Massive investment in renewable energy could ultimately create 4 million manufacturing jobs. But for the workers in the bottom rung of this movement, the shift to green jobs could very well mean a pay cut of nearly 60%, a trend spreading across the entire manufacturing sector.
About 200 miles south of Detroit, America's industrial heartland gives way to the Ohio countryside.
We need to introduce simple arithmetic into our discussions of energy.
Reviving an American car town has got to be one of the toughest jobs in the country. It may also be one of the most important.
There were no champagne corks popping at Horizon Wind on the February morning when President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Instead, 30 employees swilled coffee as they got down to work in the Houston energy startup's conference room. The emergency meeting reviewed the company's pipeline and decided to move a number of projects from Tier 2 (promising but on the back burner) to Tier 1 (funding), thanks to the stimulus plan's $50 billion in clean energy provisions.
The gale force of President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package could breathe new life into an emerging industry: small wind turbines.
With its energy-gobbling casinos, Atlantic City, New Jersey, isn't exactly known as a city that conserves electricity. Its motto: "Always turned on."
When Rita Bryer sees 300-foot-tall wind turbines sprouting up from the prairie near her home in western Oklahoma, she can't help but wonder about the view from the top, where blades the size of semi-trucks spin.
Think of the future of green energy and the mental picture you may conjure up is one of vast solar plants glinting like a beetle's eye in the sun, or ranks of wind turbines turning in the breeze.
Imagine climbing 276 steps to change a light bulb. That's all in a day's work for Rian Harford.
Massive investment in renewable energy could ultimately create 4 million manufacturing jobs. But for the workers in the bottom rung of this movement, the shift to green jobs could very well mean a pay cut of nearly 60%, a trend spreading across the entire manufacturing sector.
About 200 miles south of Detroit, America's industrial heartland gives way to the Ohio countryside.
We need to introduce simple arithmetic into our discussions of energy.
Reviving an American car town has got to be one of the toughest jobs in the country. It may also be one of the most important.
There were no champagne corks popping at Horizon Wind on the February morning when President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Instead, 30 employees swilled coffee as they got down to work in the Houston energy startup's conference room. The emergency meeting reviewed the company's pipeline and decided to move a number of projects from Tier 2 (promising but on the back burner) to Tier 1 (funding), thanks to the stimulus plan's $50 billion in clean energy provisions.
The gale force of President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package could breathe new life into an emerging industry: small wind turbines.
With its energy-gobbling casinos, Atlantic City, New Jersey, isn't exactly known as a city that conserves electricity. Its motto: "Always turned on."
When Rita Bryer sees 300-foot-tall wind turbines sprouting up from the prairie near her home in western Oklahoma, she can't help but wonder about the view from the top, where blades the size of semi-trucks spin.
Think of the future of green energy and the mental picture you may conjure up is one of vast solar plants glinting like a beetle's eye in the sun, or ranks of wind turbines turning in the breeze.
Imagine climbing 276 steps to change a light bulb. That's all in a day's work for Rian Harford.
Just west of Seville in Spain, a sea of giant mirrors is reflecting the sun's energy to provide "concentrated solar power" (CSP) while illuminating the path to a new wave of green energy projects.
We traveled by metro to the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, where the phrase over my dead body takes on a new meaning; it's the first town in Spain that has placed solar panels in its municipal cemetery and has been attracting global attention and causing local discussion.
Bob Hertzberg's audience seems as muted as the dismal gray skies outside.
A Colorado solar-energy company has high hopes for the economic stimulus bill that President Barack Obama will sign Tuesday in Denver.
President Obama signed the $787 economic stimulus bill Tuesday in Denver, Colorado. Here is a full transcript of his remarks.
The $787 billion economic recovery package President Obama will sign on Tuesday contains more than $290 billion in tax provisions, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
On a chilly Saturday afternoon in mid-January, Shi Zhengrong, casually dressed and smiling as if he didn't have a care in the world, walked into the stunning new building that is now the headquarters of Suntech Power Holdings, the company he founded and built from scratch just eight years ago.
A short-term booster shot for the economy? Or a complete rethinking of the way businesses and individuals consume energy?
Environmentalists are encouraged by President Barack Obama's focus this week on renewable energy and stricter emissions standards, although some economists are skeptical he can pull the country out of the recession while cleaning up the planet.
Toyota's third-generation Prius, due at dealerships this spring, will have an optional solar panel on its roof. The panel will power a ventilation system that can cool the car without help from the engine, Toyota says.
Inside a converted textile mill in Lowell, Mass., Rick Hess unfurls a roll of brown plastic film attached to a small electric meter. "Three volts," he says, smiling. "And that's just from the light in this room. Imagine what this reads when we're outside."
The new Congress and President Obama were talking big when it came to the green factor in any stimulus plan.
President-elect Barack Obama on Friday stressed the urgency of a renewable-energy economy as he tried to shore up support for his stimulus package.
Never mind Joe the Plumber; meet John the Manufacturer. That's what President-elect Barack Obama will be doing Friday, when he stops in Ohio to pitch his $825 billion economic recovery and job creation package.
When SunPower, one of the country's largest makers of solar panels, went looking to build a factory a few years back, several countries vied for their business.
As lawmakers head into the second week of debate over President-elect Barack Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan, new details continue to shed light on what promises to be a sprawling and complex piece of legislation in American history.
Strange lights in the sky, mysterious flashes, dozens of witnesses, a missing wind turbine blade and a tabloid splash featuring the pun: E.T. farm harm.
Jyoti is the Hindi word for light. It's something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without. And he is lucky. Near where he lives in Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states in India, thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best.
Researchers have developed a new anti-reflective coating that boosts the efficiency of solar panels and allows sunlight to be absorbed from almost any angle.
Despite taking a beating from the credit crunch, the clean energy sector is being tipped as a golden opportunity for investors.
Hydrogen and electric vehicles might be leading the charge, so to speak, towards cleaner transport, but will cars powered by air and the sun ever surpass the sales figures of gasoline cars?
Micro wind turbines are beginning to pop up all over our urban and rural landscapes. But is it worth investing your hard-earned cash in your very own wind machine? In short, it depends. Take a look at our quick guide to see if "small wind" could help you reduce your energy bills and your carbon footprint.
For a century the gasoline engine has remained largely unchallenged, seeing off all pretenders to its crown. But with concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and a host of new contenders looming large in the rear view mirror, is the gasoline-fueled automobile due to be overtaken by a fleet of cleaner, leaner rivals?
For the past few years, Dan Redmond has been on a mission to change the way his household uses energy.
Some Florida amusement park visitors may enjoy space-themed roller-coasters, but the first vehicle they board at Orlando International Airport may be the most futuristic ride of their vacation.
Back in the 1960s, when Bob Metcalfe was in college, he would drive to MIT in Cambridge, Mass., from his home in Brooklyn, call home once he arrived, allow the phone to ring three times and hang up, to let his mother know he'd arrived safely.
Renewable energy advocates were upbeat Thursday as they met in Washington, D.C. to discuss upcoming energy policies expected under a new Obama Administration.
If you want to see the future of wind energy, look up.
For Dr. Xingyi Xu, the grass used to be greener on the other side.
Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is delaying his massive Texas wind project, citing a drop in natural gas prices and the tightening credit market.
About 60 miles north of San Francisco, the strip malls of Solano County give way to gently rolling hills where, as far as the eye can see, wind turbines sprout from the golden bluffs overlooking the Sacramento delta. Construction on Solano's newest turbine farm, Shiloh II, began this summer, part of a wind rush that has transformed the U.S. into the world's biggest wind market.
Some people are saying that the clean energy revolution is over, before it has even begun. "Alternative energy suddenly faces headwinds," declared The New York Times. "Winds shift for renewable energy as oil price sinks, money gets tight," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Will the Economic Crash Take Down Our Hopes for Clean Energy?" asks Alternet.
No one loves Arnold Schwarzenegger more than the solar industry. Kicking off the nation's largest gathering devoted to all things sunny, the California governor won thunderous applause and two standing ovations from the crowd of 20,000 at the San Diego Convention Center. "What's green for the environment can also be green for the economy," he said. "Solar is the future; it's now; it can't be stopped."
Starwood's Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Manhattan, Verizon's call center on Long Island, the Sierra Nevada brewery in northern California and a Whole Foods Market in Connecticut have little in common except this - all are powered by fuel cells that turn hydrogen into electricity, saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
At 21 landfills in New Jersey, methane gas produced by decomposing garbage is used as fuel to generate electricity
Even for the greenest of homeowners, powering their homes with solar energy has long been an idea more attractive in theory than in practice.
Lorelei Scarboro loves to talk about the wild turkeys and bears living on West Virginia's Coal River Mountain.
The Hollywood heavyweight maps a path for fixing the planet's environmental woes
Governments around the world continue to pump billions of dollars into financial markets, but there is still no telling whether the "injections of liquidity" will be enough to prevent "this sucker" -- to quote the President of the United States -- from going down.
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When companies as savvy and as important as General Electric and Google join forces, it's worth a closer look. The companies say they will work together to drive two industries with big growth potential: geothermal energy and the upgrading of the nation's overburdened electricity grid.
While politicians of all stripes are vying to be seen as saviors in the energy crisis, Congress isn't giving renewable energy investors the one thing they say would help the most - long-term tax credits.
It looks like a scene from an old episode of The X-Files: As a red-tailed hawk circles overhead and a wild pronghorn sheep grazes in the distance, a dozen people in dark sunglasses move methodically through a vast field of golden barley, eyes fixed to the ground, GPS devices in hand. They're searching for bodies.
It has been said before that environmental-friendliness is a luxury few can really afford.
It's an annual ritual on Wall Street - the fourth quarter IPO season, when a flurry of companies make their debut on the public markets before New Year's. But given today's volatile market, and the dismal performance this month of what seemed sure to be a no-brainer IPO in Rackspace, you have to wonder what kind of year-end bump we might get.
New York's famous skyline may be getting a new addition: Wind turbines.
Viewpoint: John McCain says the U.S. should drill untapped natural gas and oil. Here's another thought: Mine the country's far larger reserves of alternative energy
I was stranded in the Arizona desert in my broken-down truck wondering if I had made a big mistake: Our CNN.com biofuel road trip seemed doomed to fail.
A summer with budget-busting gasoline prices seems like the worst time to launch a cross-country road trip from California to Georgia, but this one is different: We're road-testing alternative fuel that might help reduce pollution and break the nation's reliance on foreign oil.
Dell is announcing Wednesday that it has become carbon neutral by turning out the lights in its offices, buying wind power and protecting endangered forests in Madagascar.
High-profile personalities have been telling the nation to ditch that dirty fossil fuel and turn to renewable energy.
From Dallas, Texas to Dabancheng, China, energy companies are staking fortunes on harnessing wind power.
If politicians can't agree to renew credits for businesses that create renewable power, both the economy and the environment will suffer
Blake Jones' business plan for his company, Namaste Solar Electric, was so unusual, he confounded a lot of business experts.
Doug Buchanan grins with relief when he sees the carcasses. He has just driven up a steep dirt road onto a vast, sunbaked mesa overlooking the Mojave Desert in western Nevada. There, a few feet from the trail, lie the corpses of two steers. A raven perches on one, the only object more than three feet above the ground on this pancake-flat plateau. Cattle, dead or alive, qualify as good news in Buchanan's line of work. If cattle are present, that means grazing is permitted, and that in turn means that this land is most likely not protected habitat for the desert tortoise.
Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his clout behind renewable energy sources like wind power.
Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens Tuesday unveiled a new energy plan he says will decrease the United States' dependency on foreign oil by more than one-third and help shift American energy production toward renewable natural resources like wind power.
The increasing global focus on renewable energy could not have come at a better time for Dr. Shi Zhengrong, an Australian citizen and Chinese-trained scientist who says he got into solar power by chance.
Straw and clay are the building materials of choice for a few dozen ecologically minded people in the eastern German village of Sieben Linden.
Global investors plowed $148 billion into new wind, solar and other alternative energy assets last year, in what the United Nations describes as a "green energy gold rush"
Jessie Prado sees himself as a bit of a trailblazer. His house in Boca Raton, Florida is easy to pick out. It's the only one with solar panels - and solar power. He, as well as his power company, Florida Power and Light, are making an investment in solar power in the Sunshine State.
Everybody talks about global warming and high gasoline prices, but who, really, is doing anything about it? Entrepreneurs, that's who. In my upcoming book, The Plot to Save the Planet, I chronicle the small-business owners who are creating the green houses, cars, and energy sources that will slash our fuel bills and help clean up our ecosystem. For the first time, big money is available to back their efforts. In 2007, venture capitalists invested $5.2 billion in green tech, up 44% from the previous year. Meet mavericks who are working on creative (and potentially lucrative) solutions to our energy challenges.
Since it became a viable energy resource around 20 years ago, wind power has emerged as a leading renewable technology.
Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is sinking billions of dollars into a new wind farm in Texas. It is likely to become the biggest in the world, producing enough power for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes. CNN's Ali Velshi asked the oil legend why he thinks wind could be the answer to this country's energy problems:
Jyoti is the Hindi word for light. It's something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without. And he is lucky. Near where he lives in Gujarat -- one of the most prosperous states in India -- thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best.
It's hard to imagine why ExxonMobil shareholders are so unhappy. After all, the world's largest publicly-owned energy company rode the surge in oil prices to a record $40 billion in earnings last year, making it by far the most profitable Fortune 500 company. Shares are up 10% in the last year, while the S&P500 has fallen by just as much.
At the dawn of the automobile age, gasoline was the up-and-coming "alternative fuel" -- vying with electric batteries and steam power.
Despite all the hype for electric cars and hydrogen fuel cells, experts say we'd better get used to pumping gas, but we can look forward to much better fuel economy down the road.
Sandwiched between two nondescript commercial buildings in a vacant lot squats what looks like a long, plastic-shrouded greenhouse. Hanging nearby is a cluster of five-foot-long plastic sacks bulging with green slime that resemble intravenous drip bags for the Jolly Green Giant. It doesn't look like groundbreaking technology, but these scum bags in Cambridge, Mass., just might help save the planet.
Steve Vassallo spends his days looking for the next Steve Jobs. Not for the computer industry, it has its already, but for the clean-tech world in which Vassallo, a venture capitalist, invests. "I haven't found him or her yet," says Vassallo, a principal with Silicon Valley-based Foundation Capital. "They are probably still in their cubicles some place doing their IT job, or in a garage with an idea."
Curt Mann's neighbors are livid, accusing him of erecting an ugly wind turbine among their historic homes for no other reason than to show off his environmental "bling."
Iceland may be best known for world-famous musical export Bjork but there's a new star quickly gaining this island nation worldwide acclaim -- clean energy.
Texas may be best known for "Big Oil." But the oil that could some day make a dent in the country's use of fossil fuels is small. Microscopic, in fact: algae. Literally and figuratively, this is green fuel.
What if you could provide the world with an endless supply of virtually carbon-free electricity; ensure a constant source of drinkable water to the world's most vulnerable areas; avert some of the world's future humanitarian crises; and save billions of dollars in the process? Certain concentrated solar power (CSP) proponents say there is no "could" about it -- it's more a case of "can."
Tree-hugging goes only so far. The modern-day breed of environmentalist has bigger, better, higher-tech solutions for fixing global climate change
Top executives of BP and General Motors Corp., two of the world's largest corporations, outlined on Tuesday their visions for the future of renewable energy.
The biggest investment Key Largo, Florida, homeowners John Hammerstrom and Diane Marshall made toward energy efficiency in their eco-friendly home is the 2.8-kilowatt Kyocera solar panel system that adorns their rooftop.
Acciona Energy doesn't just capture the sun's light to generate energy -- it corrals the sun's heat. Now the Spanish renewable power company has placed its first American operation in the desert flanking Las Vegas
If Congress passes legislation to roll back nearly $18 billion in tax breaks for large oil companies, advisers to President Bush will recommend a veto, the White House said Tuesday.
Can the traditional power industry meet skyrocketing energy demand and reduce pollution by embracing green energy?
Abu Dhabi has lots of oil and an enormous carbon footprint, but the capital of the United Arab Emirates is putting huge resources into alternative energy. Why?
While the Bush Administration continues to drags its feet on climate change, Montana has figured out 54 economy-boosting ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Despite the astronomical jump in clean-energy stocks in 2007, investors say 2008 will also be be a good year for most stocks in emerging energy technology.
Dear FSB: I have a small agribusiness in Senegal and would like to take advantage of solar power for my enterprise, due to the high cost of oil. How can I get in touch with solar companies to help my business and create a working relationship spread solar power in Senegal?
Andy Karsner was in an ebullient mood the other day, and for good reason. Congress had just approved an energy bill, which, despite serious flaws, puts the country on a path that will promote renewable energy, reduce our dependence on oil, dramatically increase energy efficiency and curb the growth in greenhouse gas emissions.
Widespread anxiety about the damaging effects of burning fossil fuels, coupled with a genuine fear that oil and gas will become scarce before the century ends are fueling a renewed interest in renewable energy and, in particular, solar power solutions.
What is the future for energy? Where will our power come from by 2020? Send us your thoughts and we'll print the best ones here.
The sun, we are frequently told, is the best source of energy there is -- so much so that in just one hour it can provide the earth with all the energy its inhabitants demand in a year. Not only can the sun provide us with all of our energy needs (10,000 times over in fact, according to Greenpeace) but it can also apparently do this without any of those unpleasant side effects that you get from fossil fuels such as air pollution or ozone depletion. And best of all, this resource will never run out -- or at least, not in the next 5 billion years or so.
A typical exchange about wind farms tends to go like this: 'Are you in favor of wind farms?' 'Yes, of course I am...so long as they're nowhere near my house'. Nevertheless, wind turbines are fast-becoming an important piece in the energy puzzle, contributing a growing percentage to our overall energy needs.
Dear FSB: My family owns property in a rural area of West Central Minnesota. We would like to install wind turbines there. Do you know of any company that would be interested in partnering with us?
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