With the credit crunch exploding into full-on crisis mode, it has been a busy (and expensive) week for Congress. Most of the attention has fallen on the Fed’s plan to have the federal government buy up distressed mortgage-backed securities in the hope of avoiding broader failures in the financial system. Amid the ensuing hullabaloo, lawmakers’ [...]

It’s evident Florida lawmakers and regulators are taking steps to ensure that the Sunshine State lives up to its nickname. As reported by the Miami Herald, the Public Service Commission (PSC) will increase the rate paid to owners of renewable-energy systems. At issue is net metering, the process by which excess electricity from such systems—called [...]

For this week and next week, the news services will focus on the Democratic and Republican conventions, respectively. From now until Election Day, observers can expect to see discussion of climate change policies and technologies attached firmly to discussion of the relative merits of Barack Obama and John McCain’s energy proposals.
In one of the [...]

In the same week, a report tells us we can achieve 10% of our energy from solar by 2025, and the Senate turns down the renewable energy tax credit. Again.

It seems like it was only yesterday that politicians, coal executives and even some environmentalists had agreed on the benefits of clean coal technology. Among other duties, it takes the polluting carbon dioxide byproducts of coal-fired power stations and sequesters it deep underground, where its greenhouse gases cannot enter the atmosphere. (For a good overview, [...]

Government support for solar is seeing one of its standouts slide backwards, as Germany is cutting back on solar subsidies. This is obviously extremely disappointing, and while this isn’t entirely new news, the human end economic cost of the goverment’s change in policy is becoming much more apparent. Solar installers are having to deal with [...]

I just returned from San Diego last night after a very interesting week listening to many of the pioneers of solar electric power at the ASES Solar 2008 Conference. Brad Collins, Executive Director of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) gave a very interesting talk about what he learned at the first World Future Energy [...]

Yesterday, the U.N. and the World Blank announced plans for a task force to address skyrocketing food prices worldwide (Forbes.com).
The food price shock now roiling world markets is destabilizing governments, igniting street riots and threatening to send a new wave of hunger rippling through the world’s poorest nations. It is outpacing even the Soviet grain [...]

Hundreds of scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have reported political interference in their work, according to a report released on April 23 by the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Interference at the EPA: Science and Politics at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” draws from the anonymous responses of 1,586 EPA scientists, 889 (56 percent) [...]

In the face of slumping housing prices and a slew of pending foreclosures, some California homebuilders are expanding efforts to incorporate solar-power systems into residential projects. The latest deal comes from a partnership between the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and Woodside Homes, a Utah-based homebuilder. In all, 1,487 solar-powered homes will be built in [...]