"We always knew each doubling of [solar PV] installation would reduce prices about 18%," the Clean Edge founder, Ron Pernick, told the Guardian. Pernick said that prices were falling because the sector was expanding rapidly, doubling every one to two years. New solar PV installations expanded to 31GW in 2012, while revenues decreased by $12bn – or 19% – to $80bn.

Looking to the future, the report suggests innovation can continue to improve the performance of renewable technologies, including using biomimicry ideas to imitate nature. Curved wind turbine blades inspired by humpback whale fins have increased wind energy capture over flat blades by 25%, while mimicking photosynthesis using dye-sensitised solar cells based on titanium oxide instead of silicon is proving effective in low-light situations. In addition, energy efficiency developments like Nest’s ‘learning thermostat’ and smartphone apps for thermostat control will help connect web and smart-grid technologies.

The victims were two small-cap companies (which are more susceptible to this sort of short-term manipulation) – audio chip maker Audience Inc. (Nasdaq: ADNC) and biopharmaceutical Sarepta Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SRPT).

The attack on Audience struck on Jan. 29. Someone created a fake Twitter account intended to fool people into thinking it belonged to Carson Block of Muddy Waters Research, a firm best known for following Chinese companies and exposing their accounting problems.  […]

But at 2:20 pm. ADNC shares suddenly plunged 25%, which suggested that automated trading systems programmed to scan social media for negative news reacted to the tweets. The stock recovered 16 minutes later, but it shows how easily a social media stock scam can be executed.

[…] Lisette said "tons of bots" are always on the lookout for negative news in the social media sphere, and less-sophisticated ones can be fooled by stock scams most humans would recognize.

The day after the Audience incident, someone else created a fake Twitter account for Citron Research and sent out negative tweets about Sarepta Therapeutics, causing that stock to fall 9% in seconds.

LinkedIn Most Effective Social Channel

LinkedIn was also the most effective channel for recruiting: 93% of recruiters say they used the professional networking site to successfully place a candidate 2012, up from the 86% who said so a year earlier. Some 17% of recruiters used Facebook to place a candidate in 2012 (vs. 19% in 2011), and 13% used Twitter (vs. 10% in 2011).

PSA claims that in city driving, depending on traffic, you can save 45 per cent of fuel while running with the gasoline engine off 60 to 80 per cent of the time. I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, but the main advantage of Hybrid Air over Hybrid Electric appears to be cost.

PSA says it can undercut existing hybrids significantly on price because the Hybrid Air does not require an expensive battery and electric motor. It is hoped that Hybrid Air could be viable even in emerging markets like China and India where gasoline-electric hybrids are expensive and complex to repair.

When a wind turbine or solar panel generates power, it’s not necessarily when that electricity is needed — it could be the middle of the night, or during a holiday when lots of people are outside, the study points out.

That power needs to be stored somewhere so that it can be used, otherwise renewable energy can’t ever replace coal, oil, nuclear or similar plants that can output a reliable level of power whenever needed.

For that reliability, there are three main options: pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS), where water is pumped upwards into a reservoir where it can be released later; compressed air energy storage (CAES) where the air can be expanded again through turbines when needed; and batteries, of which there are many different types, each with their own maximum number of effective charge cycles.

Although nearly-zero energy building standards will be mandatory only for new buildings by 2020 the next and even more important question is how to transform the building stock to that level until 2050. The sheer magnitude of this challenge requires that in principle every building owner must be given a sufficient set of options to have a fair and equal chance to transform his property to nearly-zero energy standard. Thus electricity from on-site, nearby and off-site sources must be a natural part of the set of options.

The chart shows that energy efficiency met nearly three quarters of the demand for services, while energy supply met only one quarter.

"One immediate conclusion from this assessment is that the productivity of our economy may be more directly tied to greater levels of energy efficiency rather than a continued mining and drilling for new energy resources," wrote Laitner.