Kyiv Post: Ukraine Pushes for Solar Power Investors in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Ukraine wants to attract investors to the designated exclusion area around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. The government plans to present the site to potential investors at the upcoming Expo 2017 exposition in Kazakhstan.

Today, the Ukrainian government maintains a 30-kilometer-wide exclusion zone around the nuclear plant.

Part of the area, which is affected by high radiation and limited to 10 kilometers away from the blown-up power plant, will remain closed. The rest of the territory, which is safe, will be designated as a nature reserve, the Minister for Regional Development Hennadiy Zubko said in an interview with Ukrinform on Dec. 27.

The solar power plan has already attracted some interest from Chinese investors. GCL System Integration Technology announced in November that it intended to cooperate with China National Complete Engineering on building a solar farm in the exclusion zone. The status of that project remains unclear.

Salon: Here Comes the Sun -- Elon Musk’s Ambitious Solar Panel Factory Vision Highlights the Challenges of a Globalized Economy

Visitors to the site of a SolarCity solar panel factory under construction in Buffalo, New York are greeted by a rusty reminder of the city’s long-gone industrial backbone.

Old rail cars and giant turbines discovered by construction workers in 2014 have been put on display as a symbol of what the construction site represents: turning a blighted part of downtown into a high-tech manufacturing hub. The equipment had been buried and left behind by Republic Steel when globalization sent one of the nation’s biggest steelmakers into insolvency and collapse in 1984, helping turn Buffalo into one of the nation’s poorest larger Rust Belt cities.

Now thanks to hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, the site is part of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion initiative, an ambitious effort to breathe new economic life into upstate New York. If all goes as planned, the SolarCity factory will anchor a development zone that will include centers of genomic research and information technology, creating thousands of jobs locally and for the state.

Bloomberg: Big Utility Sees Pathway to $10 Oil

The oil industry must brace for five energy “tsunamis” that threaten to drag prices as low as $10 a barrel in less than a decade, according to Engie SA’s innovation chief.

The falling cost of solar power and battery storage, rising sales of electric vehicles, increasingly “smart” buildings and cheap hydrogen will all weigh on crude, Thierry Lepercq, head of research, technology and innovation at the French energy company, said in an interview.

“Even if oil demand continues to climb until 2025, its price could drop to $10 if markets anticipate a significant fall in demand,” Lepercq said at his office near Paris. Crude last slumped to that level in 1998.

“Solar, battery storage, electrical and hydrogen vehicles, and connected devices are in a ‘J’ curve,” he said. “Hydrogen is the missing link in a 100 percent renewable-energy system, but the technological bricks already exist.”

The Hill: No Matter the President, Solar Outlook Increasingly Bright (Perspective)

Donald Trump’s election has generated significant and legitimate concerns over the future of federal clean energy policy, with campaign promises disavowing global warming and promoting traditional energy sources such as coal and fracking. With this in mind, observers may worry about America’s solar industry outlook.

But the incoming administration portends very little change in the U.S. solar market’s velocity for at least several years and it may mark solar’s coming-of-age moment as a market-driven force independent of federal policy.

In fact, very little additional federal support is absolutely needed to keep solar growing in 2017 and beyond.