The Obama administration is still playing it cool with environmentalists. First it skirted the protracted battle over the Keystone XL pipeline, which could carry dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the American Gulf Coast. Now it’s facing opposition to proposed fracking regulations on tens of millions of acres of government land.
“Well, we don’t have any plans right now to raise funding.”– Elon Musk, investor conference call, May 8, 2013.
Elon Musk’s electric car and rocket ship ventures may score the headlines—but SolarCity, his rooftop photovoltaic company, is proving the market leader of a booming business. The Silicon Valley firm today further consolidated its position as the US’s largest residential solar installer with the announcement that Goldman Sachs will finance $500 million in leases for SolarCity’s customers.
A report released today on US power plant pollution offers some insight into why it’s so hard for the country to reach agreement on cutting its carbon emissions.
So what will be Tesla Motors’ big reveal this week?
The European Commission said today that antitrust officials raided the offices of oil companies suspected of cartel-like behavior by colluding to manipulate the published price of crude oil, refined oil and biofuels. So-called Price Reporting Agencies such as McGraw Hill subsidiary Platts publish the data, which is used as the benchmark price for trade in oil and other commodities. Norwegian oil giant Statoil confirmed its offices had been searched; the Wall Street Journal identified the other oil companies as BP and Royal Dutch Shell, and said Platts’ offices had also been raided.
The bad news for Chinese solar manufacturers just keeps coming.
Is the 1% going green or just going for the new, new thing?
Silicon Valley venture capitalists like to crow that it’s now cheaper than ever to establish a startup company. While that may be true for internet firms, the amount of money required to fund a Silicon Valley green tech startup can be mind-boggling.
Urban trees in the US absorb 25.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually and help lower energy costs by shading the asphalt and concrete jungle. The US Forest Service estimates all that carbon storage is worth $50.5 billion and growing by $2 billion a year, according to a new study from the agency.
Not stoked. As climate change warms the world’s oceans, waves are likely to shrink across nearly 40% of the planet during prime surfing season, according to a new study. That’s bad news for surfers and the $7 billion global surf industry, as well as for countries like Costa Rica and Nicaragua, where surf tourism is booming.
The numbers: In the black, baby. Tesla Motors turned its first profit—$11.2 million—in its 10-year history as the Silicon Valley automaker ramped up production of its Model S luxury electric sports sedan. Tesla had lost $89.9 million in the fourth quarter. Sales jumped 83% to $562 million from the previous quarter as Tesla built more than 400 vehicles a week, for a total of 4,900 for the quarter.
The mandatory US federal budget cuts known as sequestration may seem like bad news for environmental programs. But there’s a green lining to government dysfunction: less money to carry out environmentally damaging policies.
Have environmentalists already won the war over fracking in California?
The numbers: First quarter profit for the US solar panel manufacturer and developer rose to $59.1 million from a $449.4 loss in the first quarter of 2012. Sales rose 52% to $755.2 million. Shares were up nearly 4% in after hours trading.
Forget the plight of the polar bear for a moment and consider the coming collapse of the $30 billion honey bee economy in the US.
Sorry, potential Model S buyers but your time is no longer money.
Last month, Mauritania flipped the switch on a 15-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic power plant. As solar power stations go, that’s small stuff. But for the west African nation of 3.4 million people, the project built by Abu Dhabi renewable energy company Masdar will supply 10% of its entire electricity demand, which is mostly served by diesel generators.
If you’re a Verizon subscriber, all that Facebooking, texting, and tweeting you do on your smartphone is about to get a bit greener. The US telecom giant says that it will spend $100 million over the next year to install solar arrays and fuel cells at its data centers, corporate offices, and call centers in seven states.
On Tuesday, April 30, we wrote about a report from two environmental groups that named Bank of America as the biggest financier of companies that operate US coal-fired power plants and mine coal through the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal. Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were the second and third largest coal financiers, respectively. In the report, the Sierra Club and the Rainforest Action Network called on the banks to get out of the coal business, one of the biggest contributors to climate change. The green groups called coal a bad bet given the industry’s declining fortunes in the US. We asked Bank of America to comment on the report. Below is the bank’s response that spokeswoman Britney Sheehan provided Quartz.
Could severe water shortages short-circuit the US shale gas boom? With 64% of the country in drought, water is looming as the next hot-button issue in the debate over hydrofracturing, also known as fracking, which involves injecting chemical-laden water under high pressure to create fissures in subterranean rock formations so gas and oil can be extracted.
Updated at 4 pm ET.
Suntech belatedly released its 2012 earnings today, illustrating why last year’s performance foretold the Chinese solar giant’s present troubles. (If you haven’t been following the Suntech saga, here’s the story so far.)
The rap against wind energy is that it’s fickle, generating massive amounts of electricity one hour and next to nothing the next. That plays havoc with the power grid and the problem is only growing as wind becomes a bigger part of the power mix. The US, for example, installed a record 13,200 megawatts (MW) of wind energy capacity in 2012 and in some states wind supplies more than 20% of electricity generation. China, meanwhile, intends to add 18,000 MW of wind capacity this year.
