Facing a challenging political landscape, solar firms continue to add unprecedented amounts of photovoltaic capacity to the nation's power supply at increasingly lower costs.
As U.S. subsidies for ethanol continue to disappear, retrofit installations to produce butanol—touted as a superior fuel with superior financial incentives—are catching on at plants, says butanol technology provider Butamax, the joint venture between BP and DuPont Chemical.
As construction nears completion at the 6-MW Pioneer Grove Wind Farm in Cedar County, Iowa, Acciona Windpower has completed fabrication of the first section of a 100-meter-high concrete tower, the first of its kind for the company in North America.
Cape Wind announced on Aug. 23 that it has signed a purchase and sale agreement with the East Marine marina in Massachusetts' Falmouth Harbor to serve as the operations and maintenance facility for the 130-turbine offshore wind farm the alternative-energy purveyor plans to build on Nantucket Sound.
Researchers at Oregon State University have successfully lab-tested a new microbial fuel cell that can produce 10 to 50 times more electricity, per water volume, than other approaches.
The blackout that swept through the northern and eastern regions of India on July 30 and 31 demonstrated the huge gap between growing demand for electricity and supply as well as political tensions between the state and central governments.
Projecting a boom in many global energy markets, particularly in North America, Texas-based engineer-contractor CB&I has moved to add capacity by announcing July 30 that it would acquire The Shaw Group Inc. in a cash and stock deal valued at $3 billion.
Predicting energy demand to grow 9% annually, the United Arab Emirates announced last month that it has started construction on the country's first nuclear powerplant after receiving design and building approval for the first of four planned units.
The Ethiopia-Kenya Power Systems Interconnection Project—the first phase of eastern Africa’s $1.3-billion power integration initiative—is set for takeoff after the World Bank approved $684 million in construction funds for the project in June, even as global environmental groups step up pressure to halt the work.
India’s power sector demonstrated a grave need for investment when the northern grid that supports a significant portion of the country’s population collapsed on July 30, tripping other shutdowns in the region.