Construction of renewable energy projects has revealed some serious environmental issues that will have to be dealt with as we speed toward a clean energy future.  We recently wrote about the conflict between land conservation efforts and renewable energy projects in deserts out west.  Land that is ideal for solar energy production is also pristine land in need of protection. In California, a similar conflict is arising between solar projects and water conservation.  Solar farms demand a lot

Laura Ipsen is senior vice president and general manager in charge of the Smart Grid for Cisco , and she’ll be speaking at our GreenBeat conference next month , where we’ll be discussing the most disruptive technologies bringing change to the old carbon-based grid system. Below is a Q&A I just had with her over the phone. The Smart Grid is the more efficient electrical grid that the nation is moving toward, one that relies on more renewable energy and emits less carbon into the atmos

Photovoltaics, or PV technology is the conversion of solar energy (including ultraviolet light) into electricity. The technology is particularly appealing in parts of the world where there is plenty of sunny weather. Recent studies have yielded some new insights  into actual usable applications of PV performance in the country of Cyprus.  Read more about Nanotechnology

“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” To most of us, old bicycle parts are mostly good for DIY furniture projects if they’re good for anything, and windmills are best designed by people with advanced degrees. When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba, of Masitala Village in Wimbe, Malawi, stumbled acro… Read the full story on TreeHugger Read the original:  The World’s DIY Hero: An Interview With William Kamkwamba, Windmill Wunderkind

Canadian Solar just announced that its CS5A and CS5P series have set a new record for PTC ratings in P-Type silicon modules, earning rating of ratings of 190 and 250 watts in tests designed to simulate real-world power generation conditions. Canadian Solar also announced that its new Enhanced Selective Emitter (ESE) technology, which enhances the performance of solar cells, has been tested successfully. In a press release , Dr. Shawn Qu, Canadian Solar’s Chairman and CEO, commented on the

This post is part of Friend’s of the Earth sponsorsing Open Left. Please check out the Friend’s of the Earth website here –promoted by Chris Bowers Josh Nelson reported Friday on EnviroKnow about the latest in a series of gaffes by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, that bastion of free enterprise, apparently shut down the websites of 400 organizations. This “mishap” occurred Thursday night as the Chamber maneuvered to shut down the website of the Yes Men, the group that posed a

Looking at the future of the energy-efficient home at the 2009 Solar Decathlon Mother Nature didn’t make it easy for the teams that took part in 2009 Solar Decathlon, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The homes designed and built by 20 college and university teams were put through the weather wringer during the final days of the event last weekend, with cold, rainy, overcast weather prevailing—not exactly ideal conditions for solar-

MEMC Electronics (WFR) reported after the bell tonight and the headlines coming out would have you believe that the quarter was a bit of a disaster with the company posting a .29 EPS loss.   Here at GreenStocks I like to dig a little bit deeper and get to what’s really going on after all the one time gains and losses.  If you take out the one time restructuring and impairment charge of $39.7 million, a $4.5 million startup cost for its Malaysia plant, a tax expense of $19.3 million and $6.3 mill

MEMC Electronic (WFR) announced today it’s diversifying its business with the $200 million purchase of the largest North American solar services provider SunEdison .  The payout will include cash and options and is expected to close by the end of the year and begin contributing to earnings in the second half of 2010. This is a good move in my opinion and positions the company as a complete solar provider while creating greater efficiencies for both companies.  Here’s a comment from the CEO of

Solar photovoltaic installation. (Rob Baxter)Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) released a new study on the installed costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the U.S., showing that the average cost of these systems declined by more than 30 percent from 1998 to 2008. Within the last year of this period, costs fell by more than 4 percent.The number of solar PV systems in the U.S. has been growing at a rapid rate in recent years,