Question: Where is the PS20 solar power tower located?
Answer: Spain

Question: Nearly all gasoline sold in the U.S. is mixed with what percentage of ethanol?
Answer: 10 percent

Question: What act calls for 7.5 billion US gallons of biofuels to be used annually by 2012?
Answer: The Energy Policy Act of 2005

Question: Name one company that sells flexible-fuel cars?
Answer: GM

Question: What can be made from plant matter composed primarily of inedible celllose fibers thta form the stems and branches of most plants?
Answer: Cellulosic ethanol

Question: What are potential sources of cellulosic biomass?
Answer: Crop residues

Question: What is a promising cellulose source that can be sustainably produced in many regions?
Answer: Dedicated energy crops

Question: As of 2008, geothermal power development was underway in more than how many countries?
Answer: 40

Question: What is one new technology attributed to the growth of geothermal power?
Answer: Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Question: What is operational in the USA, Australia, Germany, France and The United Kingdom?
Answer: Demonstration EGS projects

Question: The PV industry has seen drops in module prices since what year?
Answer: 2008

Question: What is a sign that further price reductions are likely in coming years?
Answer: technological advancements

Question: What cost is often regarded as marking the achievment of grid parity for PV?
Answer: $1.00/W installed cost

Question: Why do utility operators often reject renewable resources?
Answer: because they are trained to think only in terms of big, conventional power plants

Question: Why do consumers often ignore renewable power systems?
Answer: because they are not given accurate price signals about electricity consumption

Question: Who argued that some of the problems facing renewable energy are more about culture and institutions than engineering and science?
Answer: Benjamin K. Sovacool

Question: Lester Brown states that the market does not incorporate what?
Answer: the indirect costs of providing goods or services into prices

Question: Who believes that the market does not value nature's service adequately?
Answer: Lester Brown

Question: What can help over come the problems with the market?
Answer: Tax and subsidy shifting

Question: What involves lowering income taxes while raising levies?
Answer: Tax shifting

Question: Several Western European companies are shifting taxes in a process known as what?
Answer: environmental tax reform

Question: What is the purpose of tax shifting?
Answer: to create a more responsive market

Question: Besides tax shifting, what is another need?
Answer: subsidy shifting

Question: What was the result of publicly funded links among computers in government labs and reserach institutes?
Answer: the Internet

Question: What helped create the modern wind power industry?
Answer: federal tax deduction and a robust state tax deduction in California

Question: As of 2012, what accounts for about half of new nameplate electrical capacity?
Answer: renewable energy

Question: What involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years?
Answer: Renewable energy commercialization

Question: Name one second-generation technology that is market ready.
Answer: wind power

Question: What group advocates leveling the playing field?
Answer: International Solar Energy Society

Question: How does the International Solar Energy Society propse to level the playing field?
Answer: by redressing the continuing inequities in public subsidies of energy technologies and R&D

Question: What is the key to stabilizing the earth's climate?
Answer: development of climate-benign energy sources

Question: What country is reducing its coal subsidy?
Answer: Germany

Question: What country has been increasing its support for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries?
Answer: United States

Question: Some countries have phased out all subsidies for what substance?
Answer: coal

Question: Setting national renewable energy targets can be an important part of what?
Answer: renewable energy policy

Question: The European Union has prescribed an indicative renewable energy target of what percent?
Answer: 12 per cent of the total EU energy mix

Question: Name one outher country with defined national or regional target?
Answer: Australia

Question: What determines the extent to which renewable energy is to be incorporated into a country's generation mix?
Answer: Public policy

Question: Who has the authority to carry out a number of functions that havae implications for the feasiblity of renewable energy projects?
Answer: Energy regulators

Question: Why have energy sector regulators become a key facilitator of renewable energy investments?
Answer: Since policies are not self-implementing

Question: What is the driving force behind voluntary green electricity within the EU?
Answer: liberalized electricity markets

Question: What states that EU Member States must ensure that the origin of electricity produced from renewables can be guaranteed?
Answer: RES Directive

Question: In the US, what is the main tool to track and stimulate voluntary actions?
Answer: Green-e program

Question: What made a strong economic case for investing in low carbon technologies?
Answer: Stern Review

Question: In what year did a number of events push renewable energy up the political agenda?
Answer: 2006

Question: What is driving increasing rates of investment in the renewable energy industry?
Answer: climate change concerns coupled with recent high oil prices

Question: What helped the industry weather the 2009 economic crisis better than other sectors?
Answer: New government spending, regulation, and policies

Question: What suggests that the commercialization of clean energy will hellp countries deal with economic malaise?
Answer: commercialization of clean energy

Question: Which company became invovled in a political controversy?
Answer: Solyndra

Question: What company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy?
Answer: Solyndra

Question: What plays a major role in the energy mix of many countries?
Answer: renewable energy

Question: What is becoming increasingly economic in both developing and devloped countries?
Answer: Renewables

Question: As of 2012, prices for what commodity continued to drop?
Answer: renewable energy technologies

Question: Who is United Nations' Secretary-General?
Answer: Ban Ki-moon

Question: Ban Ki-moon states that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity?
Answer: renewable energy

Question: Who is chair of UN Energy?
Answer: Kandeh Yumkella

Question: Who is chairman of Bank of America?
Answer: Charles Holliday

Question: In 2012, solar electricity consumption increased by what percentage?
Answer: 58 percent

Question: Use of wind power in 2012 increased by what percentage?
Answer: 18.1 percent

Question: How much was the worldwide investment in solar power in 2012?
Answer: $140.4 billion

Question: Analysts expect the market to triple by what year?
Answer: 2030

Question: In what year did investment in renewables exceed fossils?
Answer: 2015

Question: What motivated the incentive to use 100 percent renewable energy?
Answer: global warming

Question: How many nations already have renewable energy contributing to more than 20 percent of energy supply?
Answer: at least 30 nations

Question: Who developed a series of stabilization wedges?
Answer: Professors S. Pacala and Robert H. Socolow

Question: Who is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University?
Answer: Mark Z. Jacobson

Question: What is a barrier to implementing the renewable energy plan?
Answer: social and political

Question: Who stated that energy costs with a wind, solar, water system should be similar to today's energy costs?
Answer: Mark Z. Jacobson