Tag Archives: solar energy

Solar is Drowning in Political Backwash

By Mike Mulvihill
An article in the NY Times this weekend, A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search, has generated a number of posts in support and in opposition of the article and solar subsidies.
The article points out that several investor-owned utilities and large projects capable of shopping for private capital, are utilizing federal [...]

Word Play Politicizes Energy

by Mike Mulvihill
An excellent blog post Sunday by Kate Galbraith in the New York Times (Word Choice Matters for Energy Policy) points out the depth of our nation’s political obfuscation on energy policy.
Ms. Galbraith points out that when President Barack Obama speaks about the fuels of the future; his term of choice is usually “clean [...]

Celebrating $22 a gallon gas!

by Mike Mulvihill

Whoopee! A blog post by Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World is celebrating independent consulting firm Ernst & Young’s release of a report yesterday predicting the price of solar energy per watt is expected to fall to $1 by 2013, down from $2 in 2009. The report, prepared for the Solar [...]

Energy’s Big PR Problem? Politics (Duh!)

by Michael Whitlow
John Janoush, vice president of Jantran,a Mid-South towboat operator, told National Public Radio recently that six of his towboats are stuck on the Arkansas River, a tributary of the Mississippi River. Later in the story, when talking about the flood danger to Rosedale, Mississippi, he commented about the strength of the levees: “Our [...]

Solar Goes Big

By Mike Mulvihill

I have issues with society’s uninformed and misguided belief that renewable and alternative energy sources offer us a quick fix, silver bullet to the world’s growing appetite for more energy with less global impact.
However, a recent conversation with an old client and acquaintance, John Woolard, renewed my confidence that there are pragmatic, bold efforts [...]

Less Wasted Energy Would Beget a Better Energy Plan

By Mike Mulvihill

The art of debate has given way to the bully pulpit of the zealous. Red states versus blue states, FOX conservative demagogues versus liberal MSNBC whack jobs and environmentalists versus business. Regardless of the correctness of their premise, zealots have created most of the world’s most serious ills – outside of pandemics – [...]

Green Energy Claims Too Good to Be True

 
By Mike Mulvihill

Before the powerful pheromone of green energy seduces the nation into scrapping our existing energy infrastructure, perhaps it would be good to look more closely at those alternative power sources.
 Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, penned an article in the Washington Post a few weeks back on the myths of green [...]

Hold The Line. Energy Changes Are a Long Time Coming

 By Mike Mulvihill
 
 
 Wind Power. Renewable Energy. Green Economy. There is an awesome amount of momentum in the America right now around all of these topics. We’re on the cusp of real change in how we create the gobs of energy we increasingly consume in a manner that is kinder and gentler to Mother Earth.
One problem – [...]