The renewables industry, because it’s so new and exciting, is constantly changing. It’s one of the few industries in the US economy that has been growing like crazy for the last several years. Any writing that includes a new technology is bound to be exciting to readers, but with new inventions continually being tested and introduced, how do good article writers keep abreast?
There are at least three good resources that can help you keep current with the latest developments. One of them you probably already know about: TED Talks. The other two are not so well known, but are excellent resources: EarthTechling and Renewable Technology News. Here are summaries of all three.
TED Talks
TED bills itself as “ideas worth spreading” and indeed they are. On this site you can see the incredible ingenuity of everyday people, and some who were once everyday people, until they thought up their idea and posted it. Including international choirs of thousands directed via the Internet, airplanes run on solar energy, tunnels transporting cars in zero gravity, light bulbs made of plastic bottles and bleach, TED Talks shows a plethora of fascinating projects you can use to spark up your writing.
EarthTechling
This online publication bills itself as “a clever mix of technologists and environmentalists.” They share the latest news on green buildings, transportation, energy, and green living. Some of their headlines read: Nissan Leaf Tops the Sales Charts in Europe, More Wind Power Equals Lower Electricity Prices, and Ocean Energy Gets a Crowdfunding Site of its Own. Even the US Navy gets its headlines with a new biofuel blend they’re using.
Renewable Technology
Although not as visually attractive as the other two, this website has lots of news about the latest renewables technologies. Here you discover that Lockheed has won a contract to build a wave energy project in Australia, that NRG Solar started operating their new solar power plant in California (delivering electricity to 140,000 homes) and that Siemens, with 7,500 wind turbines operating worldwide, is setting up a coordinating diagnostics center in Denmark.
While you may not want to just rephrase news from one of these sites, each site will carry enough of a different slant to give you a collection of facts you can use to write your own articles. If you’re able to add videos to your articles, TED Talks and YouTube videos both work well. And if you can add photographs, you can use Wikimedia Commons’ public domain photos.
With these tools at your disposal, plus the ones you already have, article writing on renewables topics should be easy and fun. Browse through them to see what you can use, and let the clients out there know you are available.
Susette H is an environmental writer with a strong interest in water and renewables technologies. Most of the articles she writes under her own name, if they’re not about writing, are about sustainability in some form. Whenever she sees such a job come up on Writer Access, she celebrates!
