The Green Technocrat

Information on Alternative Energy Technology and Climate Change Policy

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Entries from April 2009

U.S. GHG Emissions Still On The Rise

April 15th, 2009 · No Comments · Green Politics, News on Climate Change

I’ve been staring at a lot of GHG emissions data lately.  Is there anything more fun than pouring over table after table of UNFCCC national submissions, IEA reports and E.P.A. eGRID values?  OK, I guess I can think of a few things, but reviewing all this data has actually been pretty interesting.   One of the [...]

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Costa Rica - Costa Limpia

April 12th, 2009 · No Comments · Green Politics

In his Op-Ed this weekend in The New York Times Thomas Friedman gave a quick account of one country that has recognized the need to develop its environmental policy and energy policy hand in hand.  That country is Costa Rica, and for the last 20 years they have been doing just about everything right in [...]

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China Hints at Renewable Energy Stimulus

April 11th, 2009 · No Comments · Green Politics, News on Climate Change

Yesterday China announced that they are working on a stimulus plan that they hope will spur development in their renewable energy industry.  While it isn’t exactly clear what the stimulus will entail, it seems likely that it will involve providing large subsidies to solar and wind energy producers.  The mere announcement of the stimulus caused [...]

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Outcome of Bonn Climate Change Talks

April 10th, 2009 · No Comments · Events, News on Climate Change

The Bonn Climate Change Talks, one of the series of UNFCCC conferences that are leading up to the Copenhagen talks (where a new UN protocol will be adopted to replace the Kyoto protocol), ended on April 8th.
Synopsis from UNFCCC:
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer stated that, with regard to emission targets for industrialized countries, the [...]

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PV 2.0 is just around the corner…

April 9th, 2009 · No Comments · Green Technology

The new world of solar technology is looming near.  Over the last few years researchers have started to have some limited of success building what are known as dye-sensitized solar cells. Solar cells that function by basically imitating the process of natural solar collection by plants and light-sensitive bacteria.
The cells are comprised of a semi-conductor [...]

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If we can nationalize a bank we can nationalize an electric grid

April 6th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Green Politics, Green Technology

A few months back I wrote an article about how large scale solar and wind farms were starting to cause real headaches for the people whose job it is to ensure our nation’s electrical grid runs smoothly.  In November the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released a report saying that if we began putting [...]

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