Green Living Tips and Ideas

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times The past week has brought a spate of executive departures at renewable energy start-ups, with the president of SolarReserve, a power plant builder, and the chief executives of Clipper Windpower and Aurora Biofuels stepping down. Terry Murphy, a rocket scientist who helped found SolarReserve after a career at United Technologies’ Rocketdyne ision, ...read more

Kirk J. Condyles for The New York Times A program to encourage homeowners to add solar panels and make their houses more energy efficient through higher property taxes aims to scale up. A widely praised program to encourage homeowners to add solar panels and make their houses more energy efficient is on the verge of a ...read more

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times In a major speech on future policy directions this week, Ontario’s government has announced plans to position the province as North America’s “clean water technology capital.” Seeking to tap into a $400 billion global market, the administration said it would introduce a “Water Opportunities Act” later this year. It is expected to ...read more

Vestas Canadian wind power enthusiasts say the federal government is jeopardizing the renewable energy sector in the country’s new budget. The Canadian Wind Energy Association is expressing disappointment with the federal government’s recent decision not to expand or extend the so-called ecoEnergy program — which delivered subsidies to renewable energy developers — in its new ...read more

Mitch Epstein for The New York Times California regulators are not sold on fuel cells like those from Bloom Energy, a low-emission, ‘‘fuel flexible’’ power source. While Google, Wal-Mart and other corporations have embraced fuel cells, California regulators have turned down requests from the state’s two biggest utilities to install the technology. In a preliminary decision, ...read more

International Fertilizer Development Center A new technique for applying urea, a nitrogen fertilizer, involves burying briquettes like those above in the soil, rather than sprinkling granules on top of the soil. A new agricultural technology that cuts nitrogen fertilizer waste in half while increasing rice yields is spreading quickly in Bangladesh and is being investigated ...read more

With Nevada’s Yucca Mountain facility apparently out of the picture as a nuclear waste repository, government nuclear experts say interim measures might be needed for a very long time. In a speech Tuesday delivered to about 2,700 industry executives, nuclear regulators and other experts gathered for a nuclear energy conference in Washington, Gregory B. Jaczko, ...read more

CenterPoint Energy The road is getting bumpy as Texans become acquainted with so-called “smart” electric meters. So-called “smart” electric meters, heralded as vital for an energy-conscious era, are having a rough rollout in Texas. The devices, which enable utilities to vary their rates according to the time of day, allow consumers to save money — in ...read more

Reuters An electrician went to work on power cables in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday. The country has come dangerously close to a major collapse in electricity generation because of falling water levels in reservoirs at its main hydroelectric dam. A severe drought in Venezuela appears to be pushing the country’s president, Hugo Chávez, to ramp up ...read more

Environmental lawyers and activists on Monday sued the European Commission for failing to release studies investigating the impact of biofuels on the environment. Activists claim in a suit filed Monday that European policy was “inventing an artificial market” for biofuels. Click image to read the filing. European policy was “inventing an artificial market worth billions” ...read more