Energy Articles for SGLI

 The wall of water raced through narrow Himalayan gorges in northeast India, gathering speed as it raked the banks of towering trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra river, the villagers remember, it took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestock. No one knows exactly how the disaster happened, but everyone knows whom to blame: neighboring China.

Chevron Corp. has built the state's largest "solar canopy," a 414-kilowatt photovoltaic system positioned over 177 parking spaces at Oceanic Time Warner's headquarters in Mililani.

" * The Future of Nuclear Energy 3:13 PM Monday March 14, 2011 | Comments (11) * Email * Tweet This * Post to Facebook * Share on LinkedIn * Print FEATURED PRODUCTS Guide to Persuasive Presentations Guide to Persuasive Presentations by John Clayton, John Daly, Isa Engleberg, et al. $19.95 Buy it now » Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People by Harvard Business Review $22.00 Buy it now » HBR's 10 Must Reads: The Essentials HBR's 10 Must Reads: The Essentials by Clayton Christensen, Thomas Davenport, Peter Drucker, et al. $24.95 Buy it now » It's way too soon to say anything definitive about what's going on in Japan. Who really knows what the outcome might be from the frightening breakdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant (the radioactive releases could go on for months)? But the speculation about what this means for a much-touted nuclear "renaissance" in the U.S. has begun. As the New York Times reported Monday, "U.S. Nuclear Industry Faces New Uncertainty." Some quick background: For years, no new nuclear plants were built in the U.S. But nuclear power is now being taken seriously again. Roughly 30 to 40 applications for new plants or expansions to existing facilities are moving through the process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). One of the main reasons nuclear is "back" is that it satisfies two very distinct interest groups: (1) pro-energy lobbyists and companies that usually sit on the right (although President Obama has adopted the rallying cry of "all-of-the-above" as an energy independence strategy as well), and (2) those who want to aggressively fight climate change, who usually camp out on the left. In the past, being an "environmentalist" of any stripe meant being anti-nuclear. More recently, however, some high-profile environmentally-minded people, such as Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand, have been promoting nucle

From its modest headquarters in an industrial area near Honolulu Airport, homegrown high-tech company Sopogy Inc. is taking on some of the world's biggest names in renewable energy. Launched in 2002 by local entrepreneur Darren Kimura, Sopogy has leveraged its expertise in the field of concentrated solar power to win contracts on the mainland and across the globe. Among its competitors are Siemens AG, a German conglomerate with a market capitalization of $116 billion, and Spain's Abengoa SA, another multibillion-dollar firm.

Hawaiian Electric Co. engineers knew they were venturing into the unknown when company executives tasked them with finding out whether one of the utility's 40-year-old petroleum-fired steam generating units could run on crude palm oil.

What could make bike riding even more efficient? How about a bike path embedded with solar panels to produce clean energy while encouraging people to get on their bikes? The town of Krommenie in the Netherlands, just north of Amsterdam, will be receiving the SolaRoad bike path, scheduled to open in 2012.

Just watched the "Making Things Cleaner" episode of Pogue's (NYT technology journalist) 4-part series on NOVA, and it did a nice job of explaining how some of the newer, sustainable energy sources work -- for the non-scientific minded. May or may not have SGLI application... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/making-stuff-cleaner.html