July 29, 2011
Do you work in, or have dealings with, a renewable energy industry? Are you working as an engineer, scientist, policy executive, advocate, or manager in this field?
If so, now’s the time to be thinking of whether you can submit a paper to, or participate in, next year’s ASES National Solar Energy Conference. You can find the Call for Participation and Papers here.
Next year’s Conference is going to be very different from recent ones. It will be colocated with the biennial World Renewable Energy Congress under the umbrella heading of the World Renewable Energy Forum (WREF). It will take place in the LEED silver-certified Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver, CO, from May 13 – May 18.
The theme of WREF 2012 will be EmPowering the World with Renewable Energy. It will look not only at how renewable energy technologies can address the environmental and energy crisis from an international perspective but also what it will take to integrate renewables into the world’s infrastructure on a very large scale. To accomplish this energy transition, it will not be enough simply to power our electric grids with renewable energy; we need also to empower people to play active roles in our energy transition, especially in developing nations.
We’ll be bringing you more information about WREF 2012 in Solar Citizen each month from now until next May, but you can check out the Call for Participation and Papers right here and now.
April 28, 2010
Have a comment, observation or rebuttal for any of the articles on this page that jump to an inside page?
Feel free.
There’s a ‘comment’ box at the foot of every article where you can do just that. It’s a moderated blog, so your comment should find its way into print after a short delay. Let’s hear from you!
April 28, 2010
In a media landscape in which TV stations with the word ‘news’ in their title transmit editorials thinly disguised as actual news and representing only one side of the political spectrum, it’s fair to say that legitimate news media have a greater responsibility to present us with well-researched, intelligently balanced news.
This is not to say that such media shouldn’t be able to include editorials and op-eds in their offerings, but it was distressing to read in the Washington Post on April 25th – the very day that over 100,000 people attended the Earth Day Climate Rally on the National Mall – a piece entitled ‘Five myths about green energy‘. It was written by the conservative Manhattan Institute’s Robert Bryce*, whose positions on renewable energy are well-known (and mainly disparaging).
In fairness, Bryce makes well-argued points about such issues as dependence on imports and the definition of ‘green’ jobs, although an intelligent debater might well be able to introduce counterpoints to his arguments. But the larger point is that his platform betrays a narrow understanding of the reasons for renewable energy and the fact that those reasons – be they energy independence, pollution control, sustainability or climate change mitigation – demand new paradigms and asymmetric ways of thinking. (more…)
July 17, 2008
Perhaps it’s a testament to the potential strength of the solar market that, like any industry that shows signs of growth and consumer take-up, it’s beginning to attract some less desirable elements.
That’s an opening that definitely needs to be explained. Let’s use the example of the great cabbage patch kid hoax at the height of consumer hysteria over that obnoxious toy: in a media announcement, would-be doll purchasers were instructed to present themselves at a certain public venue at a pre-arranged time and, when a special aircraft flew overhead, to hold up their credit cards for airborne inspection. The purchases would be duly recorded, and dolls would be promptly shipped to the desperate (and decidedly gullible) parents.
What’s the connection, I hope you’re asking, to the output of the solar industry? Simply that both are examples of products experiencing a huge surge of interest concentrated into a short period of time. In the case of the doleful-faced dolls, this may have been caused by parental fear of an unsatisfied child at Christmas; with solar installations, it’s been occasioned by the abrupt escalation in energy prices, the possible discontinuation of federal clean energy tax credits at year’s end, and—in certain states—more enlightened rebate/assistance policies for homeowners investing in solar power. The point of the illustration is to show how a sudden spike of demand over supply can lead to consumers being less diligent than they should be when evaluating suppliers. And that’s when the ‘less desirable elements’—the hoaxers and/or scam artists—can enter the picture. (more…)
