Reality Check on Dedicated Green Portfolios: “Investors tempted by green investing need to choose funds carefully and understand that some of these sectors can be very volatile.” Plus, buying stock in greener companies and “shunning those that are harder on the Earth’s resources won’t benefit the […] Read more »
It is the end of another week and that can only mean it is time to share my week at Mobile Tech Manor with you. It is by far my favorite time of week, no doubt that it always occurs on Friday plays a role. This […] Read more »
Reid Reneging on Climate Legislation?: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “who’s facing a potentially difficult reelection campaign and known for announcing legislative timetables that he can’t deliver on –- told reporters Tuesday that the Senate might wait until next year” to vote on the climate bill. […] Read more »
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White House Details New Auto Standards: According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Obama administrations new proposed fuel efficiency and emission standards will translate to an average “real-life fuel economy” of about 32.7 miles per gallon for U.S. cars and trucks in 2016. — […] Read more »
Tesla Still on the Hunt for Space: Two cities in Southern California — Long Beach and Downey — have emerged as leading candidates for Tesla Motors’ Model S electric sedan factory, but the San Francisco Bay Area is still in the running. — San Jose Mercury […] Read more »
Automakers Eye Fuel Cells for 2015: Auto companies Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan and Toyota have issued a joint letter of understanding today saying they anticipate a “few hundred thousand units” of fuel cell electric vehicles will be commercialized. — Green Car […] Read more »
Epic Fail: International climate talks taking place in Copenhagen this December are in danger of collapse as a result of the economic recession, complexity of the issues at hand, and “suspicion” between developed and developing countries. — Wall Street Journal Health Care Tactics Needed for Climate […] Read more »
Mobile Banking, Solar Power Put to Work for Water Distribution: A community in Musingini, Kenya, is working with Safaricom and Grundfos Lifelink to implement a solar-powered, pay-for-use water vending system using smart cards and mobile phones. — NYT’s Green Inc. Plug-in Prius on Deck: Toyota plans […] Read more »
Hybrid Sales Up, With Caveats: “Hybrid sales statistics are knocked cockeyed by the huge market share held by Toyota’s Pruis. When it’s up the whole hybrid market soars, but when Prius sales fall, as they did in August after a huge July gain, they hold back […] Read more »
Climate Change and Cali Wildfires: “To the average person a 1-degree rise in average spring and summer temperatures may not seem like much. But for residents of the western United States—including California, which is fighting at least eight fires right now—it could mean a staggering increase […] Read more »
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You may have heard of Spotify, the European music streaming app whose mystique has only deepened due to its unavailability in the U.S. The Stockholm-based peer-to-peer song streaming service offers ad-supported and paid versions, with a large library of licensed tracks. Well, it seems Stockholm also […] Read more »
GM Green Strategy in a Nutshell: General Motors’ Britta Gross says the extended-range electric Chevy Volt is intended as a halo car to change people’s perception of the company, but it’s developing hydrogen fuel cell tech since “we can’t just assume batteries are going to solve […] Read more »
Biofuels Go Bust: “The wave of biodiesel failures,” combined with the inability of Khosla-backed Cello Energy “to produce even a fraction of what it expected have spooked private investors, which could further delay technology breakthroughs and derail the government’s green energy objectives.” — Wall Street Journal […] Read more »
We’ve followed the travails of Nina Paley, whose beautiful, animated film, Sita Sings the Blues, was hamstrung by sticky copyright restrictions (more here). But Paley persevered and during a recent talk at the Workbook Project’s DIY DAYS in Philadelphia, she did what so many other web […] Read more »
New Life for Cadillac Converj?: General Motors’ plans for the Cadillac Converj, a concept for a luxury vehicle using the Voltec drive system deployed in the Chevy Volt, were shelved when some members of top management and the federal auto task force questioned the economics of […] Read more »
The Problem With MPGs: The folks behind the Automotive X Prize lay the smack down on General Motors’ 230 MPG claim for the Chevy Volt, and make the case for their MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) method of calculating the fuel efficiency of plug-in vehicles. — […] Read more »
Cash for Algae Fuel Down Under: The Algal Fuel Consortium won an A$2.72-million ($2.26 million) research grant under a government program in Australia to develop microalgal mass cultivation systems to generate biomass from captured CO2 emissions, and use it as a feedstock for pilot-scale production of fuel […] Read more »
Electrifying the Autobahn: The German government unveiled plans today to have one million electric cars zipping along the autbahn by 2020, “offering sweeteners to jump-start national giants like BMW and Volkswagen into action.” — AFP via Grist Fuel from Biomass, Sewage Sludge Headed for LAX: Synthetic […] Read more »
Slow Going for Solar Phones: “Solar technology in mobile computing devices is still impeded by performance and price issues and isn’t likely to entirely replace batteries anytime soon, according to analysts.” — CNET’s Green Tech Farmers in the Climate Crossfire: Unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions will be […] Read more »
Missteps in GM’s 230 Campaign: General Motors’ buzzy 230 MPG marketing campaign for the Chevy Volt “was flawed because it was ill-timed, targeted a group that is not likely to be the core Volt buyer and — most of all — didn’t offer enough clues to […] Read more »
Cutting Carbon at $365 per Ton (Ouch!): University of California-Davis professor Christopher Knittel calculated how much we’re spending for each ton of carbon dioxide saved through the cash-for-clunkers program, and “It ain’t pretty.” — WSJ’s Environmental Capital Group of Two: China and the U.S. are the […] Read more »
GM to Invest $43M to Build Battery Plant: General Motors said today it will invest $43 million to build a lithium-ion battery pack assembly plant in Brownstone, Mich. for its extended-range electric Chevy Volt and other plug-in vehicles. — Reuters Cap-and-Trade Inventors Call for Carbon Tax: […] Read more »
GM Seeks Cool Factor for Small Cars: General Motors designers have begun to sharpen their focus on more fuel efficient, smaller (not tiny) cars. “Cool and small is the next big thing,” predicts GM’s vice president of global design Ed Welburn. — CNET’s Green Tech Alpine […] Read more »
Shaq Backs Micro Refinery Maker: NBA star Shaquille O’Neal has invested in GreenHouse, maker of portable refinery systems for making fuel at home from organic waste, and says he’ll now go by “Big Eth” instead of “Diesel.” — Orange County Register via Kicking Tires Charging Infrastructure: […] Read more »
Cozy Coda-Goldman Sachs Connection: Former treasury secretary Henry Paulson, onetime chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, recently invested in electric car startup Coda Automotive and joined the advisory board. Coda’s ties to the firm run deeper than that: CEO Kevin Czinger and co-chairman Steven Heller […] Read more »
What About Charging?: The Department of Energy is spending $2.4 billion to help develop technology for electric vehicles, but relatively little has been awarded for a crucial element that remains in short supply: the infrastructure needed to recharge vehicles once they are on the road. Wall […] Read more »
Cash for Clunkers Winners: People have used cash for clunkers vouchers to buy fuel-sipping cars, led by the Ford Focus and followed by models from Honda and Toyota, a sign that “Americans are convinced more than ever that the era of cheap oil and gasoline is […] Read more »
Immelt and Doerr on the Other Crisis: In an editorial today, venture capitalist John Doerr and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt argue the U.S. faces not only economic, climate and energy crises, but also a competitiveness crisis, especially when it comes to green technology. — Washington […] Read more »
“Carousel Fraud” Strikes Carbon Markets: Carbon credit fraudsters are increasingly “setting up complicated import and export schemes between EU member countries, charging buyers for value-added tax in the country of destination, and then absconding with the tax rather than handing it over to the governments.” — […] Read more »
Nissan, EnerDel Team Up for Battery Research: Lithium-ion battery maker EnerDel (an Ener1 subsidiary) and Nissan Motor Co. plan to fund research for a new electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries at Argonne National Laboratory. — Green Car Congress, AutoblogGreen How Long Will Natural Gas Really Last?: Robert […] Read more »
EPA Hearts Algae: Encouraged by recent interest in algae fuels by heavy hitters like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical, the EPA is reportedly planning to count algae as an advanced biofuel under the Renewable Fuel Standard now in the works. — WSJ’s Environmental Capital India Set to […] Read more »
The New Saudi Arabia: To replace the tired stock phrase, “the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy,” readers suggest: “the El Dorado of green energy,” and the Everlasting Gobstopper or Rush Limbaugh of wind. — NYT’s Green Inc. Obama Calls for U.S.-China Cooperation: President Obama kicked off […] Read more »
Citi Investment Research’s Mark Mahaney said today he’d been convinced that online video companies like YouTube can become profitable because infrastructure prices have come down dramatically. After holding a call with RampRate, the IT services analysts who’d recently declared that YouTube’s costs were vastly overestimated, Citi […] Read more »
New Fight Over Trees as Offsets: Energy-guzzling companies hope to get carbon credits and avoid obligations to make costlier emission cuts by paying forest owners to preserve trees that might not have been at risk of destruction. — Wall Street Journal About That Hydrogen Funding: “There […] Read more »
DOE Flunks Again: The latest inspector general’s report finds that the Department of Energy often fails to adjust heating and air conditioning settings to conserve energy, wasting more than $11 million per year. This comes on the heels of another report finding the DOE wastes more […] Read more »
Lincvolt Bows Out of X Prize Competition: Neil Young’s biodiesel/gasoline/hydroxy gas-powered Lincvolt has withdrawn from the race to focus on developing technology without the distraction of devising a business model (an X Prize requirement). — Lincvolt via AutoblogGreen Small Wind, Coming Soon to the Hardware Store: […] Read more »
DOE Wants to Be Your Facebook Friend: “The Obama administration really, really doesn’t want the fight over health care to steal attention from energy and climate legislation. Energy Secretary Steven Chu just launched a Facebook page to keep climate change front and center.” — WSJ’s Environmental […] Read more »
BP Drops Jatropha: BP has “given up on jatropha, the shrub once touted as the great hope for biofuels, and walked away from its jatropha joint venture for less than $1 million.” — WSJ’s Environmental Capital Palin Climate Smackdown, Round 2: After Sen. John Kerry lambasted […] Read more »
EEStor: Will It or Won’t it?: There are some indications that startup EEStor is making progress toward its goal of selling an energy storage device “capable of propelling a reasonably-sized automobile down a freeway for a couple hundred miles before needing a recharge,” and plenty of […] Read more »
Wal-Mart Plans Environmental Reporting, Labels: Wal-Mart is requiring manufacturers to report the full environmental costs of their products, and plans to distill the data into green ratings that shoppers will eventually see alongside prices, a move that could “redefine the design of products sold around the […] Read more »
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