renewable energy

Renewable energy white paper released by Berkeley/UCLA Law & California Attorney General’s Office

As part of an ongoing series of white papers on business and climate change, UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law, together with the California Attorney General’s Office, is pleased to release our second white paper, on the topic of increasing renewable energy production from large public and commercial buildings, highway land, aqueducts, and other …

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Low-Cost Solar Power Should Be Close At Hand

I am beginning to wonder.  If the answer for making solar energy cheaper than coal were to pass our way, would we see it coming?  Would we recognize it, and rally to help it to succeed? The fact is, I think I may have seen it, already.  It is tough to discover how hard it …

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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About China But Were Afraid to Ask

As President Obama heads to China, the World Resource Institute has launched a very interesting new website devoted to China, energy, and climate change.  The chart above is an example of the kind of information on the website.  Notice for example the important role of manufacturing emissions on the Chinese side versus transportation emissions on …

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Paying for Those Transmission Lines to Promote Renewable Energy

Even people who could not care less about renewable energy development have heard the plea: in order to deliver big bunches of power from central station renewable sources, we need lots of new transmission lines. If so, then who should put up the money to get the lines built? In a decision issued a few …

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Odds Are that Energy Technology Will Advance Faster Than Expected

In a post yesterday, I discussed a point that Sam Savage makes about climate change in his book, The Flaw of Averages.  He makes another point that I think is very important: . . . if we continue developing sources of renewable energy at our current average rate, we may indeed be doomed.  But we …

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Optimism on a Climate Bill?

At least, optimism  seems to be the White House message, according to a TPM report: On Friday the president urged speed in the broader shift in U.S. energy priorities and said he believed lawmakers — many of whom are skeptical of the energy bill — are following. “It is a transformation that will be made …

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Free Trade, Deregulation, and Clean Energy — A Good Mix?

Some scholars like to suggest that there is a natural regulatory cycle: the perception of market failures leads to regulation, and the perception of regulatory failures leads to deregulation.  While the 1990s were dominated by free trade agreements and economic deregulation, many political observers see greater acceptance of regulation now, in light of investor malfeasance …

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A third is a third is a third?

On the last day of its term, the California legislature did wind up passing SB 14, the hotly debated bill to boost the state’s renewable energy supply requirement to 33% by 2020.  But its prospects don’t look good — the Governor announced within hours that he would veto (SacBee story here).  Presumably in its stead, …

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Sacramento debates renewable energy, jobs

With Ken posting about California’s renewable energy goals and ways to meet them, I’ll point out the battle waging this week in the state legislature over SB 14, a bill that would legislate and broaden the 33%-RPS-by-2020 Ken discussed here (currently derived from an executive order).  This from the LA Times: Under the measure, by Sen. …

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Movie Stars, Solar Cells

Flowers are beginning to bloom through the cracks in the foundation that formerly was the economy in the state of Michigan.  With the precipitous closure of auto manufacturing plants, and the strong ripples throughout the state’s employment base, the state of Michigan has come close to the economic bottom.  Now come the opportunities for rebirth. …

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