Powerwall aims to fill a missing link to integrate wind and solar into the grid.
Renewable energy
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A battle for America’s trust
The war between the fossil fuel industry and Big Green may boil down to who can tell the best story.
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A rural utility bucks against its power supplier
In a coal-producing region, this western Colorado co-op fights for renewables.
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States give Senate an earful on EPA greenhouse gas plan
Wyoming critiques federal coal plant cleanup at Senate hearing.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Community solar comes of age in the West
A neighborhood solar experiment in Washington gains traction in other states.
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New snarl for proposed transmission line in the Southwest
In less than a week, SunZia had solved one problem just in time to encounter another.
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Regulators dampen hopes for tribal solar project
The Moapa Solar Energy Center would have provided 175 megawatts to Nevada’s largest utility.
Posted inDecember 8, 2014: The Great Salmon Compromise
Alaska’s energy labs
Hybrid technologies help distribute power in isolated communities.
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The linchpin to a national supergrid
Clovis, New Mexico, may link three grids and become a renewable energy hub.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
The Latest: When wind and solar need reliable backup power
Western grid operators can now buy backup power on a real-time, open market to smooth intermittent renewables.
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From the Tipi to the Tesla
Activist Winona LaDuke on environmental justice and foregoing unclean technology.
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Offshore oil rigs can provide prime fish habitat
But will California’s platforms stay in the ocean once the oil runs out?
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The 21st century’s Hoover Dam?
What a huge Wyoming wind and Utah storage project tell us about the West’s energy landscape.
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A plan for California desert conservation comes online
Will it stop more solar and wind projects from being built in the wrong places?
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Nevada wins the Tesla battery factory giga-race
Massive incentive package raises questions about corporate welfare.
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The Latest: Nevada charges renewable energy companies for eco mitigation
BackstoryLarge-scale renewable energy projects benefit the climate but can harm ecosystems. Critics fear that industrial solar arrays planned for California and Nevada will ruin viewsheds, guzzle water, and destroy the habitat of threatened desert tortoises (“Sacrificial land: Will renewable energy devour the Mojave Desert?” HCN, 4/15/13). In October 2013, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2013: Of Sparrows and Sodbusters
Idaho Power is waging war on renewable energy. Is it winning?
One of the West’s great old-school monopolies and its multi-pronged attack on wind and solar.
Posted inMay 27, 2013: Haywired
The power grid may determine whether we can kick our carbon habit
Minutes before 4 p.m. on a sizzling September day two years ago, right at the time when they were most needed, San Diego’s air conditioners suddenly died. Thousands of television and computer screens also flickered into darkness. Stoplights stopped working, gas stations ceased pumping, and traffic slowed to a snarl. Trains ground to a halt […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Sacrificial Land: Will renewable energy devour the Mojave Desert?
Over breakfast at the Crowbar Café in Shoshone, Calif., Brian Brown explains to me how he makes a living. Shoshone is a town of 31 in the Mojave Desert near the Nevada border; Brown runs his own business here, the China Ranch Date Farm. In the late summer, he strips offshoots from unproductive palm trees […]