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Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico’s power system hard enough that, for awhile, 100% of grid power services were cut off. Not a single utility customer was receiving power from the grid. That bleak reality doesn’t mean that 100 percent of Puerto Ricans (or, well, crypto buds avoiding taxes by residing in Puerto Rico) were without […]

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When it comes to the post disaster space, a major ‘lesson’ from the 1980s and 1990s U.S. military humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations is that effectiveness (protecting lives and property, reducing future risks, efficient resource use) requires coordination across organizations and coordination across phases. By ‘phases’, these can be summarized as the Three Rs: Relief: Life saving […]

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Looking back a decade, solar photovoltaiic (PV) prices were over 20 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh), uncertainty existed as to polysilicon pricing (one of the reasons why Solyndra, potentially, seemed to make sense if silicon prices wouldn’t drop), and the future seemed extremely bright for concentrated solar power (CSP) leveraging solar power for heat to […]

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When Secretary Chu announced the Department of Energy’s SunShot program in February 2011, many (okay, most or nearly all) energy (related) analysts thought that the target of $0.05 per kilowatt hour for large-scale solar electricity delivery to the grid was beyond simply ambitious.  Great, perhaps, to have a stretch goal but I can recall multiple […]

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Around the world, solar prices are simply collapsing. With double-digit year-to-year growth rates and double-digit year-to-year price drops, solar electricity is reaching grid parity (and better) in new markets with virtually every passing day. For a long time, those fighting clean energy have argued PRICE! PRICE! PRICE! Those (including myself) arguing for the necessity for […]

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There are a series of arguments used by fossil-fuel defenders / pollution promoters to dismiss the utility of renewable energy electricity options. One standard is to dismiss wind and solar by saying that it only delivers X percent of the electricity. The intent of playing to that number, with the emphasis on “only”, is to […]

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Weirdly, while spending many pages detailing how the Energy Information Agency (EIA) failed to predict accurately fossil fuel trends, the report’s authors failed to highlight that the real-world performance of renewable energy (notably wind and solar) has greatly outperformed baseline forecasts. With the President’s call for more solar energy, highlighting that renewables have been doing so well (in price reductions and speed of market penetration) would seem something strongly support of Administration objectives rather than for something to be ignored in a 42-page White House report.

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This guest post comes from BruceMcF. In early December, the Guardian covered ALEC’s latest corporate-written attack on freedom, an effort to penalize households that place solar panels on their roof: An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels – casting them as “freeriders” – in a […]

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The fundraising for the inaugural party for the incoming Virginia Governor, Democratic Terry McAuliffe, is seeing a serious lift due to donations from fossil-fuel dependent Corporations. Most notably, McAuliffe’s Inaugural Committee has received $25,000 from Alpha Natural Resources, an $8 billion coal company that gave $92,500 to Cuccinelli’s campaign. Dominion Resources, a Virginia-based coal, gas, […]

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At the Georgetown University climate speech, President Obama gave a tip-of-the-hat to the fossil fuel “disinvestment” campaign by commenting “invest, divest”. Convince those in power to reduce our carbon pollution. (Applause.) Push your own communities to adopt smarter practices. (Applause.) Invest. Divest.Remind folks there’s no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth. Today, […]

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