May 30, 2010
Japan should focus on developing geothermal energy, according to a prominent US environmentalist, who says that the volcanic island-nation could become the global leader in the field.
Speaking on Wednesday Lester Brown, president of the US-based Earth Policy Institute, told a news conference. “Japan could make geothermal energy the centre of its new energy economy just as the US or China will make wind the centre of theirs,”
“There are no leaders in the world today in this field. There is no industrial country in the world that now has a well established geothermal industry” Brown said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.
Japan, located at the crossroads of four tectonic plates and on what is known as the “Pacific Ring of Fire” and dotted with volcanoes, is one of the world’s most quake-prone countries.
If Japan can launch full development of geothermal energy technology, “it would not only lower carbon emissions in Japan, but it would also give Japanese industry the potential for playing a leading role in developing the world’s geothermal energy resources.” he said.
Brown says demand for the technology will grow in other geothermal-rich countries located on tectonic faultlines such as Indonesia and the Philippines in Asia as well as Chile, Peru and Colombia in South America.
“This is an opportunity for Japan to move to the centre stage in an area where it is richly endowed,” he added.
Japan makes use of hot springs as a resource for tourism, but geothermal energy only accounts for 0.3 percent of its energy mix, and the country relies heavily on imports of oil and other resources.
Japan is currently world’s fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Wind is the number one source of new electricity-generation installations in both Europe and the U.S. and has been for the last year or two, according to green energy analysts.
“Wind is the one renewable energy source that, currently, is competing directly with coal and natural gas for electricity from new power installations.” says GreenTech Opportunies analyst Peter Cox.
Wind and natural gas combined accounted for about 80% of new capacity added to the U.S. electrical grid.
“Wind energy is now so cheap that residential customers in Germany and Texas are receiving rebates on their utility bills because such a large proportion of their power is coming from wind.”
In less than seven years, solar and wind power will be able to meet over a third of the electricity demand of a large Western area of the USA
According to a report by NREL, in 2017 solar and wind energy could meet in 2017, 35% of electricity demand in five states Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada
Moreover this can be achieved without any further investment in new infrastructure.
Specifically, wind turbines could satisfy 30% and solar power 5% of the demand, according to the report entitled Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, compiled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the leading research agency of the US Department of Energy.
According to the study, in order to achieve this result in such a short time, the investment already made in wind farm and solar infrastructure will be sufficient. Nevertheless, the latter must undergo a structural reorganization and, specifically, improved coordination on a great number of issues among the various energy companies and more frequent update of energy supply planning.
“Research shows that, with these key changes, wind and solar power could be incorporated onto the grid without a lot of backup generation. Coordinating operations between utilities on a large area decreases the effect of variability of wind and solar energy resources”, said Dr. Debra Lew, NREL project manager for the study.
Of this target is met it would result in lower carbon dioxide emissions of almost 50%.
Biomass power plants fuelled by organic matter such as food waste, wood chips and sewage could be more lucrative than wind farms says the accountancy firm KPMG in their annual renewable energy survey .
“Biomass looks set to be the ‘new wind’,” said Andy Cox, energy partner at KPMG who led the research. “Biomass plants have the potential to yield much higher returns than other renewable sources. A well-executed plant can deliver substantially greater economies of scale than wind. And the heat generated from incineration can supply neighbouring buildings, creating another revenue stream.”
The new UK government has recently announced an energy policy that places emphasis on technologies such as anaerobic digestion, which captures gas from decomposing food and human waste, and other biomass generation methods. Conspicuously absent was any specific mention of onshore wind farms.
This shift toward biomass mirrors a surge in interest from utilities and City investors, according. One major attraction of biomass power plants is the stability such projects give compared with wind, which is intermittent.
May 28, 2010
Wave Power is coming to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Independent Natural Resources, has received a permit to contstruct an offshore platform that will use wave power to desalinate water, off Freeport, Texas. The company says it’s the first to receive a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate a wave generator in the U.S.
The facility is expected to be operation later this year.
A picture of the planned offshore platform which would have underwater 18 pumps moving water through a water wheel to make electricity.
(Credit: Independent Natural Resources)
May 27, 2010
The US government is committed to supporting Indonesia in developing renewable energy resources by providing both technological expertise and competitive financing scheme, says a minister.
“We stand ready to partner and create win-win opportunities to help both Indonesian government and companies not only achieve their energy efficiency targets but also create jobs,” visiting US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke told journalists yesterday during his two-day visit to Jakarta.
“We are eager to do more businesses in Indonesia because it’s a place, a country that has the potential to be one of the world’s leading producers and users of clean energy,” he said.
He said that in the list of global pressing challenges, energy was certainly at the top because it would shape the fate of the planet, its economies and nations.
He said that by mid-century, global energy use would double, theoretically needing two new 1,000 MW power plants every week for the next 30 years to meet the increasing energy demand.
“The new energy generation has to be clean to avoid catastrophic climate change. It should also be affordable to keep our economy growing,” he said.
He said the Obama administration had done more in mitigate climate change by investing more in clean energy than any other US president in history.
“It has allocated US$30 billion in clean energy investment and established top new efficiency standards for automobile, appliances and customer electronics,” he said, while praising Indonesia’s efforts in developing clean energy.
Indonesia, he said, had set greatly desirous energy efficiency targets in terms of reducing its greenhouse gas emission by 26 percent by 2020, even 41 percent reduction with foreign assistance, and would double its renewable energy from the current 7 percent to 15 percent by 2025.
May 26, 2010
Google has invested $38.8 million in two North Dakota wind farms. This is the first direct investment by Google in utility-scale renewable energy generation.
Utilising one of the world’s richest wind resources – the winds of the North Dakota plains, the two wind farms produce 169.5 megawatts of power and can light up around 55,000 homes.
In an official statement Google says “Through this $38.8 million investment, we’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy — in a way that makes good business sense, too.”
Scientists have successfully coated paper with a solar cell.
The technology breakthrough was made by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The printed solar cells, which were showed at a press conference earlier this month are still in the research phase and are years from being commercialized.
However, the technique, in which paper is coated with organic semiconductor material using a process similar to an inkjet printer, is a promising way to lower the weight of solar panels. “If you could use a staple gun to install a solar panel, there could be a lot of value,” said one of the scientists involved.
May 24, 2010
Almost every item of data sent on the internet is stored in a server farm somewhere in the world. Demand for these data centres seems almost infinite.
An increasing number of data centres are being powered by green energy solar panels and wind farms but now one of the world’s biggest technology companies is working on plans to power its data centres using energy generated from cow manure.
Researchers at Hewlett-Packard (HP) want to build computer warehouses on dairy farms where they would be hooked up to power plants fuelled by waste.
Just one cow produces enough waste every day to power the televisions in three typical households. A large dairy farm, with about 10,000 cows, produces enough to run one of the firm’s typical data centres and meet the energy needs of the farmer, the HP scientists believe.
If it works, the scheme could potentially solve two of the world’s looming environmental problems at a stroke.
Cow manure has long been seen as a threat because of the methane gas it produces. Methane is about 20 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Global meat and dairy consumption is expected to soar in the next 10 years as countries such as China and India move towards a more western diet.
The amount of data stored online, meanwhile, is increasing and, to hold it, technology firms are building vast computer complexes that consume large quantities of power and generate heat. This heat can be piped away and used as an energy source.
Tom Christian, principal research scientist at HP, said: “The idea of using waste to generate energy has been around for centuries, with manure being used every day in remote villages to generate heat for cooking. The new idea that we are presenting in this research is to create a symbiotic relationship between farms and the IT ecosystem that can benefit the farm, the data centre and the environment.”
The HP plans were unveiled at a conference last week in Arizona. Initially, the research is focused on America, which has the biggest demand in the world for data centres as well as large-scale dairy farms.
HP believes a farmer who signed up to the scheme could earn as much as $2m (£1.4m) a year by selling waste-derived power to a data centre.
The world’s big technology firms are all working on plans to cut the environmental impact of their data centres.
