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Compressed nitrogenThe technology works by using specially designed hydraulic wind turbines to compress nitrogen into the existing gas or oil pipeline infrastructure. When electricity needs to be generated anywhere along the pipeline, the nitrogen gas is released and expands to turn a turbine that generates electricity.

A report launched today highlights critical challenges in the current ‘all-electric’ approach to decarbonisation of the UK energy system as this would increase our dependence on the electricity system to unprecedented levels. A system that makes greater use of cogeneration and district heating can however mitigate many of the more demanding aspects of the ‘all-electric’ approach. Used in combination with biomass and CCS technology for fossil fuels, cogeneration and district heating infrastructure have a key role to play up to 2050 and beyond. Find the full report  and the press release here.

The basic idea is that specially designed hydraulic wind turbines are used to compress nitrogen into existing gas or oil pipeline infrastructure, some of it unused throughout North America. Several hundred, even thousand, kilometres of pipeline could be filled with nitrogen and kept under pressure, in effect becoming a kind of massive nitrogen battery for wind. When electricity needs to be generated anywhere along the pipeline, the nitrogen gas is released and expands to turn a turbine that generates electricity. Wind, under this setup, suddenly becomes dispatchable and has baseload characteristics. Also, the pipeline eliminates the need for transmission lines.

AHAM lists the following six key features associated with smart appliances: Dynamic electricity pricing information is delivered to the user It can respond to utility signals Integrity of its operation is maintained while automatically adjusting its operation to respond to emergency power situations and help prevent brown or blackouts The consumer can override all previously programmed selections or instructions from the Smart Grid, while ensuring the appliance‘s safety functions remain active When connected through a Home Area Network and/or controlled via a Home Energy Management system, smart appliances allow for a total home energy usage approach. This enables the consumer to develop their own energy usage profile and use the data according to how it best benefits them It incorporates features to target renewable energy by allowing for the shifting of power usage to an optimal time for renewable energy generation, i.e., when the wind is blowing or sun is shining According to a research piece written by Zpryme, the smart appliance market is projected to grow from $3.06 billion in 2011 to $15.12 billion in 2015, with the U.S. accounting for 46.6 percent of that in 2011 and 36 percent in 2015. By contrast, China is expected to have an 11.6 percent share in 2011 and an 18.2 percent share in 2015. What's more, there are some strong drivers to smart appliance investment: Pricing: Bringing smart appliances to the mainstream means aligning ecological innovation with affordability Environment: With the build-out of metering and real-time pricing, consumers will see economic and environmental incentives for reducing power consumption first hand with their smart appliances Energy efficiency: When a consumer buys an appliance, they commit to paying both the first cost and the operating cost for the life of the product. And over the existence of the appliance, the energy cost to run it could be significantly greater than the initial cost Smart grid build-out: Smart appliance growth relies heavily on how quickly smart grid infrastructure can be rolled-out and readily accessible to communities Government subsidies: Like the Cash for Appliances program in the U.S., governments could and should play an active role in furthering the smart appliance agenda

Ocean Treader is a floating device. It will be tied up 1 – 2 miles offshore in ocean wave systems. It will not pose any obstruction on the shoreline. The theory has been put to test in wave tank. Now the company is producing a full size machine for offshore testing. Wave Treader has grown out of our work with Ocean Treader. Wave Treader uses its Sponsons and Arms and are mounted on the base of a static offshore structure. That structure can be a Wind Turbine or Tidal Turbine. By sharing the high infrastructure costs with another device, such as the foundation costs, cabling costs, etc., the economics of both devices are enhanced and the energy yield for a given sea area greatly improved.

Decarbonising transport is central to achieving Europe’s policy commitments on climate change. T ransport is expected to deliver a 60% greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target of the EU for 2050. Achieving these commitments is expected to require a complete decarbonisation of the passenger car fleet. The more ambitious COP21 commitment to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C will also likely demand a complete decarbonisation of transport by 2050.

Attaining a 100% ZEV fleet by 2050 will require all new car sales to be ZEV by 2035 (assuming a similar vehicle life-time as today) and a substantially faster introduction of ZEVs and PHEVs than current policy and likely 2025 policies will achieve .

Compared to the CO2 emission reductions targeted in the current EU plan, the transition to a 100% ZEV car fleet by 2050 will result in an additional reduction of the cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2020 and 2050 of 2.2 to 3.9 gigatonnes. The current EU White Paper for T ransport, targets to reduce the transport emissions by 60% compared to 1990.

Taking the holistic view, one can understand how some of the most basic conditions of life are threatened by a basic contradiction. Civilization, the quintessential expression of Enlightenment values that relies on ever-expanding energy, threatens to reduce humanity to barbarism if not extinction through exactly such energy production.

or every farmer or rancher who has leased his land for drilling, there are many homeowners living nearby who get nothing but the shitty end of the stick: pollution, noise and a loss of property value.

What gives the film its power is the attention paid to people like Stevens who organized petition drives and showed up at town council meetings to voice their opposition to fracking. They look like Tea Party activists or Walmart shoppers, mostly white and plain as a barn door, but they know that they do not want drilling in their townships and are willing to fight tooth and nail to prevent it. For all of the left’s dismay about its lack of power, the film’s closing credits reveal that there are 312 local anti-fracking groups in Pennsylvania made up of exactly such people who will likely be our allies as the environmental crisis deepens.

“I want us to be a world leader in offshore wind energy,” he said, announcing the national infrastructure plan