of secrecy, Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar is coming out of the shadows to tell the world how his “Bloom Box” will do all of this and more as a “zero-emissions” mini-power plant. Bloom Energy debuted its heady energy dreams in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, with the company’s official launch to come on Wednesday at early customer eBay’s California headquarters. Google, Wal-Mart, and FedEx have also been quietly testing these heavily-subsidized magic boxes on their premises, with encouraging energy and cost savings thus far.

But, zero emissions? A backyard power plant-in-a-box? Sounds fancy, but what is a Bloom Box and is it really the next “energy breakthrough”?

The Bloom Box is a fuel cell, not an energy source.

(more…)