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Most Americans want the U.S. to place more emphasis on developing solar power, recent polls suggest. A major impediment, however, is the cost to manufacture, install and maintain solar panels. Simply put, most people and businesses cannot afford to place them on their rooftops. Fortunately, that is changing because researchers such as Qiaoqiang Gan, University at Buffalo assistant professor of electrical engineering, are helping develop a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what’s available today.
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After four years as the secretary of energy, Nobel laureate Steven Chu is returning to Stanford University as a professor of physics and molecular and cellular physiology. He talks about his work in Washington and how he thinks science and technology can better guide public policy.
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Successfully developing renewable energy projects comes down to twelve core areas, according to a research group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Public agency officials must understand the concepts "BEPTC" and "SROPTTC" to build the renewables they need to meet mandated goals.
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"I would like to return to an academic life of teaching and research, but will still work to advance the missions that we have been working on together for the last four years," Chu said in a letter to Energy Department employees.
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With the 4th Annual Energy Challenge just around the corner, students should start thinking consciously about energy use on campus. Read about SCU's new smart microgrid project, its renewable energy sources on campus, and about
Proposition 39, which adds clean energy jobs to California's economy.
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April 2012, North Bay Business Journal
With high heating oil, propane and electricity prices, more commercial and residential building are considering geothermal ground source heating and cooling as an alternative. Interest in this energy-efficient, environmentally clean, and cost-effective technology is also on the rise due to 2010 CalGreen building code requirements, mandating a reduction of greenhouse gases by 3 million metric tons by 2020.
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March 2012, NRG Energy
The California Public Utilities Commission and NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG) have entered into an agreement where NRG will build a comprehensive electric vehicle (EV) charging network in California, investing approximately $100 million over the next four years.
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March 2012, hybridCARS
California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced a $120 million settlement to go toward statewide infrastructure to help create an "Electric Expressway," making cross-state travel feasible for electric vehicles, and augmenting the goal of 1.5 million zero emission vehicles on California's roads by 2025.
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March 2012, The Huffington Post
As coal use drops dramatically in the U.S. and clean energy continues to grow, King Coal is looking for new customers. The coal industry is now pursuing its corporate profits via coal exports at the expense of the health, safety, and quality of life of thousands of families in several states, including Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
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March 2012, CleanTechnica
Silicon Valley has traditionally been the epicenter of American smart grid technology innovation, but a new report suggests North Carolina's Research Triangle may deserve the title and be key to the industry's economic future.
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March 2012, New York Times
A Californian company has unveiled a radical new way to make the silicon wafers that are the basic ingredient of most solar cells, cutting silicon consumption by 90 percent and eliminating the need to use glass and heavy backing to keep the cells rigid.
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March 2012, San Jose Mercury News
The amount of photovoltaic solar panels installed in the United States more than doubled from 2010 to 2011, representing a historic year for the American solar industry.
A year-in-review report jointly released by the Solar Energy Industries Association and the GTM Research found that 1,855 megawatts were installed nationwide in 2011, up from 887 megawatts in 2010 - for a growth of 109%.
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March 2012, U.S. Department of Energy
The Energy Department announced up to $6 million available this year to collect and analyze valuable performance and durability data for light-duty fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The projects selected for funding will collect data from next-generation FCEVs as they are operated in real-world conditions to identify ways to lower costs and improve fuel cell durability and overall vehicle performance.
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March 2012, White House Blog
America's dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since President Obama took office. In 2010, we imported less than 50% of the oil our nation consumed - the first time that's happened in 13 years - and the trend continued in 2011.
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March 2012, U.S. Department of Energy
Approximately 75,000 Americans are currently employed by the U.S. wind energy industry, and that's solely for projects on land. Imagine what will happen to job growth in this sector as massive turbines with innovative designs are fabricated on land and installed by ships well out to sea and in the Great Lakes.
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March 2012, Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company announced on March 2nd that its new Focus Electric was U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified as having a city rating of 110 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) and a highway rating of 99 MPGe. The Detroit automaker said that its rating makes it the most fuel-efficient five-passenger car in the United States. The car can travel 76 miles on a single charge. The EPA had not officially posted the numbers at the time of the announcement.
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February 2012, Ernst & Young
A new ranking of states released on February 28th gives California the lead in terms of overall renewable energy suitability. Ernst & Young issues United States Renewable Attractiveness Indices, which focuses on diverse renewable energy markets, energy infrastructures, and their suitability for individual technologies.
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February 2012, GE Energy Financial Services
GE Energy Financial Services announced today it has more than doubled its global solar power investment commitments in the past year to $1.4 billion, for nearly $5 billion in projects. Its latest deal is a $100 million investment in a 127-megawatt project that will be built in Arizona. GE Energy Financial Services announced at the Infocast solar Power Finance & Investment Summit in San Diego that its one-gigawatt portfolio spans 48 solar power plants - including 24 San Diego school rooftops -- in six countries: Australia, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States.
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February 2012, Los Angeles Times
California companies received $2.8 billion of the $4.9 billion raised by the sector nationwide last year. Massachusetts was a distant second with $465.1 million. When it comes to U.S. venture capital funding for the most promising new green technology firms, there's California and there's everybody else.
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February 2012, Los Angeles Times
The Riverside County city, known as "Horsetown USA," has more miles of riding trails than paved roads. It's considering a proposal to cash in on all of that equine waste by building a manure-to-energy conversion plant from 65 tons of manure produced each day by its population of at least 17,000 horses.
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February 2012, U.S. Department of Energy
As part of the President's blueprint for an American economy built to last, the energy Department and the Department of Commerce's national Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program have announced up to $1.3 million for training programs to provide commercial building professionals with critical skills needed to optimize building efficiency, reduce waste, and save money. By offering valuable workforce training, these programs will help to reach the Better Buildings Initiative goal of improving energy efficiency nationwide in commercial and industrial buildings by 20% by 2020, reducing energy costs by nearly $40 billion and creating American jobs.
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February 2012, Inside Bay Area
China is killing American solar manufacturers by illegally dumping cheap solar panels on the U.S. market, while others fear that tariffs against China would curtail solar adoption here and provoke a wider trade war with China.
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February 2012, MIT
MIT team makes progress towards goal of inexpensive grid-scale batteries that could help make intermittent renewable energy sources viable.
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January 2012, San Francisco Chronicle
Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its premise.
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January 2012, San Francisco Chronicle
California's top solar city does not lie within the eco-conscious Bay Area. Instead, San Diego has more solar installations - generating more electricity - than any other city in the Golden State.
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January 2012, Los Angeles Times
The state's air board issues new rules to automakers as part of its effort to cut greenhouse gases. The California Air Resources Board is poised to vote on new rules that would require automakers to build cars and trucks by 2025 that emit about three-quarters less smog-producing pollutants, and also mandate that one of every seven new cars sold in the state be a zero emission or plug-in hybrid vehicle.
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February 2012, U.S. Department of Energy
The U.S. Department of Energy released two reports in mid-January detailing the country's ocean wave and tidal resource energy potential. Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave energy Resource report is a follow-up to EPRI's 2004 study, with the most recent evidence suggesting a 26% increase in wave energy resources.
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January 2012, Los Angeles Times
Sempra U.S. Gas & Power and BP Wind Energy announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in the joint development of the Mehoopany Wind Farm in Pennsylvania and the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm in Kansas.
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January 2012, The Economist
Import tariffs and tax credits have long sheltered ethanol distilled from corn in the United States, from the same compound made from sugarcane in Brazil. For the first time, the two countries that produce more than 80% of the world's ethanol can finally sell in each others' backyard at market prices.
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January 2012, Los Angeles Times
Millions of dollars in projects intended to provide power to facilities in the state's national parks and forests are sitting idle because of a years-long squabble with Southern California Edison.
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December 2011, Inside Bay Area
Experts and politicians from El Salvador to Japan to South Africa have flocked here in the past year to learn how Feldheim, with just 145 people, is already putting into practice Germany's vision of a future powered entirely by renewable energy.
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December 2011, Los Angeles Times
A new discovery from a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin may allow photovoltaic solar cells to double their efficiency, thus providing loads more electrical power from regular sunlight.
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