Weekly Cleantech News Roundup
Our weekly roundup of cleantech stories from around the web. To start you off, here’s a good one from The Onion (on a friend’s site): Big Coal Takes a Big Swing at Big Wind.
Energy Storage
World’s First Solar Power Plant that Works at Night Constructed
Gemasolar has completed the construction of the world’s first solar power plant capable of generating electricity all day and night. As significant as the “all night” feature sounds, keep in mind that the fact that solar power plants do not normally generate electricity at night is not actually their biggest reliability obstacle — the electricity generation interruption from clouds is more problematic (see more on that below). Luckily, this power plant design tackles both issues.
Cleantech Weekly Roundup
Here’s an extremely lengthy end-of-week roundup of cleantech stories. To make scrolling through your interests more manageable, I’m splitting it up into a few pages based on topic.
Page 1 –>> Solar Energy
Page 2 –>> Wind Energy
Page 3 –>> Energy Efficiency & Energy Storage
Page 4 –>> Transportation
Page 5 –>> Politics
Page 6 –>> Other Clean News & Commentary
Germany to Store Wind Power in Mountains
In an interesting marriage of clean and dirty tech, Deutsche Welle is reporting that the state government of Lower Saxony in Germany is looking into repurposing old abandoned coal mines inside the Harz mountains as pumped storage for wind power.
Electric Vehicle Owners to Get Cash Back for Selling Power to the Electric Grid in…
Denmark is going to be the first test market for Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, it was announced at Smart Grid Applied 2011 in Palo Alto, California yesterday. Electric Vehicle owners will be able sell back power from their EV batteries to the grid, with estimated compensation for EV owners of about $10,000 over the lifespan of the car.
Largest Flywheel Energy Storage System (FESS) Almost Up in Stephentown, New York
Beacon Power has constructed the largest power grid energy storage system in Stephentown, New York.
Cleantech Weekly Roundup
Some more great cleantech stories from the week that we haven’t yet covered. This week, I decided to just organize them by topic (note, of course, that some topics overlap — in such cases, I put a little note about which other categories each article could be filed under after titles for those of you only interested in a particular topic). Check out these other interesting cleantech stories …
Li-ion Batteries with Nearly Double the Usual Energy Density
Leyden Energy constructed a new type of lithium-ion battery that it claims has an energy density of 225 Wh/kg, nearly twice that of typical lithium-ion batteries, which is usually less than 120 Wh/kg.
End of Battery Nightmare for U.S. Soldiers
Disposable batteries have been called a “logistical nightmare” by the U.S. Army, and for good reason. With the increasing use of electronic gear, today’s foot soldier has to carry more batteries and the weight adds up. The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency has been actively seeking a solution in the form of portable fuel cells, and now students at the Stevens Institute of Technology are working on a
Cheaper Ultracapacitors for Electric Vehicles
Nanotune created supercapacitors which are comparable to lead acid batteries and they are even economically competitive with them due to their longer lifespan. As with any new technology, we will just have to wait and see where things go from here and hope that this technology becomes cheaper.
