Energy, Solar | featured news

Suntech, one of the world's biggest solar panel manufacturers, was forced in bankruptcy court Wednesday, becoming the latest casualty of a painful slump in the global solar industry.

Wave power is the oft-forgotten cousin of solar and wind power. It has huge potential, but it is not quite as far along as the better known sources of clean power, so it tends to be overlooked. But it shouldn't! To clean up our power grid we'll need all the help we can get. Granted, in many places where wave power would work, offshore wind power would also work, but that might not be the case everywhere (ie. very deep water), and if wave power's cost can be brought down enough, that might not even matter.

Eager for jobs and tax money, Mojave Desert counties welcomed big solar projects. But they may have been too optimistic.

A unique airplane has just completed a 4,000-mile journey, making the first solar-powered intercontinental round-trip air journey. Traveling between Europe and Africa, the Solar Impulse experimental solar airplane landed in Payerne, Switzerland at 8:30 p.m. local time (2:30 p.m. ET) on Tuesday. The odyssey began two months ago, on May 24. This wasn't a test to see how fast the plane could make the trip, but to assess its endurance and reliability.

It’s a mistake to assume that just because Goldman thinks there are many profitable opportunities in green tech, all opportunities in green tech will be profitable. Right now, I think the most profitable investments are likely to be investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency deployment: wind and solar farms, and upgrades to facilities to make them more energy efficient.

Solar panels prices have kept marching lower this year, extending steep declines seen in 2011 and keeping pressure on hard-hit manufacturers who have struggled to eke out profits, industry experts said.

Republicans probing how a now-bankrupt solar panel company received a $535 million federal loan guarantee excoriated Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday for his decisions on Solyndra at a hearing packed with media and spectators.

The White House counsel refused Friday to comply with a subpoena issued by a House panel regarding the failed solar energy company Solyndra, claiming the initiative "was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation."

Chevron Technology Ventures demonstrated the use of solar power to boil water into steam using around 7,600 mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy over a solar boiler. We have a $104 price estimate for Chevron, which implies a 14% premium over its current stock price.

The Energy Department plans to give $156 million in grants on Thursday after it has been under scrutiny for arranging $528 million in loans to Solyndra, a company that went bankrupt.