Here is a great podcast that I found on Renewable Energy World’s Website. Editor Stephen Lacey interviews several people – including Solar City CEO Lyndon Rive and Dan Reicher from Google.org – about the climate for entrepreneurs starting businesses in the Renewable Energy field.

by Stephen Lacey, Podcast Editor

New York, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

The renewable energy industry has suffered over the last year much worse than previously thought possible. But now the pieces are coming together to make clean energy the centerpiece of an economic recovery. That makes the moment perfect for bootstrapping entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses around the world to seize the opportunity when the financial markets get back to full health.

In this podcast, we’ll look at what entrepreneurs should be doing now to prepare for the surge in renewable energy deployment in the coming years.

Author and Entrepreneurial Consultant Sramana Mitra tells us why early stage companies shouldn’t necessarily be looking to venture capital firms for financing. She’ll also give us her thoughts on some alternative financing options available.

Serial Entrepreneur and SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive describes why he has had so much success in both the software and energy spaces. It’s all about finding and addressing the market “pain points,” he says.
Finally, Dan Reicher of Google.org talks about how his company is working to take technologies out of the “valley of death” and help early-stage companies find investors.

Any thoughts?

 

 Renewable Energy: A weapon of Mass Reconstruction [29:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (103)

Gas-powered lawn equipment is a pain. I can’t count the number of times I have had to tip the mower to unclog the blade and discovered that I was tipping it over the wrong way and that I had flooded the engine. Or the many times I have spilled gas all over myself when I was refueling. Have you noticed that the smell of gas doesn’t go away when you change your clothes? You can even wash your hands in hot water and the gasoline will still be there.

And then there was the time when I mistakenly put old mixed gas in our beautiful Stihl weedeater. It started, but when I shut it off, it was destined to never start again. The old mixed gas seized up in the piston, and the whole thing became as hard as rock.

Bummer.

So here is an article that gives some interesting facts about gas-powered lawn maintenance, and then goes through some of the options for gas-free lawn equipment. I have to say, electric is great. It is so quiet! I could talk on the phone and mow the lawn at the same time. In fact, my corded lawn mower is quieter than our vacuum!

A Swedish study in 2001 determined that cutting grass for one hour with an old gas powered lawn mower creates the same amount of air pollution as driving a 1992  automobile 100 miles.

Environmental Canada, the nation’s environmental regulatory agency, says that number is closer to 300 miles in a late-model car.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans spill more than 17 million gallons of gasoline each year refilling lawn equipment – more oil than the Exxon Valdez spilled in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. Read More… »

The money to fund an extended Cash for Clunkers program could come at the expense of renewable energy companies.The House on Friday overwhelmingly passed a bill to extend the program which gives consumers up to $4,500 for trading in old cars for new, fuel-efficient ones with an additional $2 billion. The initial $1 billion set aside is said to be already or nearly exhausted.The program has been popular with consumers as well as politicians who see it as a way to revive bleak auto sales. However, the House proposed paying for the extension by using $2 billion approved in the stimulus package for loan guarantees for renewable energy, which may not sit well with energy project developers.Altogether $6 billion was provided for Department of Energy loan guarantees. Those loan guarantees would be made available to finance construction of large solar or biofuels projects. Project financing has become particularly difficult because of the credit crunch.The Renewable Fuels Association, the main lobbying organization for the ethanol industry, put out a statement on Friday to indicate it is “concerned to see the program paid for by depleting the renewable energy loan guarantee program.”Senate Energy Committee chairman Jeff Bingaman said on Friday that he opposed using the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program to fund the Cash for Clunkers program. The Senate is expected to take up the measure next week.”If Congress decides to extend this initiative, I believe we must not rob from the loan guarantees we provided through the recovery package that, in the long term, will shift our country to home-grown, renewable energy while creating good ‘green collar’ jobs,” Bingaman said, according to a Reuters report.Speaking on the House floor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi also voiced her concern and said that she hoped those renewable energy loan guarantee funds would be restored.At a press conference, President Obama on Friday said that the he expects Congress and the White House to work to return funding the loan guarantee program “down the road.”

via Cash for Clunkers could raid renewable-energy loans | Green Tech – CNET News.

So what are your thoughts? Is it right to fund Cash for Clunkers from the DOE energy loan guarantees? Or is Cash for Clunkers closely related enough to renewable energy that they ought to use the money without objection?

Here is a very handy little device that might tell you more than you want to know about your household electronics.

The Kill-a-Watt P3 (Image courtesy P3 International)

They’re only $23 at Amazon.

Here is a video review by a very helpful guy who walks you through everything there is to know about the Kill-a-Watt. Read More… »

From the Official Google Blog:

Ever since we assembled a 1.6 MW solar panel installation at our headquarters in Mountain View in 2007, we’ve been wondering, “Does cleaning the solar panels make them more effective?” We thought it might, but we needed to be sure. So we analyzed the mountains of data that we collect about the energy that these panels produce — after rain, after cleaning and at different times of the year.

We have two different sets of solar panels on our campus — completely flat ones installed on carports, and rooftop ones that are tilted.

Since the carport solar panels have no tilt, rain doesn’t do a good job of rinsing off the dirt they collect. (Also, our carports are situated across from a sand field, which doesn’t help the situation.) We cleaned these panels for the first time after they had been in operation for 15 months, and their energy output doubled overnight. When we cleaned them again eight months later, their output instantly increased by 36 percent. In fact, we found that cleaning these panels is the #1 way to maximize the energy they produce. As a result, we’ve added the carport solar panels to our spring cleaning checklist.

The rooftop solar panels are a different story. Our data indicates that rain does a sufficient job of cleaning the tilted solar panels. Some dirt does accumulate in the corners, but the resulting reduction in energy output is fairly small — and cleaning tilted panels does not significantly increase their energy production. So for now, we’ll let Mother Nature take care of cleaning our rooftop panels.

Accumulated dirt in the corners of a rooftop solar panel

We’ve also been crunching numbers on dollars-and-cents; the more energy our panels produce, the sooner we’ll be paid back by our solar investment. Our analysis now predicts that Google’s system will pay for itself in about six and a half years, which is even better than we initially expected.

If you want to learn more about our solar study, check out these slides showing the effects that seasonality, tilt, dirt, particulate matter, rain and cleaning have on Google’s solar energy output. We hope you solar panel owners out there can tailor our analysis to the specifics of your own installation to produce some extra energy of your own!

Posted by Winnie Lam, Senior Product Manager

via Official Google Blog: Should you spring clean your solar panels?.