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The Department of Energy is handing out more loan guarantees for solar projects. This morning the DOE said that it has offered a $967 million loan guarantee for the Agua Caliente Solar project, a 290 MW photovoltaic facility that will be built in Yuma County, Arizona, and which NRG Energy said it planned to buy from First Solar last month.

The Agua Caliente project will use panels from First Solar, is set for completion in 2014 and is supposed to create 400 construction jobs. Northern California utility PG&E plans to buy the electricity from the project. NRG plans to invest up to $800 million in equity in the project, and the deal between First Solar and NRG requires

nrg energy Department of Energy Agua Caliente Solar project photovoltaic solar

The incandescent light bulb’s days are numbered. Under federal law, the 100-watt bulbs are supposed to be taken off the shelf next year, followed later by the more common 40- and 60-watt models.


But guess who’s still using them? The Department of Energy.

incandescent incandescent light bulb Department of Energy doe cfl

Calera Corp., a startup working to capture emissions from industrial flues and recycle it into pavement and building materials, has made it to the second phase of a competitive government program for carbon capture projects. The Department of Energy announced on Thursday that it will invest nearly $19.9 million in stimulus funds to help Calera design, build and deploy a system for churning out carbon-fed cement and aggregates at pilot scale.

calera greennumbers emissions building materials carbon capture Department of Energy

Revolutionary — that’s how the Department of Energy describes the methods for generating fuels directly from sunlight that the agency hopes will emerge from a new project in California. The DOE announced on Thursday morning that it will award up to $122 million over five years to a team of scientists in a so-called “Energy Innovation Hub” dedicated to simulating the natural process of photosynthesis and using it for “practical energy production.”

Department of Energy sunlight greennumbers photosynthesis “Energy Innovation Hub”

The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that it will be funneling $67 million into 10 projects working on capturing the carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power plants. Over the next three years, these projects will be developing ways to make current carbon capture techniques work with existing power plants.

greennumbers ccs carbon capture and storage doe Department of Energy carbon dioxide coal fired power stations

The Department of Energy will give $100 million in grants to fund 54 smart grid workforce training programs. Ideally, 30,000 Americans will receive training to implement the smart grid programs that were funded by the DOE and private investors last year.

Department of Energy greennumbers smart grid training

In 2009, one industry blew past its predictions for growth
That is wind power, with an annual growth rate of 39%. This is the largest increase in capacity on record—helped significantly by economic stimulus funding for green energy. Since 2002, the country's installed base of turbines has jumped almost sevenfold.

wind power wind energy annual growth Department of Energy

Energy Secretary Steven Chu — the rockstar geek Nobel Prize winner — announced at the first ARPA-E summit on Tuesday that the Department of Energy will hand out $100 million in a third round of grants to early stage greentech startups through the ARPA-E program. Specifically this round of grants will focus on energy efficiency technologies including grid storage, power converter technology, and building cooling technology

Department of Energy doe steven Chu arpa-e greennumbers energy efficiency grid storage

Scientists hope to get a glimpse of the future with a proposed experiment facility in northern Minnesota that would allow them to adjust temperatures and levels of carbon dioxide across a broad range of possibilities projected by climate models.

Researchers believe that the experimental facility, proposed to be built in a high-carbon spruce bog within the Chippewa National Forest, would provide answers to key questions about the effects climate change could have on vegetation and ecosystems while addressing critical uncertainties related to the carbon cycle. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, are hopeful that construction of the facility could begin in December 2011.

climate change Oak Ridge National Laboratory Department of Energy carbon cycle

"A Department of Energy report states: “The ultimate success of the Smart Grid depends on the effectiveness of these devices in attracting and motivating large numbers of consumers.” Yet the way Smart Grid is described, implemented, and envisioned as it rolls out to the public may be the very things holding it back. Are the government and utilities creating the very resistance they need to overcome? "

Department of Energy doe smart grid utilities resistance

The Department of Energy and IBM are serious about developing lithium air batteries capable of powering a car for 500 miles on a single charge - a five-fold increase over current plug-in batteries that have a range of about 40 to 100 miles, the DOE said.

The agency said 24 million hours of supercomputing time out of a total of 1.6 billion available hours at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories will be used by IBM and a team of researchers from those labs and Vanderbilt University to design new materials required for a lithium air battery.

ibm doe Department of Energy lithium air batteries supercomputing time supercomputing time

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $47m for 14 projects across the country to support the development of energy efficiency improvement in the information technology (IT) and communication technology sectors

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"At an event in Columbus, Ohio this afternoon, Secretary Chu announced that the Department of Energy is awarding $620 million for projects around the country to demonstrate advanced Smart Grid technologies and integrated systems that will help build a smarter, more efficient, more resilient electrical grid. These 32 demonstration projects, which include large-scale energy storage, smart meters, distribution and transmission system monitoring devices, and a range of other smart technologies, will act as models for deploying integrated Smart Grid systems on a broader scale. This funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be leveraged with $1 billion in funds from the private sector to support more than $1.6 billion in total Smart Grid projects nationally. "

doe department of energy steven Chu smart grid smart meter greennumbers American Recovery and Reinvestment Act