Google rethinks fairness in paying for clean energy

I was surprised to hear an investment banker talk about social justice at an energy finance conference recently. He was concerned about a relatively new phenomenon, especially in California, where there is an explosion of homeowners leasing solar panels.

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Mayor Bloomberg fights coal, but supports fracking in New York State

NYC natural gas pizza truck

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg almost burned the roof of his mouth on a steaming slice of pizza from a food truck this week. I was among the reporters in attendance who yelled for him to wait for it to cool.

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Google is a climate change leader, unlike any other

I work down on Wall Street where the lingering effects of Superstorm Sandy are the dozens of vacant buildings still being rehabbed from flooding. Those blackened windows don’t just mean displaced workers, they mean lost jobs and businesses.

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Clean energy to cost states more if Congress drops incentives

Maple Ridge Wind Farm

Lowville, New York is one of those striking places that hark back to long ago times when the world was simpler and made more sense. I got to go there this summer to tour a massive wind farm, the largest on the Eastern Seaboard when it was built six years ago.

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BrightSource failed IPO, signals drop in solar market

Watching President Obama sign the Jumpstart our Business Start-ups Act into law last week brought to mind a company I have followed since they filed a prospectus with the SEC to go public last year.  The night before its shares were to begin trading on the NASDAQ, a week after the president signed the law, BrightSource Energy cancelled the offering due to “adverse market conditions.”

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What do Warren Buffett and the Marlboro High School football team have in common?

Upstate New York towns that host power plants are getting socked by fallout from the same low natural gas prices that are hurting savvy investors like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn.

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U.N. and Sierra Club seek to partner with clean tech companies

A lack of carbon legislation, and waning support for green energy on Capital Hill, has created strange bedfellows in the energy development world. The U.N. and the Sierra Club recently reached out to clean tech business leaders, some of whom are red state Republicans, who don’t believe in man-made climate change, to form strategic partnerships.

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For Con Ed, it’s tough being number one

Con Edison arguably has the best electrical delivery system in the world. But superlatives don’t always translate to profits.

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Should Indian Point close?

Indian Point evacuation zones

New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to close down Indian Point, a nuclear power plant in Westchester County, just north of New York City.

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Bright Source $250M IPO may face same difficulties as First Wind’s attempt

Concentrated solar power plant with tower

The champagne just keeps flowing at BrightSource Energy, along with cash to fund the construction of its massive thermal solar plant in the Mojave Desert.

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