Articles by Sarah Laskow
Sarah Laskow is a reporter based in New York City who covers environment, energy, and sustainability issues, among other things.
All Articles
-
Critical List: Solar installations increasing; giant snails invade Miami
The number of non-residential solar panel installations is growing.
Disasters connected to weather or climate made more than 30 million people in Asia refugees last year, the Asian Development Bank reports.
Oil industry consultant Daniel Yergin wrote a new book about energy. It'll probably annoy you.
A professor in Canada made a machine that could suck carbon out of the air. -
![]()
![]()
Rent solar panels instead of buying them
Solar leasing companies have been ramping up their business in the past year or so, and, looking at Colorado, you can see how successful they've been. So far this year, more than half of home solar installations were leased systems; last year, it was only 40 percent. The solar leasing companies say it's because it makes solar affordable to a broader swath of people.
-
![]()
![]()
The new biodiesel boom
Last year, about a third of the biodiesel plants in the country went idle and output fell by half. But now federal tax credits and renewable energy mandates mean that biodiesel is booming again and plants are opening back up.
Their hold on success is tenuous, though: it depends, the industry says, on Congress extending a tax credit that pushes fuel blenders to include biofuel. The current boom started when Congress restored that credit back in December. But that was only a one-year reboot. For the industry to revive completely, producers say they need a longer extension. -
Critical List: Protesting a Chinese solar plant’s pollution; Solyndra will never go away
Solar power isn’t all rainbows and puppies. In China, protesters have spent the past few days outside a solar panel plant, which they say polluted a nearby river.
A U.S. wind turbine company is suing a Chinese company for paying an employee of American Superconducter more than $1 million to steal wind turbine technology.
China's also put $15 billion into Alberta's tar sands in the past year and a half.
We're going to keep hearing about Solyndra all next year.
