Advanced Energy Perspectives

Surprise! Electric vehicle-maker Tesla is once again in the news. Earlier this month, CEO Elon Musk announced that he will take a six-day road trip from Los Angeles to New York City later this year to demonstrate the capacity of Tesla’s forthcoming cross-country charging structure. He plans to spend about an hour and a half charging the car each day.

The California State Legislature adjourned last week, sending a number of bills to the Governor’s desk that are supported by AEE. Lawmakers showed their support for a variety of proposals ranging from incentives for advanced vehicles and fuels to community solar to rate reform. With three wins in California, the state legislation victories for advanced energy continue to pile up: 59 total!

News broke this week that venture capitalists invested more than $500 million in advanced energy technologies this summer alone. Investment powerhouses like Morgan Stanley, Kleiner Perkins, and Google Ventures joined firms like Kholsa Ventures and Energy Technology Ventures to close funding rounds at more than 30 companies. These companies represent a diversity of technologies, including solar, smart grid, electric vehicles (motorcycles!), and efficiency.

When it comes to Congress’s fall agenda, it has become harder than ever to follow the bouncing ball. As senators went home for the August recess, the Shaheen-Portman energy savings bill was teed up for debate upon return. Given the pent-up pressure for expression on energy policy, that was looking tough enough for debate managers to handle. But then came Syria, and a number of spending measures. Those priority items threatened to put the only significant energy bill in play on ice. But then President Obama asked lawmakers to postpone a vote on military intervention in Syria while Secretary of State Kerry pursued a diplomatic solution. Thus the Shaheen-Portman bill went to the Senate floor yesterday, for the start of what is expected to be a debate punctuated by multiple interruptions.

What if you could harness the power of the ocean waves to power your home? Ocean and tidal power generation has remained a largely untapped market in the United States so far, but that could be changing soon. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the U.S. could be sitting on up to 1,400 terawatt hours of potential electricity generation per year from wave and tidal energy.