cost
Green Jobs?
The Wall Street Journal addresses one of the big issues with pushing material-heavy green jobs in the U.S.:
But the bigger question, it seems, is whether clean-tech manufacturing is really the best way for America to jump on the green bandwagon. Manufacturing jobs in all sectors have for decades been fleeing to countries with lower costs [...]
A Summary of Green Tech’s Recent Deployment Problems
The Economist has a nice overview of the problems that green tech companies have experienced over the last year.
The industry suffered particularly badly in the credit crunch. Almost by definition, renewable energy sources have low running costs but high up-front costs. And because they are regulated assets with long-term pre-defined revenue streams, they are particularly [...]
Crimes Against the Future: The Demise of Luz
In 1992, Newton Becker went before Congress to tell the story of his company’s demise. Many companies have gone bankrupt and many more will, but Becker’s company, Luz International, happened to be the largest solar company in the world.
“I am here much like a crime victim trying to change a law,” Becker said.
The crime here, [...]
Solar Thermal’s Learning Curve Says It’ll Be Competing with Coal Soon
How far away from competing with coal is solar thermal technology?
Not far, says David Wheeler, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. With $4-8 billion dollars of learning curve investments over the next five years or so, a new solar thermal plant would be competitive with a new coal plant.
He looked at the [...]
All You Need to Know About U.S. Energy R&D in Two Graphs
Both graphs are from Pacific Northwest National Lab analyst James Dooley’s excellent report, “US Federal Investments in Energy R&D.” It’s these ridiculously low levels of research spending that make me wary of writing off any particular technology. Say carbon capture and sequestration or enhanced geothermal or wave power. The truth is that we haven’t put [...]
Renewable Energy Cost Curves – 1980-2020
From: NREL Energy Analysis Office
Inventing Green by Alexis Madrigal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
