Clean Energy Transition

Having built a swimming pool for his children in his backyard, Matt Burdick of Chandler, Arizona planned to heat it in winter with solar hot water panels. It would be an environmentally responsible and economical way to heat a non-essential part of his home, he thought. But the $5,000 panels had not been in place on his roof for long before he received an official letter ordering their removal. Not from the State of Arizona, the local police department or the Chandler Planning Department, but from the Homeowners' Association of which he was a dues-paying member.

Kilowatt Ours is a great 40 minute documentary that helps draw lines between our energy use, their original source and consequences. It’s well worth a watch.

Nokia Siemens Networks says that the energy consumption of a base station site can be reduced by up to 70 percent with its Energy Efficiency solution.

Can one write something new about the latest synthesis report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Not really

Not only is it just repeating what was in the three earlier reports this year (although maybe with a bit more political courage), but what it confirms is already known for years (although some still need convincing because they have so much to lose):

o the politicians have finished arguing over the use of "very likely" versus "likely" and the final IPCC report is out

But for me the most exciting thing is that we can do something about it

The future may be bright for hybrids, but it would have to be a very distant future, judging by the evolution of the car to date, and by the deeply ingrained tendencies of British drivers.

Six of 11 autonomous vehicles finish 90-kilometer course with no major accidents

In the majority (more than 90%) of newly-installed wind turbines in the world, generation is from a doubly-fed slip-ring induction generator (DFIG). There are drawbacks to the use of slip-ring generators, particularly the additional cost and bulk of a machine which incorporates slip-rings and the need to maintain brush-gears including replacement of the brushes on a regular basis.

"This process produces 288 percent more energy in hydrogen than the electrical energy that is added to the process," says Logan.

Water hydrolysis, a standard method for producing hydrogen, is only 50 to 70 percent efficient. Even if the microbial electrolysis cell process is set up to bleed off some of the hydrogen to produce the added energy boost needed to sustain hydrogen production, the process still creates 144 percent more available energy than the electrical energy used to produce it.

According to the North American Reliability Corporation's 2007 Long-term Reliability Assessment of the North American Grid released last month, transmission capacity continues to lag behind demand and will need to increase by more than 10% over the next 10 years to meet the needs of the U.S. electricity markets, especially as more states integrate renewables into their energy portfolios. The report also recognizes the imminent need to develop reliable storage capacity to better manage demand.