solar energy | Women of Green

Coal in ‘Freefall’ Worldwide, Report Finds

By wogwpa1358 on April 5, 2017 / Featured Post, Health, Nature / Leave a comment

Tags: Alternative Energy, Clean Tech, CoalSwarm, fossil fuels, Greenpeace, healthy families, renewable energy, Sierra Club, solar energy, Transition, wind energy, women of green

The coal industry is in “freefall” worldwide according to the latest annual survey from environmental groups Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and CoalSwarm. According to the survey, new construction and coal plant permits in China and India have sharply dropped off, while aging coal plants were retired across the U.S. and Europe. (The U.S. saw its 250th coal plant retirement on Monday.) The decline of coal has been felt for decades in places like rural West Virginia, and while Trump campaigned on a promise to revive the industry, the survey shows that its decline may be inevitable—while the market share of renewable energy, and potential for sustainable jobs in that sector, continues to rise.

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Solar Experiment Lets Neighbors Trade Energy Among Themselves

By wogwpa1358 on March 25, 2017 / Family, Featured Post, Innovation / Leave a comment

Tags: blockchain, Brooklyn Microgrid, decentralized energy systems, Electric Companies, energy resiliency, green business, LO3 Energy, Localized Energy, new energy economy, Peer-to-peer power sharing, rooftop solar, solar energy, transactive energy, women of green

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In a promising experiment in an affluent swath of Brooklyn, New York, dozens of solar-panel arrays spread across rowhouse rooftops are wired into a growing network. Called the Brooklyn Microgrid, the project is signing up residents and businesses to a virtual trading platform that will allow solar-energy producers to sell excess-electricity credits from their systems to buyers in the group, who may live as close as next door. The project is still in its early stages — it has just 50 participants thus far — but its implications could be far reaching. The idea is to create a kind of virtual, peer-to-peer energy trading system built on blockchain, the database technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

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Solar and Wind Power Now Successfully Compete with Fossil Fuels, Report Says

By wogwpa1358 on January 13, 2017 / Featured Post, Innovation, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: Alternative Energy, clean energy, fossil fuels, renewable energy, solar energy, wind energy, women of green, world economic forum

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In a big win for renewable energy, the cost of solar and wind power has plummeted in recent years, making it the same price as traditional fossil fuels in about 30 countries, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF). The cost of solar energy has dropped 80% since 2009, and wind energy has dropped by 30% in the last three years. This shift means more countries have reached “grid parity” — where the cost of fossil fuels and renewable energy are the same.

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Avatar Director James Cameron has designed Solar Sun Flowers

By wogwpa1358 on June 24, 2015 / Arts, Family, Featured Post, Innovation / Leave a comment

Tags: climate change, ecological sustainability, environmental conservation, renewable energy, solar energy, solar power, sustainability, women and nature, women and the environment

Director James Cameron has designed Solar Sun Flowers as a gift to his wife, which have been installed on campus at her MUSE School in California. Cameron had five flowers installed on the 22-acre Malibu Canyon campus and they generate roughly 300 kilowatt hours per day. The flowers are expected to offset the non-profit school’s power usage between 75-90%. Amazing! The patent-pending design will soon be an available, free and open-source, to encourage wider use of solar power. Now that’s what we call charitable!

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Kenyan women powering their communities

By wogwpa1358 on June 11, 2015 / Family, Featured Post, Innovation, Leadership

Tags: Clean Tech, green business women, renewable energy, solar energy, women and the environment, women entrepreneurs, women in green business, women in sustainability, women of green, women's empowerment, women's leadership

This month we’re all about sharing stories of girls and women around the world who are beating inequality and empowering their communities along the way. Well, here’s one about a different sort of female empowerment—the kind that lights up the night, makes light bulbs shine bright, and literally powers communities. It also features donkeys lugging solar panels around the Kenyan savanna, which is not a sentence I get to write everyday.

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The State of Solar – show 11

By wogwpa1358 on April 7, 2010 / Featured Media, Women Of Green Podcasts with Carolyn / 1 Comment

Tags: biofuels, biomass, concentrator photovoltaic technology, CPV Consortium, geothermal, Nancy Hartsoch, ocean power, Renewable Energy World, solar energy, Solfocus, The State of Solar, wind power, women in renewable energy, women in sustainability, women of green

This podcast takes place at the Renewable Energy World Conference in Austin, Texas. Billed as one the largest renewable energy conferences in the world, there were over 4,000 professionals promoting everything from solar energy, to wind power, to biomass, to geothermal, to ocean power, to biofuels and more. The future definately looks bright.

However, with all the choices we have today, less than 7% of our energy consumption is in renewables. Women of green, we need to change that. And change that now.

Fortunately, my guest is on it. She’s a female force helping to move the needle in solar energy. Nancy Hartsoch is a Vice President at SolFocus, a company that developed concentrator photovoltaic technology that allows for low-cost, clean energy that is scalable and dependable.

In my interview with her, we talked the many choices on the market today and what the main deterrents are for ordinary people to get going with renewable energy. This woman is smart. So listen up!

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