The Wayne County town of Williamson could begin powering its municipal buildings almost entirely with solar energy as early as the fall. The electricity will come from a 1.5 megawatt solar farm, which will be built on the closed Williamson landfill. Compared to the 580 megawatt Ginna nuclear plant, the generation capacity is small. But […]
renewable energy
Posted inNews & Opinion
Could Buffalo and Rochester both be solar manufacturing hubs?
The state’s economic development arm will invest $225 million to build a high-tech and green energy business hub in Buffalo. The money is going toward infrastructure and building construction at a 90-acre site, RiverBend, that is the former home of Republic Steel. And yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the manufacturing complex’s first committed tenants, both […]
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The park and resurrection
Rochester scored a win a couple of years ago when New Jersey-based Natcore Technologies moved its solar cell research and development work to Eastman Business Park. Eastman, which is the former Kodak Park, beat out several competitors in the company’s nationwide site search. And recently, state and Natcore officials announced that the company plans to […]
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WSJ corrects the record on renewables
The Wall Street Journal is getting attention for yesterday’s Energy section cover piece, “Six Myths About Renewable Energy.” The article takes six common claims for or against renewable energy and sets the record straight. For example, it tackles the claim that renewables don’t contribute much power to the United States’ grid and explains, point by […]
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Enviro group says cap and trade program is paying off
This week, New York officials are holding public hearings on new rules that would lower the state’s cap on power plant carbon emissions. (One of those hearings is at 2 p.m. this afternoon at Department of Environmental Conservation Region 8 Headquarters, 6274 East Avon-Lima Road, Avon.) Simultaneously, Environmental Advocates of New York has released a report citing […]
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Obama announces climate actions
President Barack Obama just wrapped up a speech at Georgetown University where he announced federal actions aimed at cutting the country’s carbon emissions. The White House issued a fact sheet and report on the president’s agenda, which is available here. PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE JURVETSON Some of the measures, all of which are executive actions […]
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Ontario cleaning up its power plants
New York’s neighbor to the north is about to shut down all of its coal-fired power plants. This year, all of the remaining coal plants in the province of Ontario will be shut down except for one small plant that will be kept as a backup for peak demand periods, says an article in Yale […]
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Hydrogen hopes
A team of University of Rochester professors may have found a way to improve the process of using light to produce hydrogen. The secret: a common metal and miniscule chunks of a semiconductor material. Chemistry professors Richard Eisenberg, Patrick Holland, and Todd Krauss aren’t the first researchers to generate hydrogen using light; that’s been happening […]
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Climate’s politics problem
When it comes to climate change and public policy, three areas are virtually inseparable: the economy, energy, and politics. Often, the mix is not productive.
