(Midwest Energy News, November 7, 2011)—A mobile app that helps people perform their own home lighting audits is the winner of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “Apps for the Environment” challenge. Light Bulb Finder was created by a Milwaukee, Wisc., app developer called Eco Hatchery. Co-founders Adam Borut and Andrea Nylund learned they won the challenge [...]
(Finance & Commerce, November 7, 2011)—You swipe a credit card at a vending machine-sized kiosk. A clothing rack whirls around inside until your shirt or blouse appears. A robotic arm plucks it from the rack by the hanger and passes it to a glass enclosure in front of you. You pop open a door, grab [...]
(Midwest Energy News, November 2, 2011)—In May, we surveyed a handful of electric utilities to ask how complying with Minnesota’s renewable portfolio standard was affecting their costs and rates. For the most part, what we heard was that these utilities would be adding wind power capacity regardless of Minnesota’s renewable mandate because it’s economical and [...]
(Finance & Commerce, October 24, 2011)—On their way to becoming solar-electric panels, more than half of the world’s silicon solar cells produced today reportedly pass through a furnace made by a century-old Lakeville manufacturer. What’s more, the company only started supplying the solar industry four years ago. Despatch Industries now owns more than 60 percent [...]
(Finance & Commerce, October 24, 2011)—Silicon Energy became Minnesota’s second solar-electric panel manufacturer when it started shipping rooftop units from its Iron Range factory in mid-September. It joins Bloomington-based TenKsolar, which began selling its commercial systems in 2010. The companies are getting a boost from a made-in-Minnesota solar rebate program for Xcel Energy customers. And [...]
(GOOD, October 13, 2011)—Brian Van Slyke didn’t want to be a boss‚ and he didn’t want to have one either. But as his one-man record label grew to a three-person operation, they needed some type of organizational structure. “We wanted to be our own bosses, together,” Van Slyke says. In 2006, Fall of the West [...]
Make no mistake: Best Buy likes to see customers lining up for that next new, must-have gadget. The consumer electronics retailer is in the business of helping people upgrade their technology, whether it’s a mobile phone or a big-screen television. For every new product, though, there’s often an old one made obsolete: last year’s iPhone, [...]
(Midwest Energy News, July 26, 2011)—Imagine pulling into a gas station and being offered a complimentary tune-up to improve your car’s fuel efficiency. You’d probably wonder: what’s the catch? So how about when your electric utility gives you a free compact fluorescent light bulb? Or your gas company offers to help pay for new windows [...]
I spent a few months this spring looking into the potential risks and opportunities for Minnesota companies as development, pollution, population growth and climate conspire to strain our planet’s fresh water supply. The risk may seem distant here in the land of 10,000 lakes, but in an age when global supply chains span the globe, [...]
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