The 1.3 billion [people] who have no access to electricity spend an estimated $30 billion annually on kerosene.” Most customers start with the basic service, said Helgesen in a previous interview. They tend to upgrade after a few months once they get comfortable with the company’s services and know they’re reliable. Earlier this month, Lacey reported on M-Kopa, another solar …
Rising percentage of energy from solar is saving lives
Solar power could deliver $400 billion in environmental and public health benefits throughout the United States by 2050, according to a study from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “We find that a U.S. electric system in which solar plays a major role–supplying 14% of demand in 2030, …
Why the future of cars is electric, by Zach Shahan
Technology changes at a fast pace these days, but even so, we typically think that today’s technology norms will remain for a long time, just with incremental improvements. That hasn’t been how the story goes, though. When I was in high school, a few people had beepers, and basically no one had a cell phone. If you were away from home …
Future summers will be regularly hotter than any experienced today, according to new study on current path
If greenhouse gas emissions remain unabated. virtually every summer between 2061-2080 could be hotter than any in the historical record. Credit: © Sunny Forest / Fotolia In 50 years, summers across most of the globe could regularly be hotter than any summer experienced so far by people alive today, according to a study by scientists at the National Center for …
US cities consider ways to transform transportation
San Francisco The pilot would try to lure people from their own cars to shared, clean-running electric vehicles, either with drivers or without (if robot cars prove cheap and trusty enough). The carrot? Ease and relative speed. Those in shared rides can use new dedicated carpool lanes (either marked on the pavement or drawn virtually using navigation apps such as …
How the EV boom could be good for the grid
Earlier this year, breathtaking numbers of pre-orders for the Tesla Model 3 not only shocked the auto industry but suggested that a transition of the U.S. and world auto fleet toward electric vehicles could happen faster than expected. There are still only a little more than 400,000 electric vehicles on the road in the United States, or just 0.16 percent of all …
Energy transitions are usually slow. Here’s why the clean energy transition might be faster.
(Shutterstock) Several years ago, at a clean energy conference, I saw a presentation by entrepreneur and venture capitalist Bill Gross, founder of the technology incubator IdeaLab. He was discussing eSolar, a company he helped found and of which he was, at the time (around 2010, if memory serves), CEO. In the course of his presentation, he said something that has …
Updates on EV policy initiatives In New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, & Vermont
Section 177 states are US states which have adopted and placed into effect California requirements under authority of Section 177 of the Clean Air Act. To explain in simple terms, Section 177 states are a group of states which adhere to stricter standards than others with regard to vehicles and auto manufacturers. An email recently sent to CleanTechnica and EV …
Advice from Warsaw, on its way to becoming a Clean City
Every few years I visit Warsaw, where I grew up and lived until moving to Vancouver 24 years ago. Warsaw and its surrounding communities comprise roughly the same size and population as Greater Vancouver. Both cities underwent rapid population growth in the last couple of decades. Both invested heavily in infrastructure and public transit with mixed results. The average car …
World nearing peak fossil fuels for electricity: Coal and gas will begin their terminal decline in less than a decade, according to a new BNEF analysis.
The way we get electricity is about to change dramatically, as the era of ever-expanding demand for fossil fuels comes to an end—in less than a decade. That’s according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that plots out global power markets for the next 25 years. Call it peak fossil fuels, a turnabout that’s happening not because we’re running out …