The switch was flipped this week as California’s Ivanpah solar thermal power plant went live. The 392 megawatt concentrating solar plant (CSP) is now delivering renewables to power the equivalent of 140,000 homes in California. After a long journey lasting decades of development, fighting regulations, manoeuvring around turtle conservationists, burning birds may be the latest problem.
Tesla Motors, the California maker of prestigious and high priced total electric sports cars is still to become a true reality in most countries of the Middle East where men prefer big, gas guzzling cars. But it might fill the gap after the failure of Better Place.
UCLA and Egyptian scientist accidentally find a new way to bottle stored energy. This missing link for solar energy, hydro and electric cars could be a fast, tiny, biodegradable battery Penicillin, Teflon, microwave ovens and superglue were all discovered by accident. And now graphene super-capacitors might be the most important accidental discovery of our time […]
In 1914, thirty-five years before Chaim Weizmann would become Israel's first president, he discovered a fermentation process for harnessing bacteria to produce large quantities of useful chemicals. For this discovery, Weizmann was called the father of industrial fermentation.
The Better Place electric transportation company was founded in California’s silicon valley, not far from where the Tesla electric car company began. But while Tesla and Chevy’s Volt electric cars have been sold in the United States, Better Place didn’t enter the fickle US electric car market. Instead they teamed with French automaker Renault and […]
Concentrated solar power company BrightSource doesn’t wear its Israeli identity on its sleeve. “We’re a U.S. company with Israeli engineering, not an Israeli company. It’s a nuance but important to get right,” Keely Wachs, senior director of corporate communications for BrightSource, wrote in an email message. And with an American President and CEO named John […]
With a 35 meter high sun-ray collection tower and about 50 mirrors positioned to direct the sun, Israel’s AORA is about to flip the switch on its latest solar power plant in Spain. The company created a huge buzz in Israel in 2009 when it was the first solar energy company to connect to the […]
Considered by some as the father of solar thermal electricity generation, Newton Becker, was the founding investor and Chairman of the Board of Luz International – the company that went on to become what BrightSource is today. He died Monday in LA at age 83. Back when, Luz became the largest solar company in the […]
BrightSource Energy is making a big bet on CSP while others switch to PV The third huge US solar project from BrightSource Energy is its largest yet. At a whopping 750 MW it is the size of three or four US coal or gas plants. Its Rio Mesa Solar Electric Generating Facility in California will use the solar tower technology it inherited from Israel's Luz, its parent company (Luz Rises Again as BrightSource for California) in which a field of mirrors on poles reflects sunlight onto a tower to create steam to drive a turbine to make electricity. But it comes at a time when many utility-scale solar companies are switching to PV (photovoltaic) solar - those traditional rooftop solar panels that most people associate with solar - from Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) such as this. Why?
Israeli Solar energy company BrightSource is the child, but the real father of solar thermal technology. SEC filings show BrightSource Energy Inc has raised $122.5 million in its fifth round of financing, according to Israel’s Globes.The company says it raised the capital in shares and warrants, as part of a planned $125 million offering. BrightSource […]
Between 11,500 and 51,000 vehicles drive on California freeways and expressways every day. Energy Harvesting Journal posted earlier today that California Assemblyman Mike Gatto has proposed a bill that would require the state to use piezoelectric technology on its highways. The technology generates electricity from the vibrations on the road that are created by passing […]
Monterey Bay Aquarium takes the guesswork out of the best seafood choices: for the environment and for your health. If you’re anything like me, you don’t know what’s good to eat anymore. Long after giving up red meat and chicken, I continued to eat fish, but now I don’t dare. Thanks to the Monterey Bay […]
Notice that there are no lush gardens? No towers of glass? This is how to build in the desert. Modern humans have always wanted to make their presence known, from the earliest cave drawings to opulent Ottoman architecture. Although we occupy but one of billions of galaxies, our ego knows no bounds. In the desert, […]
What happens when Norman Foster and Steve Jobs get together? The City of Apple, of course. Recently my macbook perished on the coast of Kenya. It was a terrible moment. All the images, music and words accumulated over four years flashed before my very eyes. There was no light to be seen, only a dark, […]
Susan appeals to the Middle East and world to look to the “empty” US states to push clean energy agenda. The whole world and generations into the future will suffer because the US is unable to pass climate policy. The US lumbers like a wounded giant on the world stage, already beginning to clumsily sink […]