Most recent 10 articles: Yale Climate Connections - Energy
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Minnesota man brings solar power and job training to North Minneapolis - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 25, 2024) |
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Oct 25, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
When Jamez Staples of North Minneapolis started a solar company about 10 years ago, he saw it as a great opportunity to create jobs for others in his low-income neighborhood.
Staples: “I thought this was going to be easy. I figured, you know, just get up, go to work, get people who wanted to work, and we’d be fine.”
But he learned that there was no easy way for people in his community to get trained as solar installers. The only programs were far away or inaccessible by bus.
So Staples bought a big old building in the neighborhood and ... Read more ...
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Wind power goes small with microturbines for homes, public parks, and more - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 23, 2024) |
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Oct 23, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
The phrase 'wind power’ likely conjures images of massive spinning blades. But some companies now make micro wind turbines – tiny devices that can be installed at homes, businesses, and public parks.
Krief: “We can install inside the city, outside the city.”
Luc Eric Krief is CEO of a French startup called New World Wind. His company makes what’s called the Aeroleaf, a tiny turbine that looks like a curled leaf. When the wind blows, it spins and generates energy that can go directly to a nearby building.
The microturbines are installed in ... Read more ...
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How a solar development turned from threat to opportunity for an Illinois farmer - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 22, 2024) |
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Oct 22, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
When farmer Trent Gerlach found out a solar farm would be built on the land he had long worked in northwestern Illinois, he was disappointed.
“As a farmer, seeing that land taken out of production is difficult, when you farmed it for many years, you’ve been stewards to that land, fertilized that land, taken care of it as if it was your own,” he said.
Gerlach’s family had been raising corn, soybeans and livestock since 1968, and like many farmers, they leased farmland in addition to working their own land. And when the owner of one of those leased ... Read more ...
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New Mexico program pays workers to train for clean energy jobs - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 22, 2024) |
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Oct 22, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
At oil and gas drilling sites in New Mexico, people work long hours doing hard, dangerous labor.
Marcela Díaz of Somos un Pueblo Unido, an immigrant-led, workers’ rights nonprofit, says more than 40% of the workforce is Latino.
Díaz: “Most of our members in this industry in this region are not unionized. They don’t have pensions. If they’re undocumented, they won’t have access to their social security benefits. And when there are downturns … they don’t have access to unemployment.”
Díaz says that as the clean energy ... Read more ...
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Vertical solar panels help farmers produce both energy and crops - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 21, 2024) |
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Oct 21, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Producing solar energy on a farm typically means covering a field with panels.
But now some companies make solar panels that stand vertically, so they take up less space and can be more easily integrated into pastures or croplands.
Biernath: “You still can work on the land, and it’s not just a solar farm and that’s it.”
Helge Biernath is the CEO of Sunstall, which makes vertical solar systems called Sunzaun.
At one winery in California, the Sunzaun solar systems snake in between rows of grapevines.
And Rutgers University is ... Read more ...
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What is net metering? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 18, 2024) |
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Oct 18, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Installing solar panels helps homeowners reduce their use of fossil fuels and their impact on the climate. And going solar can also help homeowners save money on their electricity bills.
In some states, that happens through a system called net metering.
When a solar-powered house needs more electricity than the solar panels can produce, that house can use electricity from the power grid to help keep the lights on.
The homeowner pays for that additional energy, just like anyone else who uses electricity.
But at other times, the solar ... Read more ...
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An early adopter of renewable energy shows off his self-powered home - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 15, 2024) |
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Oct 15, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Losing power can be a minor inconvenience, a life-threatening event, or something in between. For Scott Sklar, it’s an opportunity to invite his neighbors over to charge their phones, store their medications in his fridge, and warm up on a chilly night. Sklar’s home runs entirely on renewables and has battery storage, so he has power even when the grid goes down in his Arlington, Virginia, neighborhood.
Sklar’s passion for renewable energy started decades ago, as a young staffer on Capitol Hill, and then as director of the Solar Energy Industries ... Read more ...
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Owner of eco-friendly home made out of tires shares lessons learned - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 15, 2024) |
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Oct 15, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In the 1990s, Jay Warmke and his wife Annie of Philo, Ohio, started building a house made from tires.
It’s a so-called “earthship,” a type of home designed to have minimal environmental impact.
Its walls are made of old tires filled with compacted earth, stacked like bricks.
The north side of the house is buried in the earth.
Warmke: “You get that cave effect, where in the summertime it’s cooler, in the wintertime it’s warmer.”
And the exposed south side is mostly windows, drawing in the warmth of the sun, so the ... Read more ...
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Solar leasing can make home solar power more accessible - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 09, 2024) |
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Oct 09, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Home solar panels can help people save a lot of money long-term.
But installing new solar panels can cost more than $10,000 upfront. So in many states, homeowners can lease solar panels instead.
Larry Sherwood is president of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
Sherwood: “It’s obviously much easier to just pay as you go rather than putting out that large amount of money at the beginning.”
With a solar lease, a homeowner essentially rents the panels and uses the electricity they produce, which lowers their overall energy ... Read more ...
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From waste to watts: How closed landfills can become solar powerhouses - Yale Climate Connections - Energy (Oct 08, 2024) |
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Oct 08, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
For decades, the site of an old municipal landfill in Fort Edward, New York, sat empty. Now it’s covered with solar panels.
Colston: “And it’s … now powering 300 homes and 100 small businesses.”
Annika Colston is the founder and CEO of AC Power, which specializes in converting former landfills into solar farms.
Decommissioned landfills need to be capped and then monitored for decades, to make sure the waste is not polluting the air or contaminating groundwater.
Colston: “And so … there is a lot of ongoing care that needs to go into them.” Read more ...
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