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Geothermal energy is in the dock in Germany, but some scientists are pleading for leniency. A government panel is investigating claims by the geological survey for the state of Rhineland-Palatinate that a geothermal plant triggered a magnitude-2.7 earthquake on 15 August in the town of Landau in the state. If the panel finds against the company that built the plant, Geo X of Landau, it could be shut down. Geothermal plants work by pumping water into hot rocks several kilometres down, forcing small cracks in the rock to expand. Steam escapes through the cracks to the surface, where it drives a turbine, producing clean energy. But critics say the process increases the risk of earthquakes. "Any process that injects pressurised water at depth into rocks will cause them to fracture and possibly trigger earthquakes," says Brian Baptie, an earthquake specialist at the British Geological Society.

Is the geothermal market about to boom? It is one of the more difficult renewables to harvest. It requires exploration to find good resources. It needs deep drilling which is complex. There is a risk for imcreased seismic activity which is unknown. But if all can be addressed, it offers baseload electricity. The only other renewable that does this is hydropower.

Very interesting presentation at the TED Conference.  Not quite a nuclear battery, but a really good redesign of nuclear power systems. excerpt: "Instead of finding a new way to boil water, Wilson's compact, molten salt reactor found a way to heat up gas. That is, really heat it up. Wilson's fission reactor operates at 600 to 700 degrees Celsius. And because the laws of thermodynamics say that high temperatures lead to high efficiencies, this reactor is 45 to 50 percent efficient. Traditional steam turbine systems are only 30 to 35 percent efficient because their reactors run at low temperatures of about 200 to 300 degrees Celsius. And Wilson's reactor isn't just hot, it's also powerful. Despite its small size, the reactor generates between 50 and 100 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 homes, according to Wilson. Another innovative component of Wilson's take on nuclear fission is its source of fuel. The molten salt reactor runs off of "down-blended weapons pits." In other words, all the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium collecting dust since the Cold War could be put to use for peaceful purposes. And unlike traditional nuclear power plants, Wilson's miniature power plants would be buried below ground, making them a boon for security advocates. According to Wilson, his reactor only needs to be refueled every 30 years, compared to the 18-month fuel cycle of most power plants. This means they can be sealed up underground for a long time, decreasing the risk of proliferation. Wilson's reactor is also less prone to proliferation because it doesn't operate at high pressure like today's pressurized-water reactors or use ceramic control rods, which release hydrogen when heated and lead to explosions during nuclear power plant accidents, like the one at Fukushima in 2011. In the event of an accident in one of Wilson's reactors, the fuel from the core would drain into a "sub-critical" setting- or tank-

Increasing the amount of wind energy contributed to the electricity grid will not require large numbers of conventional coal- and gas-fired power plants to be kept on standby, according to a technical report published today. The report, commissioned by environmental groups including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, found that the UK's grid could cope with the variable energy input generated from wind farms.

Italy, a growing market for renewable energy, is on the road to becoming the first country to achieve "grid parity" - the Holy Grail of solar power, where costs of producing photovoltaic energy finally fall below retail electricity prices.

The connector between France and Spain is supposed to be the easy part.

What [the survey] found was that while respondents expressed concern about their environmental impact, few were willing to smother those concerns with cash. And, in fact, the numbers willing to take a hit to their wallets or to their server performance in order to reduce their carbon footprints were actually lower this year than when the survey was first conducted in 2007.

Photovoltaics firm Signet Solar has inked what might be a first in the renewables industry (PDF): a 25-year insurance plan that covers the performance warranty of Signet's solar modules. Implemented by insurance provider Munich Re, the plan is designed to protect against the risk of performance deterioration in Signet's photovoltaics. Signet guarantees that its modules will perform to at least 90 per cent capacity in the first 10 years and to at least 80 per cent in the remaining 15 years.