Sacrificing the desert to save the Earth
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Environmentalists are torn over the high cost of breaking reliance on fossil fuels. Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade — 21 million acres. In the fight against climate change, the Mojave Desert is about to take one for the team. "I have spent my entire career thinking of myself as an advocate on behalf of public lands and acting for their protection," said Johanna Wald, a veteran environmental...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Sanyo to close solar factory in California (subsidies have run out)
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Snips from excerpt website: Japanese solar company Sanyo plans to lay off about 140 employees in California, or about 40 percent of its manufacturing workforce in the United States, as it shifts its strategy in order to compete with large rivals, particularly those from China. The company, which is part of Panasonic, is buiding a large factory in Malaysia that will make wafers and turn them into solar cells and then panels. Panasonic plans to invest 45 billion yen (about $580 million) in the new factory. A fellow manufacturer in Japan, Sumco, announced Friday it would get out of the...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Global non-warming prompts reversals… Except here
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
It seems much of the world is wising up to the Global Warming Alarmism that has driven so much foolish and costly taxation and regulation, subsidies and profiteering. Well, much but not all of the world. Here’s a quick overview, courtesy of the British Global Warming Policy Foundation: . . .
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
U.S. Leans Toward Taxing Chinese Solar Panels
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
The U.S. Department of Commerce hinted on Monday that American solar panel manufacturers might prevail in their case against subsidized Chinese imports. Led by SolarWorld of Hillsboro, a group of U.S. solar panel manufacturers have asked the federal government to add a 50 to 250 percent tariff to imported solar panels from China to make up for 30 Chinese government subsidy programs that artificially reduce the panel prices Chinese manufacturers can offer. Chinese-made solar panels already represent half the American market, according to this story in the New York Times.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Major x class solar flare
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Blogging from my phoneCheck WUWT Solar Reference PageUpdated: It was an X1.7 class eruption, it does not appear to be headed towards Earth. JTF
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Planes expected to reroute following massive solar eruption
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
An immense blast of plasma spewed late Sunday night from the sun led to the strongest radiation storm bombarding our planet since 2005, and a rare warning from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency -- and even a plan to redirect certain high-flying airplanes. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center -- the nation’s official source of warnings about space weather and its impact on Earth -- issued a watch for a geomagnetic storm expected to hit our planet Tuesday morning after a satellite witnessed an ultraviolet flash from the massive solar eruption, according to Spaceweather.com.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Huge Solar Eruption Sparks Strongest Radiation Storm in 7 Years
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles toward Earth tomorrow (Jan. 24), as the strongest radiation storm since 2005 rages on the sun. Early this morning (0359 GMT Jan. 23, which corresponds to late Sunday, Jan. 22 at 10:59 p.m. EST), NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun , according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com. The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the sun that has become increasingly active lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
ASES Applauds President Obama's Decision on Keystone XL
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Boulder, Colo. Statement by Susan Greene, president of the American Solar Energy Society: The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) applauds the decision by President Obama to deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline at this time. It’s simply good energy and climate policy to discourage further dependence on fossil fuels, regardless of the friendliness and stability of the source.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Solar-Panel Company Lays Off 40 Employees (Another Obama Green Scam Failure!)
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Willard & Kelsey Solar Group LLC laid off about 40 people indefinitely at the beginning of January until changes to its production line are completed, a company official said Monday. Michael Cicak, the company's chief executive officer and chairman of the board, would not say when the changes would be completed or when the laid-off employees could return to work. "We have some technical people in here improving the efficiency of the assembly line," Mr. Cicak said, adding that the Perrysburg-based facility still has about 30 employees. He said Willard & Kelsey has a little more than 80 employees when...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Ending the solar subsidy fiasco
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
It’s not every day that the New York Times makes a compelling case against government giveaways. But a recent page-one article underscored that the Solyndra scandal was only the tip of the solar-subsidy iceberg. Huge companies like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, utilities including Exelon and NRG, and even Google are receiving government guarantees that ensure large profits with virtually no risk — except to the taxpayer. The Times ascribes to the Obama administration a “gold-rush mentality” when Congress expanded green-power incentives in 2009, despite a paralyzing federal deficit. The chief executive of NRG, which received $5.2 billion in...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Bankrupt Solyndra seeking to pay bonuses
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Now seems an unlikely time for handing out bonuses at bankrupt Solyndra LLC, but that’s the plan of company attorneys intending to dole out up to a half-million dollars to persuade key employees to stay put. Nearly two dozen Solyndra employees could receive bonuses ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 each under a proposal filed by Solyndra’s attorneys in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The attorneys say the extra money will add motivation at a time when workers at the solar company have little job security and more responsibilities because so many of their colleagues have been fired. The names of...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Solar power failures adding up
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Solar failuresThe Orange County Register December 29, 2011 10:03 AM Sooner or later, the laws of economics prevail, even in heavily subsidized industries like solar power. The latest evidence that government manipulation cannot overcome economic reality is the decision by BP PLC, the giant British energy company, to leave the solar power business. BP has developed solar energy for 40 years and for more than a decade touted its “Beyond Petroleum” campaign. The Wall Street Journal suggested, however, that BP’s solar experiment was more gimmick than serious investment. BP spent millions trying to go green, but simultaneously spent billions on...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Tiny wire to have big impact on computers
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
AN Australian university has created the narrowest conducting wire made, which could transform the computer industry, according to a report published in Science magazine today. The Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at the University of NSW in Sydney has created a wire 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, measuring four atoms wide and one atom tall. But despite the astonishingly tiny diameter, the electrical resistivity of the technology is identical to that of a traditional copper wire, proving Ohm's law that electrical current flow does not depend on wire width. By placing chains of singular...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Solar Company Scraps Factory, Leaves Michigan in Dark (GlobalWatt)
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Solar Company Scraps Factory, Leaves Mich. in DarkGrant applications don't match up with solar company's other information. By Scott McGrew | Monday, Jan 2, 2012 | Updated 2:59 PM PST A San Jose-based company has pulled out of plans to build a multimillion-dollar solar cell factory in Saginaw, Mich. GlobalWatt CEO Sanjeev Chitre blamed the shutdown on the poor economy and competition from overseas; however, many critics are wondering if there really was much of a factory to shut down. Far from a mega-factory promised in early paperwork, GlobalWatt's Saginaw operations actually employed slightly more than a dozen workers. GlobalWatt...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Local News Unpaid bill may leave a struggling solar-materials factory in Pocatello in the dark
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Idaho Power Co. told a southeastern Idaho polysilicon manufacturer that the utility could turn off its power by Tuesday if it doesn’t pay an electricity bill from November. Honolulu-based Hoku Corp., which has survived so far with help from Chinese financiers, lodged a formal protest with Idaho Public Utilities Commission regulators after getting a termination of service notice on Dec. 22. When Hoku missed the Dec. 21 payment, Idaho Power sent a notice that power would be shut off on Jan. 3 — unless Hoku came up with the money. “The fact of the matter is, Hoku has missed a...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Utilities Commission rejects further study of proposed solar energy project in Willmar, Minn.
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
WILLMAR — The Willmar Municipal Utilities Commission on Tuesday rejected a motion to study the feasibility of a solar project for Willmar Municipal Utilities at this time. The commission defeated a motion to sign a nonbinding letter of intent with tenKsolar of Minneapolis to study the feasibility of a 600-kilowatt-hour project as a showcase to prospective national and worldwide customers. The study had been proposed by tenKsolar executives Joel Cannon, chief executive officer, and Jim Losleben, business development vice president.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
INSIGHT - More solar firms set to burn up as prices sink (closures and failure loom)
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
INSIGHT - More solar firms set to burn up as prices sinkReuters - UK Focus – 10 hours ago Dec 23 (Reuters) - Only four years ago, hundreds of start-ups optimistically built factories and churned out solar panels to meet rising demand. Now, closures and failure loom for many. The brutal shakeout is a dramatic reversal for an industry that has seen overall global growth of more than 30 percent annually over the past decade and this year will reach new records for solar panel sales. Only a handful of manufacturers are now profitable in the face of too much...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Cost of reaching for the sun will soar
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
As Gov. Jerry Brown participated in a Capitol menorah-lighting ceremony this week to mark the onset of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, he uttered a secular prayer for a miracle that would make California a model of carbon-free energy.Today's miracle, he said, "is not to find more oil, but to utilize the sun," adding, "when we continue to use our intelligence, we're going to take that sun through the miracle of modern science and technology, and we're going to light up California, our cars, our homes, our air conditioners."It was one of several recent events at which Brown disparaged global-warming agnostics...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Oil giant BP to exit the solar sector as numbers fail to add up
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Oil giant BP is preparing to exit the solar industry entirely. BP is preparing to wind down its BP Solar unit and sell-off the stakes it has in various projects around the world. A document announcing the decision to the 100 employees who will be affected says changes in the solar industry have left BP unable to achieve sufficient margins in the sector. It says the decision is made with regret after a “near 40-year commitment to solar energy”. A BP spokesman confirms the move and says that over the last six months "regrettably we have come to the decision...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
Jerry Brown touts solar power as today's Hanukkah 'miracle'
Posted by admin / Under Solar Power
Gov. Jerry Brown sees a modern day message for proponents of solar power in the story of Hanukkah. Speaking at the Capitol Menorah Lighting this morning, the Democratic governor cast the eight-day Jewish holiday, which begins tomorrow, as a good time to reflect on "the whole idea that we're running out of oil so we need a miracle."
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 06:09:25 AM
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