It is possible, today, to have a world entirely free of fossil fuels. What was once an abstract concept is possible because, technically speaking, electricity can power everything we do every day – heat homes, drive a car, watch TV or charge a computer. And this electricity can come simply from wind turbines, solar panels […]

Photo: Phoenix Solar AG

Passed is the time when the economists and politicians told us renewable energy was too expensive to pursue. Renewables, such as wind, solar and hydroelectric systems that generate electricity with no associated air pollution emissions, now appear as a cheap, and clean, alternative to traditional fossil fuels. Even Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is […]

“There is surprising – even shocking – good news: Our ability to convert sunshine into usable energy has become much cheaper far more rapidly than anyone had predicted. The cost of electricity from photovoltaic, or PV, solar cells is now equal to or less than the cost of electricity from other sources powering electric grids […]

“Believe it or not, the electric storage battery — a technology that has been around since the eighteenth century — could change the economic course of the twenty-first century. Thanks to breakthroughs on the horizon, batteries qualify as one of 12 disruptive technologies that the McKinsey Global Institute has identified.” That paragraph is how a […]

“How would you run a whole country without oil?” That’s what Shai Agassi is asking. Agassi is the founder of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for using electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel technology (see The Good Times story of August 2011). His answer is to convert an entire country (in […]