Bats will get help avoiding wind turbines thanks to a $1 million grant from the Department of Energy, which announced Thursday it’s giving the Golden-based National Renewable Energy Lab funding to study how light from the enormous structures impacts bats and research ways to keep the mammals from flying into them. It’s all part of […]
National Renewable Energy Lab
Posted inBusiness
Xcel must cut emissions from its gas business 22% by 2030. The role heat pumps can play is a point of dispute.
Environmental groups say heat pumps can get most of the emissions out. Xcel paid for a study that begs to differ.
Posted inBusiness
As Colorado’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure grows, the question remains: Who will pay for it?
Private companies are already making major investments in EV charging. But should monopoly utilities, like Xcel, support them or build their own?
Posted inEnvironment
Denver, state using speedy solar permitting apps to quicken clean energy transition
The National Renewable Energy Lab wrote software to cut the review period for a rooftop solar permit by 30 days. State plans $1 million in grants for more to adopt the app.
Posted inBusiness
Exxon drops algae research, but Colorado labs press on in hunt for green fuel
Technologies that are quicker to scale now are ExxonMobil’s focus. The Colorado labs the petroleum giant funded still see potential in algae as a biofuel.
Posted inEnvironment
Colorado School of Mines goes renewable, seeking enough solar panels — designed by students — to power its campus
The state’s premier engineering school installs $4.8 million in new panel arrays across campus to sustain its clean energy use
Posted inClimate, Energy, News
Delta County thought solar panels were a baaaaad idea. But what if there were 1,000 sheep grazing under them?
The question before the Delta County Commission this month is whether 1,000 sheep can forge a path for dozens of solar panels — after the commissioners rejected a solar project citing concerns about losing farmland. In March, the commission, on a 2-1 vote, rejected an 80-megawatt solar project covering 475 acres just outside of Delta, […]
Posted inClimate, Energy, News, Technology
Researchers in Colorado have figured out what makes air conditioners consume so much energy. It’s not the heat.
This just in from the laboratory: When it comes to the air conditioner chugging away in the window, it’s not the heat — but the humidity that’s causing it to work overtime. An analysis by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden found that on average more than half of the energy used […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Energy, News
These cells could be the key to efficient, cheap solar energy. But they have to make it in the “torture chamber” first.
The little perovskite solar cell was sweating it out in the “torture chamber.” Well, it wasn’t actually sweating, since a solar cell doesn’t have sweat glands, but if it had, at 185 degrees Fahrenheit and 85% humidity, it’d be sweating. The 6-inch-by-6-inch cell would be in the chamber – a Xenon Exposure System locker – […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Coloradans, Economy, Energy, Environment, Growth, News, Outdoors
Xcel Energy may fill the hole left by closing its Hayden coal-fired power plant with salt. And fish.
There is molten salt in the town of Hayden’s future – maybe trout, too – but almost definitely molten salt. The idea of using molten salt energy storage to fill part of the gap in employment and taxes left by the planned closure of the Routt County town’s coal-fired power plant is being planned by […]