Group items tagged

In this week's New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about the Danish isle of Samsø, which over the past 10 years, has gone from exclusively using fossil fuel energy sources, to living exclusively off renewable energy. Using a combination of onshore and offshore turbines, private mini-turbines, solar panels, straw-burning furnaces and biofuels, the 4,300-resident island has become a sort of a sandbox for green experimentation.

BERLIN (AFP) - The German government wants to build up to 30 offshore windfarms in a bid to meet its renewable energy targets, Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said in an interview published Sunday. Tiefensee told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that the windfarms would be built in the Baltic and North seas and said some 2,000 windmills should soon be producing 11,000 megawatts of electricity.

The target was greeted with wide skepticism, including from the Renewable Energy Foundation, which accused the government of "green exhibitionism".

But note that Nick Jenkins supported the idea on TV News without reservation! Note also that around 40% - 13GW - of this generation would be off the coast of Scotland. The interconnectors to England (where the demand is) are about 2.5 GW and already fully loaded. Nobody talks about the need for connection.

Clipper Windpower has announced that is has chosen Blyth, Northumberland in the United Kingdom as the site for the development of its new offshore wind turbines. Called the Britannia Project, the $65 million development program will develop a 7.5 MW wind turbine using Clipper's technology. North England's Centre of Excellence for New and Renewable Energy will provide engineering, testing and development services in support of the project.

A small team of engineers based in Cornwall, England, have made a breakthrough with the development of a turbine that they claim could solve the commercial viability of tidal power. Known as the Osprey turbine, the technology can be used to create electricity offshore at sea -- or in tidal rivers and inland waterways. The Osprey turbine is a vertical axis free flow device which produces power independently or as part of a larger system. Power output is expected to be from 1 kW up to 5 MW in a multiple system.

The three companies receiving government grants are: * Clipper Windpower: £4.4 million to develop its first prototype 70-metre blade for the Britannia project - the largest wind turbines in the world; * Artemis Intelligent Power: £1 million to transfer its existing technology from automotive to wind energy; and * Siemens Wind Power UK: £1.1 million to develop the next-generation power converters for its larger offshore turbine.

"Every continent on the planet is surrounded by a cleaner, safer, more efficient answer to our energy needs. The power in ocean waves. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is a leading renewable energy company specializing in cost-effective, advanced, and environmentally sound offshore wave power technology. The electrical power generated by OPT's technology is key to meeting the energy needs of utilities, independent power producers and the public sector. OPT's PowerBuoy® system extracts the natural energy in ocean waves, and is based on the integration of patented technologies in hydrodynamics, electronics, energy conversion and computer control systems. The PowerBuoy is a "smart" system capable of responding to differing wave conditions. The result is a leading edge, ocean-tested, proprietary system which generates reliable, clean, and environmentally-beneficial electricity."

"Facility Could Meet up to 75 Percent of Cape Cod and Islands' Electricity Demand CAMBRIDGE (April 28, 2010) - Leading environmental organizations hailed today's historic decision by Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar to provide federal approval for Cape Wind, allowing the country's first utility-scale offshore wind farm to move forward. The announcement signaled the Administration's intentions to support renewable energy development off U.S. shores, a major component of a clean energy economy and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, the organizations said. Today's announcement ends a nearly nine-year environmental review process, much longer than is typical for a traditional coal power plant. The decision clears the way for Cape Wind to begin the permitting process and develop a 130 turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound, which could meet as much as 75 percent of the electricity demand for Cape Cod and the Islands."

As part of the "Metropolitan Solutions" exhibition at the Hanover Fair, Siemens Energy will present four selected projects providing energy-efficient, ecofriendly power supply solutions for megacities.

Wave energy got a boost with the connection of the Oyster hydro-electric device to the electricity grid in Scotland last Friday.

What will happen when the gas runs out, when the deepest oil well of the Arabian peninsula finally runs dry, when the giant drills of the offshore platforms reach nothing but dry rock? Will we face a future of blackouts and electricity rationing, or will we find a way to avert the doomiest scenarios and continue living lives in which energy consumption is crucial to everything we do. Think of the electricity you use in a day. You are woken by the clock radio buzzing into life, and you turn the bathroom light on as you climb into your power shower. After dressing you head downstairs, where you turn on another radio, put some bread into the toaster and turn on the kettle, getting the milk from your fridge to put in your tea. After breakfast you head to work, where the lights are burning - and on go the computer and desktop fan.

Technology Review has an article on efforts to expand and modernise the European energy grid, easing the way for large scale renewables, particularly offshore -Europe Backs Supergrids. Last month, the European Commission (EC) called for construction of regional electric transmission connections across the North Sea, around the Baltic region, and around the Mediterranean Sea, to distribute solar and wind power to and across Europe. It's all part of a plan to boost renewable energy from 8.5 percent of European energy consumption to 20 percent by 2020--and even more thereafter. But the EC, the European Union's executive body, acknowledges that getting these so-called supergrids built will mean forging new agreements between European countries for transmission planning and investment--much as the United States needs more cooperation between states to, for example, move wind power from the Midwest to major cities. "The wind power which consumers demand cannot be delivered without new networks," the EC report says, and "there is little strategic planning" between nations to build the required connections.

Nearly 19,000 wind turbines cover Germany: dotted across the countryside, nudging to the edge of cities and whirring alongside motorways. They generate 5 percent of Germany's electricity -- more than in any other country in the world. But with the best plots already taken, there are now few spaces left where companies are allowed to build more.