Solar Industry To Hit US $77B in 2015 

As the books close on what was a turbulent 2009 for the solar industry, Lux Research said that the solar market will soon see the lopsided supply and demand that characterized much of the last year return to equilibrium. According to the new report Solar's Shakeout: Europe Loses Leadership as China Rises," strong demand growth in Asia and the U.S. will push the market to 9.3 GW in 2010, hitting a dollar value of US $39 billion. Building from there, continuing price reductions for all types of solar technology are expected to open new markets and help the solar industry reach $77 billion in revenue and 26.4 GW in capacity by 2015.

MIT Researchers Tip Their Cards 

Last week, as part of the 2010 MIT Energy Conference, the institute opened the doors to its energy research projects. Press and other interested parties got a first look at technologies that could one day make renewable energy abundant, cheap and more deployable. These cutting-edge technologies were presented by a handful of MIT faculty and students who showed some innovations in the solar, hydrogen and energy storage areas that are on the road to commercialization.

Video: Renewable Energy World Conference and Expo A Huge Success 

Last week, close to four thousand renewable energy professionals gathered in Austin, Texas to take part in the 7th Renewable Energy World Conference and Expo. Attendees took part in technical tours to places such as the Ercot Control Center and Austin Energy, conference sessions that covered pressing renewable energy topics and walked the show floor where more than 225 exhibitors showed off the latest renewable energy innovations.

Alteris Renewables Launches New Website 

Alteris Renewables, the fastest growing renewable energy design and installation company in the Northeast, has launched a new wesbite to better serve its customers and highlight the company's long history in residential and commercial solar and community-scale wind. The Boston-area media firm Captains of Industry was chosen to develop the design and publishing platform.

Briefing on pyranometers and pyrheliometers 

Good quality solar radiation data is becoming increasingly important in the field of renewable energy with regard to both photovoltaic (PV) and thermal systems. This applies in activities such as research and development, production quality control, determination of optimum locations, monitoring the efficiency of installed systems and predicting the system output under various sky conditions.

Greening Deserts for Carbon Credits 

Poor farming practices have degraded the world's soils causing them to release carbon that should have stayed in the soil. In the past 150 years soils have released twice as much carbon as fuel burning. Improved farming methods could quickly rebuild degraded land and store enough carbon to offset the damage already done by fuel burning. Dr Rattan Lal of Ohio State University, a leading expert on soil carbon, estimates that the potential of economical carbon sequestration in world soils may be .65 billion to 1.1 billion tons per year for the next 50 years. This is enough to draw down atmospheric CO2 by 50 ppm by 2100. This is a one-time opportunity, however. We must ultimately stop burning fossil fuels.