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Hans De Keulenaer

a bit of discipline on tagging - 120 views

As I'm cleaning up tags, a few points in addition: - avoid meaningless tags. E.g. energy, as this is an energy group. Or green - what does that mean? - tags in plural please. We've started ...

Hans De Keulenaer

IRENA Director-General Statement on Oil Prices and Impact on the Renewable Energy Sector - 2 views

  • Oil plays a negligible role in power generation and therefore does not compete with renewables in this respect. Renewables have become the dominant source of new power generation capacity over the last six years because they are competitive at the bottom end of the conventional fossil fuel power generation cost range – primarily with coal.
  • Oil plays a much more important role in the transport sector, which accounts for half of total demand, and where without low-emission transport policies in place, an extended period of low oil prices, may impact the speed of electric vehicle adoption.
  • Conversely, oil price volatility may undermine the viability of unconventional oil and gas resources as well long-term contracts, providing a window of opportunity to reduce or redirect fossil fuel subsidies towards clean energy, while minimising the potential of social disruption.
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  • What is critical to understand, is that the long-term planning horizons involved, and the momentum that currently exists in the energy transformation, means neither low oil prices nor COVID-19 will interrupt or change our path towards decarbonisation of our societies and towards the achievement of the sustainable development goals.
Hans De Keulenaer

IEEE Spectrum: How Much Water Does It Take to Make Electricity? - 0 views

  • Remember when you were a kid and your parents made a big fuss about turning off the light when you left a room? Who knew that, besides adding to the monthly electric bill, keeping a single 60-watt lightbulb lit for 12 hours uses as much as 60 liters of water? According to researchers at the Virginia Water Resources Research Center, in Blacksburg, Va., fossil-fuel-fired thermoelectric power plants consume more than 500 billion L of fresh water per day in the United States alone.
Hans De Keulenaer

DOE Releases New Handbook for Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic Systems - 0 views

  • The guidebook explains current photovoltaic and solar thermal building practices and provides useful tips for builders and homebuyers.
Hans De Keulenaer

ecosalon :: the green gathering :: What Does That Bargain Really Cost What It Takes to Make 10 Everyday Items - 0 views

  • n aluminum can costs about a cent. Almost worthless, so it’s easy to toss it in the trash. It's like a magic trick, if you think about it. The thousands of stages in the manufacturing process, the material costs and the human stories, disappear into the air when we only have to spend a cent.   It’s how environmental catastrophes happen. We can’t see how unsustainable some products really are - because when they come in packs of 10 for a buck, who would be crazy enough to sell our planet off so cheaply? Separating price and value requires a shift in perspective. Things are often cheap because companies have figured out ways to externalize their true costs. Here's a look at what it really takes to make 10 everyday items we all use.
Arabica Robusta

ZCommunications | The Search for BP's Oil by Naomi Klein | ZNet Article - 1 views

  • Normally these academics would be fine without our fascination. They weren't looking for glory when they decided to study organisms most people either can't see or wish they hadn't. But when the Deepwater Horizon exploded in April 2010, our collective bias toward cute big creatures started to matter a great deal. That's because the instant the spill-cam was switched off and it became clear that there would be no immediate mass die-offs among dolphins and pelicans, at least not on the scale of theExxon Valdez spill deaths, most of us were pretty much on to the next telegenic disaster. (Chilean miners down a hole—and they've got video diaries? Tell us more!)
  • Mike Utsler, BP's Unified Area Commander, summed up its findings like this: "The beaches are safe, the water is safe, and the seafood is safe." Never mind that just four days earlier, more than 8,000 pounds of tar balls were collected on Florida's beaches—and that was an average day. Or that gulf residents and cleanup workers continue to report serious health problems that many scientists believe are linked to dispersant and crude oil exposure.
  • For the scientists aboard the WeatherBird II, the recasting of the Deepwater Horizon spill as a good-news story about a disaster averted has not been easy to watch. Over the past seven months, they, along with a small group of similarly focused oceanographers from other universities, have logged dozens of weeks at sea in cramped research vessels, carefully measuring and monitoring the spill's impact on the delicate and little-understood ecology of the deep ocean. And these veteran scientists have seen things that they describe as unprecedented. Among their most striking findings are graveyards of recently deceased coral, oiled crab larvae, evidence of bizarre sickness in the phytoplankton and bacterial communities, and a mysterious brown liquid coating large swaths of the ocean floor, snuffing out life underneath.
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  • All this uncertainty will work in BP's favor if the worst-case scenarios eventually do materialize. Indeed, concerns about a future collapse may go some way toward explaining why BP (with the help of Kenneth Feinberg's Gulf Coast Claims Facility) has been in a mad rush to settle out of court with fishermen, offering much-needed cash now in exchange for giving up the right to sue later. If a significant species of fish like bluefin does crash three or even ten years from now (bluefin live for fifteen to twenty years), the people who took these deals will have no legal recourse.
  • A week after Hollander returned from the cruise, Unified Area Command came out with its good news report on the state of the spill. Of thousands of water samples taken since August, the report stated, less than 1 percent met EPA definitions of toxicity. It also claimed that the deepwater sediment is largely free from BP's oil, except within about two miles of the wellhead. That certainly came as news to Hollander, who at that time was running tests of oiled sediment collected thirty nautical miles from the wellhead, in an area largely overlooked by the government scientists. Also, the government scientists measured only absolute concentrations of oil and dispersants in the water and sediment before declaring them healthy. The kinds of tests John Paul conducted on the toxicity of that water to microorganisms are simply absent.
  • Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, whose name is on the cover of the report, told me of the omission, "That really is a limitation under the Clean Water Act and my authorities as the federal on-scene coordinator." When it comes to oil, "it's my job to remove it"—not to assess its impact on the broader ecosystem. He pointed me to the NOAA-led National Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, which is gathering much more sensitive scientific data to help it put a dollar amount on the overall impact of the spill and seek damages from BP and other responsible parties.
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    Normally these academics would be fine without our fascination. They weren't looking for glory when they decided to study organisms most people either can't see or wish they hadn't. But when the Deepwater Horizon exploded in April 2010, our collective bias toward cute big creatures started to matter a great deal. That's because the instant the spill-cam was switched off and it became clear that there would be no immediate mass die-offs among dolphins and pelicans, at least not on the scale of theExxon Valdez spill deaths, most of us were pretty much on to the next telegenic disaster. (Chilean miners down a hole-and they've got video diaries? Tell us more!)
Jeff Johnson

New bug ferments green fuel on the cheap - 0 views

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    Genetically engineered bacteria could make cellulosic ethanol cheaper to manufacture, researchers report. The finding could unlock more energy from the waste products of farming and forestry. Ethanol from cellulose, the kind of sugar in cornstalks and sawdust, is being promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, with the advantage that it does not use food crops such as corn as raw materials.
Hans De Keulenaer

EIA - Press Releases - EIA Assesses Impact of Economic Growth, Oil Prices, and Future Policies on Projected Energy Trends - 0 views

  • Renewables are the fastest-growing source of world energy supply, but fossil fuels are still set to meet more than three-fourths of total energy needs in 2035 assuming current policies are unchanged
Hans De Keulenaer

EIA - Press Releases - EIA Assesses Impact of Economic Growth, Oil Prices, and Future Policies on Projected Energy Trends - 0 views

  • The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) today released the complete version of the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (AEO2010), which includes 38 sensitivity cases that show how different assumptions regarding market and policy drivers affect the Reference case projections that EIA previously released in December, 2009. In addition to considering alternative scenarios for oil prices, economic growth, and the uptake of more energy-efficient technologies, the AEO2010 includes cases that examine the impact of changes in selected policies, such as the extension of existing policies that are currently scheduled to sunset as well as the sensitivity of natural gas shale production to variations in drilling activity and the size of the resource base.
Hans De Keulenaer

Battery Could Provide a Cheap Way to Store Solar Power | THE GREEN ENERGY BLOG - 0 views

  • There’s a promising new entry in the race to build cheap batteries for storing energy from solar panels and wind turbines. Stanford researchers led by Yi Cui, a professor of materials science and engineering, have demonstrated a partially liquid battery made of inexpensive lithium and sulfur. Cui says the battery will be easy to make and will last for thousands of charging cycles. Cui believes that the material and manufacturing costs of the battery might be low enough to meet the Department of Energy’s goal of $100 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, which the DOE estimates will make the technology economically attractive to utilities. Existing batteries can cost hundreds of dollars per kilowatt-hour of capacity, although several companies are working to commercialize cheaper ones (see “Ambri’s Better Battery” and “Battery to Take On Diesel and Natural Gas”).
Hans De Keulenaer

FT.com / Special Reports - The case for investing in 'smart grids' - 0 views

  • Many politicians are supportive, not least Barack Obama, the US president, who in October promised $3.4bn in grants to pay for smart grid equipment.However, an investment on that scale does no more than lay the foundations: a full smart grid for the US will require an investment that is orders of magnitude greater. The commercial and regulatory framework to deliver that investment has not yet been developed.
  • The epithet “smart” can be applied to a wide range of network technologies. But among industry leaders, there is broad agreement about what a smart grid entails: the use of intelligent devices at all points in the electricity network, from the high-voltage transmission lines to appliances in the home, that can send information and receive instructions.
Hans De Keulenaer

Mining Hydrothermal Vents For Renewable Electricity, Drinking Water - 0 views

  • The Marshall Hydrothermal Recovery System would use the heat from hydrothermal vents 7,000 feet under the sea to make electricity. Its temperature is incredibly high, hot enough to melt lead, but it does not boil because of the intense pressures at the depths where the vents are located. Superheated fluid would be propelled up through a through a (well insulated!) pipe to an oil platform located on the surface above the vent. The superheated fluid is carried by means of flow velocity, convection, conduction, and flash steam pressure as it rises and the ambient pressure is decreased.
Colin Bennett

Smart metering the world: One size doesn't fit all - 0 views

  • Smart metering is a sexy topic in the energy world, with nearly all Western economies considering plans for large deployments.  It can be used in many different ways but normally there is more than one goal behind a smart metering deployment: In the US, smart metering was, for the most part, driven by the desire to reduce the costs associated with manual meter reading, to reduce peak load and to enhance security of supply. In Italy, one of the key drivers was tackling energy theft and the cost of managing meters. In Ontario, it was peak shaving and the move toward time-of-use pricing. But if smart meters have the potential to address a number of issues, that potential can only be realised by flexible system design and deployment, avoiding excessive rigidity. In this case, one size most certainly does not fit all. We fear that the UK’s current plans for a nationwide rollout of smart meters may well be taking us down the wrong path by imposing standard solutions on the wrong part of the system.
Colin Bennett

National Grid report says it can handle variable wind power - 0 views

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    The variability of renewable energy sources such as wind, often cited as the sector's Achilles' heel, does not have to be a problem, according to a new report from the National Grid.
Colin Bennett

A more efficient electrical generator, or something much more profound? - 0 views

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    In other words, Heins claims to have eliminated the magnetic friction and replaced it with magnetic acceleration. He calls this effect "regenerative acceleration," but those who are skeptical of his claims say that acceleration does not equate to power/torque/work and that Heins has failed to demonstrate there is such a link.
Colin Bennett

The Energy Blog: Big Business Says Addressing Climate Change 'Rates Very Low on Agenda' - 0 views

  • Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report's publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates. . . . more
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    Climate is a global and an outcome measure. No wonder 'business does not care', or better - gives it only lip service. But as for the multi-B$ carbon markets, that's a different story. The term 'shark pit' comes to mind.
Hans De Keulenaer

Is micro (home) generation of electricity good for the environment? - 0 views

  • What if I told you that often installing microgeneration equipment does not help the environment?
  • In times of oversupply from renewables, it would be far preferable to be ramping up consumption of energy using moveable loads, rather than shutting down production from renewables.
Hans De Keulenaer

Solar Planes, Trains and Automobiles | celsias° - 0 views

  • And that's not all. We reported recently on this site on the solar powered car making its way around the world. We also covered the concept of solar roads to capture usable energy. We even reported on a sail boat powered with a solar sail. Now the BBC reports   that the U.S. military has held a test run in Arizona of a UK-made solar plane, the Zephyr-6. The plane flew for more than three days, running at night on solar charged batteries. The more than 83 hour non-stop flight was the longest of any unmanned aircraft.
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    Does it make sense to solar power everything? It leads to many small, and relatively expensive installations. Wouldn't it be more effective to go for a battery & plug-in concept where possible. One would loose the inflight recharging of the solar airplane, but for everything else, the plug-in concept probably provides benefits.
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    In addition, the lifetime of cars, for example, is much lower than the one for solar panels. Why integrate both?
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    Yes, I agree that there is too much emphasis on the novel in attempt to solve climate change. Creating technology for the designer label market to sell goods to the rich who want to tell their friends they are green. The same investment in a solid developed renewable method could yield a hundred times the reduction of carbon or more...
Jeff Johnson

Paper Or Plastic? - Forbes.com - 0 views

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    In the past six months, flat-screen plasma televisions have accounted for nearly half of all TVs sold around the world. During the manufacturing process, plasma televisions release a gas called nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, which does approximately 17,000 times more environmental damage than carbon dioxide. But because NF3 was not widely used when the Kyoto protocol was created, it is not classified and controlled as a harmful gas--so even though we've tightened the belt and reduced some emissions, we've missed new ones that are making things far worse.
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