SmartReads: Week of June 29
Catch the latest in this week’s clean energy and energy efficiency news, and share your favorite energy articles with us on Twitter using the hashtag #SmartReads.
GENERAL GREEN
POLITICO: Greens, automakers hail greenhouse gas ruling - In a surprisingly sweeping win for the Obama administration’s climate policies, a federal appeals court said Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency is “unambiguously correct” in the legal reasoning behind its regulation of greenhouse gases. [June 26, 2012]
The New York Times: Cities Get So Close To Recycling Ideal, They Can Smell It - Portland will be experiencing its first summer of biweekly garbage pickup. The change to every other week, introduced in cool weather last fall along with a weekly collection for food scraps, has reduced the amount of garbage that this progressive city is shipping to landfills by 44 percent. [June 27, 2012]
The Wall Street Journal: An Index Worth Laughing About - In what league does Iraq beat Britain, Haiti beat the United States and Afghanistan beat Denmark? Political corruption? Violent crime? Temperature? No, welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the Happy Planet Index. It is a little window into the way many environmentalists think. [June 26, 2012]
CLEAN ENERGY
The Olympian: Feds announce 1st major solar plant on tribal land - Federal officials have approved a solar plant on an Indian reservation outside Las Vegas, marking the nation’s first commercial-grade solar energy project on tribal land and new territory for the Obama administration’s renewable energy agenda. [June 25, 2012]
Bloomberg: Tariffs On Solar-Gear Imports From China Raised By U.S. - The U.S. Commerce Department determined that Chinese solar-product imports should be subject to additional tariffs to offset government subsidies, according to an agency document. [June 26, 2012]
Earth Techling: Solar Energy’s Future To Be Found In Nano Technologies? - Researchers from North Carolina State University claim they’ve found a way of creating much slimmer thin-film solar cells, without compromising the cells’ performance. [June 28, 2012]
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Reuters: Tesla CEO sees EVs being as popular as gas-powered cars - Tesla Motors Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk, an entrepreneur known for his outsized ambition, last Friday made a stunning forecast: battery-powered cars will likely match the internal combustion engine in popularity by the middle of the next decade. [June 23, 2012]
Fast Company: Inside the Tesla Model S - It’s here. The new Tesla—much more affordable than the electric vehicle startup’s first offering—made its debut Monday. Here’s a report from the test drive. [June 25, 2012]
