Skip to content

Category: News

President Jimmy Carter at a public
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: Jimmy Carter pioneered clean energy before we knew we needed it

The 39th President has been pivotal for solar and nuclear energy for over seventy years A farewell to our solar President The largest solar panel factory in the western hemisphere stands in the sprawl of a vast construction site in Dalton, Georgia. The factory, which has an annual manufactured capacity of 1.7 gigawatts, overlooks Interstate…

Read More
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: The Brightfield movement turns trash dumps into solar farms

Brightfields reclaim landfills for solar farms. Also, the worldwide spike in energy prices is catastrophic for some countries. From Brownfield to Brightfield Let’s start with the obvious thing — the less we send to landfills, the better off we are. They smell bad. No one wants big mountains of trash down the street from where…

Read More
A person charging an EV with an EV charger
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: Using EV batteries to solve the short- term energy storage problem

Vehicle-to-gGrid charging might offer all the battery capacity the grid needs Can your EV fix our fragile grid? Solar and wind energy is getting cheaper and more widespread by the day. But we only get solar power when the sun shines and wind power when the wind blows. Finding ways to store energy generated during…

Read More
woman on a bicycle staring at the landscape of a windmill farm
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: How achieving Net Zero is going to affect our health. Also, coal plants are money losers

A recent study finds that we’ll see a lot of health benefits from going green. Another finds that coal is just too expensive. Going green is good for the health of the planet. It turns out, it’s good for our health, too. When the United Kingdom passed a law in 2019 committing to reaching net…

Read More
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: JFK goes solar and a new nuclear reactor moves forward

The Nuclear Regulatory Agency just approved its first new reactor in decades and JFK Airport is installing a massive solar minigrid  The U.S. approved a new nuclear reactor Despite supplying one-fifth of the U.S.’s electricity, nuclear power is often exiled to the island of misfit toys. The disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima…

Read More
solar gasoline EV header
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: Peak Gasoline Has Come and Gone

As the U.S. drives more miles in EVs and burns less fuel, American economics, environmentalism and politics all face a sea change. Also, why don’t we just store our energy in water?  We’re burning less gasoline for the first time ever. That’s a big deal. There was a particular day over the past year or…

Read More
solar panel factory production line
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: A Massive Investment in Solar

North Georgia has suddenly become the center of America’s Solar System. Also, we’ve got to do something about plastic. QCells goes all-in in Georgia With 1.7 gigawatts in annual capacity, the QCells solar panel factory in Dalton, Georgia is currently the largest solar panel factory in the western hemisphere. If that seems like a big…

Read More
Weekly Sun header winter storms
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: Averting Grid Collapse in the Southeast 

Winter Storm Elliott caused devastation throughout the Northeast, but power failures in the Southeast almost brought down the grid as far west as Oklahoma. Also, COP15 asserts that nature has rights  Winter Storm Elliott almost brought down the grid Rolling blackouts were once as Californian as the Hollywood sign, but in recent years they’ve rolled…

Read More
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: What Does the Fusion Announcement Mean? 

When Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created a positive energy fusion reaction, it turned the dream of limitless, clean energy from a theoretical problem to a practical challenge. Also, a West Virginia town is being revived by iron batteries. Fusion power moves closer. No, really! We mean it At the end of the 1985 hit movie…

Read More
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: California Makes Going Solar Harder

Can solar survive California’s new net metering replacement? Also, are you ready for a minicar? California’s utility commission voted to cut the rate it will pay solar customers by 75%, with a goal of making home batteries more attractive. Also, minicars are all the rage in Asia, but can the U.S. adapt to the eco-friendly…

Read More
goats grazing on a solar farm next to solar panels
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: When is a Solar Farm More than a Solar Farm?

THIS WEEK IN SOLAR, RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE NEWS What the best use for the space around and under solar panels? Also, how do we power Puerto Rico? As utility scale solar farms take up more and more land, finding ways to make use of the space around the panels is a growing opportunity. Also, Puerto…

Read More
weekly sun header image - microgrid
News
Daren Wang
The Weekly Sun: Is there a minigrid in your future? And banishing the London fog

THIS WEEK IN SOLAR, RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE NEWS In this week’s solar news: Minigrids are key to resilience while, after a millennium of polluted air, London is finally breathing easier. Microgrids are the next step in electricity efficiency Once upon a time, we all got our energy from big coal-fired energy plants far away from…

Read More