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Toshiba’s Rapid Recharge SCiB battery has been selected by Proterra to power their next generation of fully electric buses. Using a lithium-titanate chemistry, the SCiB batteries are resistant to thermal-runaway and yet can be rapidly recharged and discharged with minimal capacity loss over 10,000 cycles. The promise of fully electric buses is one of zero emissions, renewable energy, and a

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India seem to be getting confidence in the Indian renewable energy sector even as they have millions of dollars of potentially bad loans on their balance sheet for the conventional power sector. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has approved a $50 million loan for a 170 MW wind energy project by Continuum Wind Energy. The IFC has also facilitated an

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The Indian government is working rapidly towards setting up a renewable energy infrastructure as it plans to push for an aggressive expansion in renewable energy capacity. The Asian Development Bank will soon release $150 million in loans to the Rajasthan state government to partly finance a transmission network dedicated for carrying electricity generated for large-scale solar and wind energy projects.

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There’s no getting around the fact that clean energy took a popularity hit, particularly among Republicans, with the fossil lobby’s 2011 subterfuge: the phony Solyndra non-”scandal.” We can now say with confidence that there was never any “there there” (“hat tip” to normally pro-fossil fuels Joe Nocera, who wrote that the entire “scandal” was “phony”). But the constant drumbeat by

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Countries once considered as part of the Third World are making plans to substantially increase renewable energy capacity, while some in the developed world are contemplating getting rid of them altogether. The Central Asian country of Kazakhstan has set a target that will see renewable energy projects contributing 3% to the country’s energy mix by 2020. This would require the

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Unveiled earlier this year, the MINI Superleggera Vision concept was a refreshing counterpoint to current MINI production models, which seem to grow larger and uglier by the day. Parent company BMW has considered putting the Superleggera into production with an electric powertrain, but doesn’t plan to make a firm decision for some time. The German carmaker will wait at least

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Tesla Motors’ battery Gigafactory took another step toward construction with the approval of incentives worth up to $1.3 billion by Nevada lawmakers. Governor Brian Sandoval signed the package of four bills into law one week after announcing that the Silver State would host the first of what could be multiple factories that will produce lithium-ion cells on a massive scale.

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Scientists in Texas have found a method of cooling electrons to nearly absolute zero, and they’ve done it at room temperature. Their discovery could lead to electronic devices that need only about one-tenth as much energy as they do today, thereby dramatically reducing the size and weight of batteries. “We are the first to effectively cool electrons at room temperature,”

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The costs of manufacturing PV modules, not to be confused with selling price, remained relatively flat for major suppliers between the first and second quarter of the year, according to GTM Research’s September PV Pulse. Yingli Green Energy was the one company to reduce all-in module costs by a significant measure, dropping 6 percent to 49 cents per watt. Only

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The big news on the electric vehicle front today is that Nissan is considering slowing down EV battery production in the US and UK and source all of Nissan’s big packs come from Japan. Nissan may also buy some batteries from the Korean company LG Chem. This is apparently causing dissent within Nissan, but it follows what Alliance partner Renault

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