USs

Photo: South Fork The final turbine is up at New York’s South Fork Wind, making it the US’s first complete utility-scale offshore wind farm in federal waters. Renews reported today that a South Fork Wind spokesperson told the news outlet, “With the last turbine having been installed at South Fork Wind, commissioning work is ongoing and we are working toward full power.” Danish renewables giant Ørsted and Boston-based energy provider Eversource developed the 132-megawatt (MW) South Fork…

First Solar added $2.75 billion in value and $5.32 billion in output to the US economy in 2023 alone, and its economic impact is forecasted to soar. First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) today released an economic study revealing the substantial impact of its US solar manufacturing operations. This analysis, a collaboration with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center, gives us a look at First Solar’s spending both now and in the future, specifically looking at 2023…

"ChatGPT and GPT-4 consistently outperformed the majority of students who answered each individual item in the NAEP science assessments," write Xiaoming Zhai of the University of Georgia, and colleagues at the University's AI4STEM Education Center, and at the University of Alabama's College of Education, in a paper published this week on the arXiv pre-print server, "Can Generative Ai And Chatgpt Outperform Humans On Cognitive-Demanding Problem-Solving Tasks In Science?"Also: AI in 2023: A year of breakthroughs that…

Photo: NextEra Energy Republicans have vowed to tear apart the Inflation Reduction Act, but the chief executive of NextEra Energy, the US’s largest renewable developer, says that’s “unlikely” if they win the election. The US’s largest renewable developer on the IRA The Biden administration’s landmark climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act, has created a US clean energy manufacturing boom, thanks to the generous tax credits and other incentives. The Republican Party says…

Photo: Mortensen The US’s largest solar + battery storage project, Edwards & Sanborn, has come online in Kern County, California. Edwards & Sanborn, which sits on 4,660 acres in the Mojave desert, was developed and is owned and operated by Terra-Gen. It comprises 875 megawatts (MW) of solar and 3,320 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy storage.  The project sits on both private land and land belonging to Edwards Air Force Base. The project’s contractor, Mortensen, says it’s the…

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com In a significant move, the White House will delay a decision on whether to approve what would be the US’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, according to the New York Times. Three sources who spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity said the Biden administration is pausing approval for the controversial Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG export terminal in Louisiana so that its impact on climate change, the economy, and national security…

First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) has acquired a former Peloton factory in Ohio and has plans to turn it into a distribution center. The US’s largest solar panel maker says it will repurpose Peloton Output Park’s 1.2 million-square-foot facility in Troy Township, Ohio, into a new distribution center for its three factories in the state. The three facilities had a combined annual nameplate capacity of around 6 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2023. Peloton announced it was going to build Peloton Output Park…

Stardust Power, a lithium refiner supplying the EV sector, is going to build the US’s largest battery-grade lithium refinery in Oklahoma. The refinery will be in Southside Industrial Park in Muskogee, Oklahoma, southeast of Tulsa, and is expected to be capable of producing up to 50,000 metric tonnes of battery-grade lithium annually. Connecticut-based Stardust Power said it selected Muskogee because of the state’s central US location for delivery and shipment. Muskogee also has a skilled…

First Solar, the largest solar panel maker in the US, today announced that it has broken ground on India’s first fully vertically integrated solar plant. The factory, which is in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, has an annual nameplate capacity of 3.3 gigawatts (GW) and directly employs around 1,000 people. It will produce First Solar’s Series 7 solar panels that are developed at its US R&D centers and optimized for the Indian market.  This new facility has some pretty special…

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has recently announced a hardline approach that bans the entrance of electric bicycles by visitors or staff due to safety concerns. The NREL is a federally-funded R&D center that focuses on sustainable energy solutions, including research into solar energy and energy efficiency, among others. According to the NREL’s fire marshal Nicholas Bartlett, micromobility devices such as electric scooters and bikes are no longer permitted to be charged or…