The United States is on track to produce more electricity this year from renewable power than from coal for the first time on record, new government projections show, a transformation partly driven by the coronavirus pandemic, with profound implications in the fight against climate change. From a report: It is a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago, when…
Tag: electric utilities
Oil Companies Are Collapsing, but Wind and Solar Energy Keep Growing
A few years ago, the kind of double-digit drop in oil and gas prices the world is experiencing now because of the coronavirus pandemic might have increased the use of fossil fuels and hurt renewable energy sources like wind and solar farms. That is not happening. From a report: In fact, renewable energy sources are set to account for nearly 21…
Will Tesla’s Rooftop Solar Panels Revolutionize the Power Industry?
Long-time Slashdot reader 140Mandak262Jamuna brings news of a triumph for a Tesla power project in South Australia: about 900 residential rooftop solar panels, coupled with storage batteries, “all linked up to central control, to form what they are calling a ‘Virtual Power Plant.'” Nothing virtual about it, distributed power plant would have been a better name. That project, designed to link…
Safer Nuclear Reactors Are On the Way
Nuclear power plant manufacturers, such as Westinghouse and Framatome, are developing safer nuclear reactors that use so-called accident-tolerant fuels that are less likely to overheat — and if they do, will produce very little or no hydrogen. As Scientific American reports, commercial reactors use small pellets of uranium dioxide stacked inside long cylindrical rods made of zirconium alloy, which “allows the…