December 2010 - CleanTechnica

More Incentives for Thermal Energy Storage for Night Time Wind

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

Yet another city is offering incentives to homeowners to use thermal energy storage for night time wind power. As the percentage of wind power on the grid increases we may see more incentives to help store the excess with this kind of simple distributed energy storage. Now the city of Summerside on Canada’s Prince Edward Island is asking homeowners to buy a special heating unit to help them store excess night time wind energy the … Read More

NASA Takes a Look at the Jet Stream to Get 50 Times More Wind Power

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore is using a $100,000 federal grant to research what it will take to create a jet stream-based wind industry 30,000 feet above the ground. The reason the US government is interested in developing the jet stream is that up there, winds blow consistently at 150 miles per hour, so futuristic satellite-based wind turbines or kite-type turbines such as those from Kitegen and Magenn flying at that altitude have the potential … Read More

New Floating Wind Turbine Harvests Energy from on High

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Tina Casey

Magenn Power develops new floating wind turbine

Think of highly portable wind turbines that can adjust their height to take advantage of the best winds, and you’ve got the next generation of airborne wind energy devices. A 100-kW model from Magenn Power, Inc. is about to go on the market, so let’s dig a little deeper into the idea of harvesting energy through a kite string. Airborne Wind Energy The basic principle is simple: instead of anchoring a wind turbine to the … Read More

Ghana Clean Energy Development Project

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Guest Contributor

I normally don’t post project descriptions and requests for investment on here, but I’m making a special exception for this project. It is for a district solid and liquid waste-to-energy facility in the the Central Region of Ghana. We’re big fans of waste-to-energy projects, of course. And the following project seemed like something worth sharing. PROJECT OBJECTIVE: The objective of the project is to establish an inter-district scale waste-to-energy facility at Edina Essaman in the … Read More

Geothermal Energy Gathers Steam in India

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Mridul Chadha

Geothermal energy is getting popular among the Indian energy companies and government policymakers. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had commissioned a research, development and demonstration program involving geothermal energy. The program aimed at locating the potential geothermal energy exploration sites in several states across the country. The program covered states like Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Many of these states have confirmed the identification of geothermal potential sites. Some … Read More

Cleantech Link Drop

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

As I did in the middle of the month, sharing some stories with you that I never had the opportunity to get to but think you might like to check out. Hope you enjoy them… Clean Transport Can Streetcars Save America’s Cities? In a down economy, pursuing the American dream can be challenging, but restaurant owner Todd Steele was willing to take a chance. For nearly 20 years, Steele worked all levels of the restaurant … Read More

Iberdrola Opens First US Co-Generation Biomass Plant in Oregon

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

Iberdrola Renovables has begun to build its first US forestry biomass co-generation power plant in the United States, in Oregon, in response to new renewable energy standards requiring Oregon utilities get 25% renewable energy by 2025. Its 27 MW Lakeview co-generation plant will be producing energy from forest waste, a renewable resource in Oregon, by the end of 2012, according to a report at Ordons Energy. As a co-generation plant it essentially doubles its output, … Read More

Indian State of Gujarat Unveils Plan to Build $2.3 Billion Solar Park

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

I know, Mridul normally covers our India stories, but I like to cover one from time to time myself as well. Gujarat, an Indian state, announced plans earlier today to invest over 105 billion rupees ($2.3 billion) in a 500-MW solar park. No small news. “The proposed park will be located on 2,000 hectares of land at Charanka village and will be connected to the grid by the state-owned electricity utility,” Tom Young of Business … Read More

Look at a Picture, Make a Windmill [VIDEOS]