Published on September 16th, 2008
Move over, T. Boone Pickens. You’re about to be overshadowed by Babcock and Brown.
Australian developer Babcock and Brown has announced that it is working on a 79.5 MW wind farm in the Texas Panhandle— but the company has much larger ambitions than a single farm. Majestic Wind Farm is only one part of a $1 billion effort company to build 567.5 MW of wind power throughout Texas, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. But there’s more.
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Published on September 13th, 2008
This is a guest post by Tom Schueneman, publisher of GlobalWarmingisReal.com
Cool Earth Solar says it’s technology will “reshape solar energy” - literally.
One of the more thorny issues with any form renewable energy is collecting it. There is plenty of wind to meet our energy needs, the trick is “harvesting” it. The same goes of solar. As Cool Earth Solar’s CEO Rob Lamkin says, “If you’re going to replace hydrocarbons with solar, you’re going to need a lot of collecting surface.”
Cool Earth Solar, based in Livermore, California addresses the need for “a lot of collecting surface”, claiming the ability to cheaply harvest solar energy not in terms of kilowatts or megawatts, but gigawatts of power.
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Published on September 11th, 2008
In addition to my efforts on Green Options publications like CleanTechnica, I also publish a blog titled Atomic Insights. On that blog, I have recently been engaged in a conversation with a reader named Gordon, who is a believer in the energy supply systems that Amory Lovins has been advocating for more than 35 years. I addressed this response to Gordon, but it is a more generally applicable response for anyone who wants to follow the non-nuclear “soft energy path”.
Gordon:
One thing you apparently do not understand about nuclear fission is that it can come in a variety of sizes. Not all plants are the extra large central station power plants that you are discussing.
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Published on September 10th, 2008
North Carolina State University has just been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to create the National Research Center for Future Renewable Energy Delivery Management Systems— in other words, the Internet for energy.
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Published on September 10th, 2008
In an attempt to continue using the large coal deposits bespeckling our planet, while still keeping greenhouse gas emission down, one of Europe’s biggest power companies has turned to Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS for short.
Vattenfall, a Swedish owned firm, will be using CCS at the site of the new “Schwarze Pumpe”, Black Pump, located in the Lausitz region in the State of Brandenburg. The pilot unit, which has a thermal capacity of 30 megawatts, has cost approximately Euro 70 million over the past 15 months.
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Published on September 9th, 2008
Say what you will about the United States government; at least the Department of Energy practices what it preaches. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman led the inauguration of a large solar power system at the top of the DOE’s Forrestal Building today— a gesture that both symbolically and practically shows the DOE’s commitment to solar.
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Published on September 8th, 2008
Sharp’s new solar-powered streetlight can do it all. Not only does the light operate for ten years without needing maintenance, but it also automatically turns on when it detects an earthquake.
The light use a high-intensity LED spotlight that has a service life of about 40,000 hours. It charges using built-in solar panels during the day, and shines automatically at night. Best of all, Sharp’s streetlight doesn’t create any light pollution—it’s illuminated with a directed light that doesn’t shine into the sky.
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Published on September 8th, 2008
One man’s quest to travel around the world in a car without using a drop of gas is coming to a close over a year after it began. Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer has been driving his three-wheeled Solartaxi since last July. So far, he’s logged 27,000 miles and 28 countries.
The $5,000 Solartaxi was built for Palmer by Q-Cells, a German solar company. Zebra Battery provided the adventurer with two 250-pound rechargeable batteries— each valued at $15,000. The batteries store energy from the solar panels, as well as energy from the electric outlets that Palmer plugs the vehicle into every evening.
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Published on September 8th, 2008
Renewable energy is expanding quickly these days. But it’s still a fact that these technologies rely on petroleum and petroleum products for transportation and production. Now that is starting to change. A solar panel producer called BioSolar has replaced a vital component of their silicon panels with a cheaper petroleum-free alternative.
Silicon panels require a protective backsheet to keep out moisture and protect the panel. Usually this backsheet is made from plastic, and practically all traditional plastics are petroleum-based. BioSolar’s backsheet is made from cotton rags and castor beans. They turn the cotton rags into a film of cellulose and blend in nylon made from the beans. The resulting cover lasts just as long or longer than the plastic blacksheet, and they keep out the moisture too. BioSolar also avoids genetically-modified crops.
The best part about it is the cost: up to 50% less than traditional plastic backsheets. As the price of petroleum and petroleum-products rise, this alternative starts to look more Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 4th, 2008
If you own a big-screen TV, you may have some inkling about the amount of energy that goes into powering it. And while LCD TV’s use significantly less energy than plasma screens, these power-suckers are still nothing to scoff at.
Fortunately, television manufacturers are beginning to realize that rising energy costs mean they have to address this problem. Sharp is presenting their environmentally-friendly way of watching TV at the IFA electronics show in Berlin. The company is also one of the biggest solar panel manufacturers in the world, and it believes that a single panel can provide enough energy to power an LCD TV for four and a half hours a day with no extra electricity from the grid.
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