Group items tagged

Feed-in Tariffs in 70 words or less: Government and power utility offers premium, long-term contracts to residential, commercial, and industrial citizens to generate power on-site. Rates are based on the cost of buying and installing various renewable energy systems, but only paid on actual power produced. Citizens purchase back grid power, as per usual, from utility at regular prices. Increase in cost is paid for with a small surcharge to all electricity ratepayers.

It is time to pay close attention to President Eisenhower's warning. In the past six months, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) has begun a major effort to define the future of energy supplies for the U.S. and for its military allies. If military brass reach their goal, the transportation fuel of the future will be based on coal. According to Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson, the USAF plan is to:

By changing the way that conventional silicon solar panels are made, Day4 Energy, a startup based in Burnaby, British Columbia, has found a way to cut the cost of solar power by 25 percent, says George Rubin, the company's president.

This is a DOE report on Europe's community based model for developing wind energy.

A company called Green Energy Capital Partners based in Philadelphia is planning to build what they term as the second largest solar energy plant in the nation, in the Carbon County. The $60 million, 100-megawatt solar energy plant will be built on 100 acres of land near the Green Acres Industrial Park in Nesquehoning. The solar energy plant is predicted to contain 40,000 solar panels on rotating mounts.

If electric vehicles aren't your thing, then you may be pleased to hear that at least one company is working on giving that tried and true internal combustion engine a major boost. Artemis, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based company, has developed a hydraulic hybrid transmission that could potentially double the mileage of most vehicles -- by accident, as it happens. The firm's original goal had been to simply reduce CO2 emissions on the highway by 30% (a goal it also achieved).

ON A ridge near Toledo in Castile-La Mancha stands a row of white windmills. Literary buffs, even if they have never been to Spain, will recognise them as the ferocious giants attacked by Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes's fictional 17th-century hero. These days, however, they are dwarfed by legions of modern wind turbines that grind out not flour but power, helping to make Spain one of the leading producers of wind-based electricity in Europe.

The next technology boom may well be based on alternative energy, says Geoffrey Carr (interviewed here). But which sort to back?

Perhaps it's not surprising that balmy Hawaii is home to a company that's pushing the envelope of solar thermal technology. Start-up Sopogy, based in Honolulu, has taken the basic design of large solar thermal power plants and shrunk it down so it can fit on a building's roof.

Textiles have been a fixture of architecture and design for their ability to define and modify a space. For Sheila Kennedy, textiles are just another material from which energy can be generated. The thin-film photovoltaic textiles are essentially solar panels created from organic photovoltaics. While not as efficient as the silicon based type, they are able to be molded and modified without any manufacturing process.

Sunrgi, a Hollywood-based start-up, came out of stealth mode this week claiming it can collect twice as much sunlight as other photovoltaic designs and convert it to electricity for 5 cents a kilowatt-hour, on par with fossil fuels.

A British company is poised to construct the world's first floating wind turbine, in a move that could herald a new generation of cheaper, less problematic wind energy. Blue H, a firm registered in the UK but based in Holland, aims to anchor its prototype device 12 miles off the coast of southern Italy later this month.

Christian Science Monitor has published a totally charming story about how Dr. Frank E. Fish was inspired to "bio-mimic" a fan blade design, upon viewing a Humpback Whale sculpture in a Boston MA gift shop. There are prospective efficiency gains from re-designed wind turbine blades, also, based on this "discovery".

Britain is trying to water down tough new European legislation to boost the uptake of renewable energy, despite a pledge by Gordon Brown last month to launch a "green revolution" based on clean technology. Documents obtained by the Guardian show the UK wants to block attempts to give renewable electricity sources such as wind farms priority access to the national grid. The European official who drafted the legislation accused Britain of "obstructing" EU efforts on renewables and said UK officials wanted to protect traditional energy suppliers and their coal, gas and nuclear power stations.

San Jose, California-based SunPower Corp. announced Thursday that it has clinched a deal with Florida Power and Light for the development of a 35 megawatt solar power system in Florida, the largest in the United States, according to reports. The project involves the construction of two solar power generation facilities, a 25 megawatt plant in DeSoto County in 2009, and a 10 megawatt plant at Kennedy Space Center in 2010.

The UK government's renewables consultation called for a green revolution in energy. In doing so, it created a perfect tabloid rod for its own back. The proposed cost-to-consumer calculated by the Department of Business were based on the vanishingly unlikely prospect of an oil price as low as $70 a barrel in 2020. Expected additions to UK energy bills, at that oil price, would be 10-13% for electricity and 18-37% for gas, the government said.

What aims to be the greenest building in Europe has just been un-earthed and is expected to be complete at the end of next year. And using the snafus of the greenest building of 20 years ago, they may well have all the bases covered regarding efficiency and environmentalism.

Energy Future: Think Efficiency differs from other energy efficiency reports in its emphasis on scientific and technological options and analysis. Developed by a panel of leading experts in energy policy with backgrounds in physics, engineering, economics, and policy, Energy Future: Think Efficiency examines what works, what can work soon, and what is feasible for the future. Based on emerging technologies, this report targets which research and development gives America the best return for its dollars.

Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick structure called "graphene" as a new carbon-based material for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices, perhaps paving the way for the massive installation of renewable energies such as wind and solar power. The researchers believe their breakthrough shows promise that graphene (a form of carbon) could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors, which are manufactured using an entirely different form of carbon. "Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power," says Rod Ruoff, a mechanical engineering professor and a physical chemist. "There are reasons to think that the ability to store electrical charge can be about double that of current commercially used materials. We are working to see if that prediction will be borne out in the laboratory."

The solar power installation at Applied Materials' headquarters is further evidence that companies looking to go green should think blacktop. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of gear for making high-tech products announced Friday that it has completed the installation a pair of solar power systems that together can produce 2.1 megawatts of energy--which qualifies it, the company says, as the "largest solar power deployment at a corporate facility in the United States."