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AMSTERDAM — Denmark earns the biggest share of its national revenue from producing windmills and other clean technologies, and the United States is rapidly expanding its clean-technology sector. But no country can match China’s pace of growth, according to a new report.
China’s production of green technologies has grown a remarkable 77 per cent a year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. The report was expected to be released Monday at an industry conference in Amsterdam.
“The Chinese have made, on the political level, a conscious decision to capture this market and to develop this market aggressively,” said Donald Pols, an economist with the organization.
Denmark, a longtime leader in wind energy, derives 3.1 percent of its gross domestic product from renewable energy technology and energy efficiency, the report said, with a total value of about €6.5 billion, or $9.4 billion.
China is the largest producer in monetary terms, earning more than €44 billion, or 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product.
The United States ranks 17 in the production of clean technologies with 0.3 percent of G.D.P., or €31.5 billion, but those industries have been expanding at a rate of 28 percent per year since 2008.
“The U.S. is growing substantially,” Mr. Pols said, but its growth could not compare with that of China.
“When you speak to the Chinese, climate change is not an ideological issue. It’s just a fact of life. While we debate climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy, the debate is past in China,” Mr. Pols said. “For them it’s implementation. It’s a growth sector, and they want to capture this sector.”
The report was prepared by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, a global firm based in Germany. It gathered data on 38 countries from energy associations, bank and brokerage reports, investor presentations, the International Energy Agency and a score of other sources.
It measured the earnings from producing renewables like biofuels, wind turbines and thermal equipment, and energy efficiency technology like low-energy lighting and insulation.
“Clean technologies are really growing fast, but China is responsible for the majority of that growth,” said Ward van den Berg, who compiled and analyzed the data for the consulting firm.
Until recently, Chinese production of solar cells was aimed at the export market, but the Chinese are now making solar systems for the home market, as they have been doing for several years in wind energy, Mr. Van den Berg said.
Following Denmark and China, other countries among the top five clean-technology producers, in terms of percentage of G.D.P., are Germany, Brazil and Lithuania, the report said.AMSTERDAM — Denmark earns the biggest share of its national revenue from... more
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Peak oil, biodiversity loss, peak water, pollution, illness, diseases and an industrial agricultural system broken due to reliance on fossil fuels that threaten our ability to maintain ours and other species. All reasons along with the intensification of the effects of CO2 and greenhouse gas forcings upon the Earth's natural cycles to work towards a clean energy economy. It matters not your politics, your beliefs or your religion, the need to switch to other energy sources due to overconsumption and waste is now essential. This documentary shows us how to get there. And we need to get there fast.Peak oil, biodiversity loss, peak water, pollution, illness, diseases and an... more
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Northern Maine Community College says its graduating class includes the first associate degree wind power technology students trained in New England.
A record 274 students will also take part in another first. Due to growing enrollment, the May 14 commencement ceremony will be held off campus, at the Forum in Presque Isle, for the first time in more than a generation.
Fourteen community college students will become the first to earn an associate degree in wind power technology from a higher education institution in Maine. Program instructor Wayne Kilcollins says companies involved in wind and other alternative energy industries have been recruiting graduates for employment.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/04/maine-school-graduate-wind-power-majors#ixzz1Klc8LNi5
http://www.nrcm.org/mars_hill.aspNorthern Maine Community College says its graduating class includes the first... more
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I took this video to show that there are good things going on in local communities and states regarding alternate energy, particularly solar. This is the Solar 4 All initiative taking place in Nj that is placing solar panels on light (utility) poles throughout 300 municipalities that bring energy straight through the grid to over 12,000 homes and businesses. The panels can be seen in both business and residential areas and are placed in a way to get the most benefit from the sun, while saving money and helping to decrease carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. The equivalent of taking 3,800 cars off the road a year will be the benefit of these panels.
This is what can be accomplished even in a small way when municipalities, cities and states work to do the right thing for our environment. What is ironic, is that while walking up the main street after shooting this I noticed one right across the street from the BP station. So I couldn't help myself, and I walked over to the BP station and said as loud as I could, "solar panels didn't kill the Gulf." And at four dollars a gallon to a cost of .10 a month per customer to have these solar panels put up, it's pretty clear what direction we need to be going in.
This is the future. It's time to embrace it for the good of our planet and our lives.
Thanks,
JanI took this video to show that there are good things going on in local communities and... more
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"Today, the event culminates in real action -- thousands of those activists are now taking to the streets to confront Congress and the White House on climate inaction. They're also stopping at the US Chamber of Commerce -- the nation's biggest anti-climate lobbying force -- and BP headquarters to call out the oil giant for filing a multibillion dollar tax refund on its spill cleanup expenses. Check out some amazing pics from the front lines of the march:
Amazing photos of the event are streaming in from activists using Twitpic, and these are just a few. Follow the #powershift on Twitter for more.""Today, the event culminates in real action -- thousands of those activists are... more
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Here is a roundup of the latest news in renewable power installations and contracts:
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Here is a roundup of the latest news in renewable power installations and contracts:
Ikea has started operating a 290 kW solar energy system at its Burbank, Calif., store. The 35,000 square foot array has about 1,260 panels and is expected to produce 421,300 kWh of electricity a year. That should help IKEA reduce carbon dioxide by at least 334 tons – equaling the emissions of 58 cars a year.
Google will invest $168 million in equity in the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (pictured), a gargantuan 370 MW project being planned for southeast California. Developer BrightSource Energy said it has also finalized $1.6 billion in loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the project, which is due online in 2013.
BrightSource Energy estimates that the plant will power 140,000 homes, although the DOE puts that number at 85,000, Cnet reports. The power generated will be sold to California utilities Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.
Another massive solar plant, the 250 MW California Valley Solar Ranch, has just received a $1.187 billion conditional loan guarantee commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy. The plant in San Luis Obispo County is expected to power about 100,000 homes and will be one of the largest photovoltaic power plants in the world when complete.
SunPower Corporation is leading the development, and NRG Energy will assume ownership after completion, which is due in 2013.
Oceanic Time Warner Cable has completed an 856 kW solar canopy system at its Mililani Tech Park facility in Hawaii, in a partnership with Chevron Energy Solutions and Tioga Energy. Tioga will own and operate the installation under a 20-year power purchase agreement, and will sell the electricity back to Oceanic Time Warner at rates below those of the local utility.
Retirement home builder Del Webb is including a roof-integrated solar power system by SunPower Corporation at two new communities in the Phoenix area. The developments will offer about 11,200 homes, whose other environmental features will include high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, CFLs, enhanced attic insulation, tankless water heaters and low water use toilets and fixtures.
Refrigerated pasta company Pasta Prima has announced that it is now using 100 percent renewable energy. Last year, the company invested over $2 million in a rooftop solar array that is expected to produce 70 percent of the power for its Benicia, Calif., manufacturing plant. The remainder of the company’s power is now offset with Green-e certified renewable energy credits, and comes from wind power, Pasta Prima said.
A football stadium being built at the University of North Texas will be the first new collegiate venue with onsite wind power, according to designers HKS Sports & Entertainment Group. The 30,000-seat venue has secured a $2 million grant from the state Energy Conservation Office for the installation of three turbines, and is seeking LEED Gold or Platinum certification. It is due to open in September.
Finally, Oregon State University has won LEED Platinum certification for its new 6.5 MW cogeneration power plant, which combines heating and electricity generation. The facility generates nearly half of the university’s electrical needs and is the first LEED Platinum power plant in the country, Sustainable Business reports.
The plant runs on natural gas, but can also run on biodiesel and methane. It is expected to lower the university’s energy costs by about $650,000 a year.Here is a roundup of the latest news in renewable power installations and contracts:... more
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In 2008, Courtney Hight fell in love with Barack Obama’s message of hope and change, especially his stalwart support of renewable and alternative energy. She worked long hours as the youth vote director for his campaign in Florida.
But lately the young activist has started to feel that President Obama isn’t quite the man she fell for. During his energy security speech at Georgetown University in March, when he said oil drilling and clean coal would help power America’s energy future, Hight said she accepted what friends told her for weeks: Obama changed.
On Friday, Hight and 10,000 other young clean-energy advocates will open the third Power Shift conference at the Washington Convention Center in the District. The three-day climate summit takes place every other year.
But instead of endorsing the president’s energy policy, as in 2009, they plan to lambaste it, saying that Obama is siding with what they consider to be the dark side — big oil and coal-fired power plants. Organizers are planning a demonstration Monday with 5,000 participants outside the White House.
“When I looked at that energy security speech, it seemed like something BP wrote,” said Hight, 31, of Scottsdale, Ariz., who is co-director of Power Shift 2011. “We want to make sure the president is seeing that we’re done with this. We need them to draw a line in the sand. We need him to stand up to the polluters.”
Considering the political environment in Washington, where congressional Republicans are fighting Obama’s every step, some say Power Shift’s demands are unrealistic.
And Obama’s energy security speech wasn’t devoid of messages that Power Shift’s organizers favor. He said he wanted to cut America’s oil dependence by a third in the next decade, put a million more electric vehicles on the roads by 2015 and help Americans upgrade their homes and businesses with energy-efficient building materials that could save them tens of billions of dollars a year.
But when Obama said his administration has approved 39 new shallow-water drilling permits and an additional seven deepwater permits in recent weeks, following the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico, it was akin to dragging his fingernails across a blackboard for his base of young environmental voters.
cont.In 2008, Courtney Hight fell in love with Barack Obama’s message of hope and... more
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In Canada's tar sands, giant oil corporations are turning huge tracts of pristine forest into a wasteland of open pit mines, smoke stacks and toxic lagoons. This pollution is causing cancer hot spots in indigenous communities downstream.
Now Big Oil wants to double imports of toxic tar sands oil into U.S. by building a new pipeline called the Keystone XL. This pipeline would endanger the health of communities and ecosystems all along its path from Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas.
President Obama has the final say. Please join us in calling on him to reject the Keystone XL pipeline and focus on clean, safe energy alternatives.In Canada's tar sands, giant oil corporations are turning huge tracts of pristine... more
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It stretches 260km under the North Sea, contains 23,000 tonnes of copper and lead, and may represent the first step towards a renewable energy revolution based on a European electricity "supergrid". The £500m BritNed cable, which has just entered operation, is the first direct current electricity link from the UK to another country in 25 years.
The high voltage DC (HVDC) cable, a joint venture between the UK National Grid and the Dutch grid operator TenneT, has a capacity of 1,000MW, the equivalent of a nuclear power station. It runs from the Isle of Grain in Kent to Maasvlakte, near Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
HVDC cables allow electricity to be transmitted over much greater distances than existing alternating current lines, which start losing power after 80km. A network of HVDC cables across Europe is seen as the key to "weather-proofing" the large scale use of renewable energy, some forms of which are intermittent and have to be balanced in real time with generation elsewhere.
"Our investment in this interconnector means that we are joining a much wider European electricity market," said Nick Winser, executive director of National Grid. "This ability we now have to move power across national borders means we can use the full potential of renewable energy from wind – making it easier to import when wind is not available and export when there is a surplus." In the short term, linking the UK and European grids boosts the UK's energy security and helps stabilise wholesale energy prices.
Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: "Renewables win as it means surplus wind power can be easily shared [and] consumers win as a single European market puts pressure on prices."
"This is a major step," said Louise Hutchins, head of UK energy campaigns at Greenpeace. "It sends a signal to renewable manufacturers that we're a step closer to unlocking the potential of one the world's main renewable power houses – the North Sea."
BritNed auctions the cable's transmission capacity on the open market and all 1,000MW was bought from the first hour of operation on 31 March. Since the start, electricity has flowed from the Netherlands to the UK most of the time. The project took about five years to complete and will be officially opened on 12 May.
The idea of a European supergrid gained momentum in December with the signing of an agreement by all 10 nations bordering the North Sea to, for example, co-ordinate the deployment of new HVDC cables. The North Sea offshore grid initiative, backed by the UK prime minister, David Cameron, aims to link renewable energy generation across the North Sea, including wind power from the UK, solar power in Germany and hydropower in Scandinavia, maximising the use of renewable energy.
Wilfried Breuer, head of power transmission solutions at Siemens, which manufactured and built the AC-DC conversion stations at each end of the BritNed powerline, said: "The supergrid will be built, but gradually. It's not one investment like a highway. It will develop over 10-15 years, leg by leg."
In the UK, the biggest driving force for new HVDC lines will be the 30GW of offshore windpower capacity planned for deployment before 2020. By comparison, the current total UK capacity from coal, gas, nuclear and other sources is 85GW. "HVDC lines are a commercially driven market. Excess wind power is an asset and you want to be able to sell that," said Breuer.
Another 10GW of HVDC lines are planned by 2020 including links from the UK to Norway, Belgium and France. The latter is the only nation with an existing HVDC link to the UK, a 2,000MW cable that has been in operation for 25 years. In 2001, a 500MW HVDC link crossed the Irish sea between Scotland and Northern Ireland. The HVDC line most likely to open next is within the UK, running south under the sea from near Glasgow to Liverpool. Scotland has the best wind power resource in Europe, according to trade body RenewableUK.It stretches 260km under the North Sea, contains 23,000 tonnes of copper and lead, and... more
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An artificial leaf that can turn sunshine into electricity was showcased last week at a chemistry meeting.
Its inventors hope they have overcome a key obstacle to making a cheap technology that could provide the poor with energy using just sunshine and water as inputs.
Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, told a meeting that he has built a silicon 'leaf' that is about the size and shape of a playing card. It is coated on both sides with catalysts and needs to be immersed in water to work.
When the silicon absorbs the sunlight, it passes the energy to the catalysts which split the water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The resulting hydrogen molecules can be collected and either burned directly or converted to electricity via a fuel cell. In either case the byproduct is water, so the leaf has the potential to create a cheap, clean and readily available source of fuel.
"You literally walk outside, hold it up and it works," said Nocera, who presented his unpublished work at the biannual meeting of the American Chemical Society.
"It's spectacular", Robert Grubbs, a chemist at the California Institute of Technology, told Science.
Nocera, who is also a founder of a spinoff company, Sun Catalytix, said that he hopes to commercialise the technology within 2–3 years.
He is also joining forces with Ratan Tata, chair of Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate, in the hope of producing a refrigerator-sized power plant that can convert sunlight and water into electricity.An artificial leaf that can turn sunshine into electricity was showcased last week at... more
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Why settle for one form of renewable energy when you can produce power with two? That’s exactly what scientists from the University of Liverpool have done by upgrading an everyday wind turbine with a new set of spinning solar blades. The team, led by Dr. Joe King, came up with the innovative solution to stymie critics who say wind turbines are “only useful when the wind is blowing” — their design doubles the functionality of traditional turbines by incorporating photovoltaic technology.
Read more: Scientists Develop Solar-Powered Wind Turbine for Ultimate Energy Generation | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
http://inhabitat.com/scientists-develop-solar-powered-wind-turbine/Why settle for one form of renewable energy when you can produce power with two?... more
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Greece and Cyprus say the move is a gamble that could cause catastrophe and want the European Union to scrutinize the EU candidate’s plan in a debate fraught with political and historical baggage. Turkish officials insist the plant is safe and necessary to keep the country’s strong economy going.
The EU is reassessing the whole 27-nation bloc’s energy policy and questioning the role of nuclear power on a continent where no one can forget that Ukraine’s 1986 Chernobyl disaster spewed radiation for thousands of miles (kilometers).
But Turkey is standing firmly by plans to build three nuclear power plants in the years ahead — including one at Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast, close to the Ecemis Fault, which an expert says could possibly generate a magnitude-7 quake.
Greece is staunchly opposed to the plant — calling out its historic rival at an EU summit at which the bloc agreed to checks on its 143 reactors.
“Nuclear power for us is not an option because we are in a highly seismically active region,” Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said in Brussels last week. “The EU will ask for stress tests to be carried out at existing and planned facilities in neighboring countries — and we stressed the fact that Turkey is planning to build a nuclear site at Akkuyu.”
France has several plants not far from the Mediterranean, Turkey’s neighbors Armenia and Bulgaria already have them, and several countries around the sea have announced ambitions to build ones. Turkey’s plan, however, is drawing particular attention because of its temblors.
Akkuyu is 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the island of Cyprus, which has been divided between ethnic Greeks and Turks since 1974, when Turkey invaded. Turkey says the 1,200-megawatt Russian pressurized water reactor, the VVER-1200 — a new model yet to be operated anywhere in the world — will be quake-proof and meets the highest nuclear safety standards.
Turkey has already signed a deal with Russia’s Rosatom agency for the plant’s construction, which has yet to begin, and hopes the completed facility will start producing electricity in seven years.
“We are in an effort to realize everything in a plan with all security measures,” Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan said. “Turkey is becoming more powerful in industry and technology day by day. It is obvious that it will be in great need of power.”
Erdogan has repeatedly downplayed risks at nuclear power plants since a magnitude-9 quake off Japan’s northeastern coast triggered a March 11 tsunami that crippled the cooling systems of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The plant has been spewing radioactivity ever since and officials admitted Saturday that highly radioactive water was leaking into the sea.
Erdogan says all investments have risks. “In that case, let’s not bring gas canisters to our homes, let’s not install natural gas, let’s not stream crude oil through our country,” he said a few days after the Fukushima accident.
“I wonder whether those who oppose nuclear energy do not use computers or watch television because of the radiation risk?” he added.
So far no country has reached a conclusion on the safety requirements for nuclear plants following the Fukushima accident, according to Mujid S. Kazimi, director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“But the lesson from Fukushima is not only to withstand strong earthquakes, but also to prevent loss of electric power systems needed for decay heat removal,” Kazimi said in an email. “What is more important is to ensure that the complete loss of electric power will be avoided under the most severe expected external events.”
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cont.
It's all about greed.Greece and Cyprus say the move is a gamble that could cause catastrophe and want the... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
President Obama made an energy speech this week that had little new to offer, while on Capitol Hill, Republicans were pushing to relieve the government of its last options to limit carbon emissions. In the House Republicans have passed a bill that would keep the EPA from regulating carbon, and in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly pushed back a vote on the same issue.
But as Eartha Jane Melzer reports at The Michigan Messenger, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has become the latest senator to propose taking away the EPA’s authority over greenhouse gasses this week. If the Senate decides it wants to pursue this policy, it will have plenty of options to choose from.
Conflicting news leaked out about how strongly the Obama administration was willing to stand up for the EPA’s right (granted by the Supreme Court) to treat carbon as a pollutant under the Clear Air Act. Grist’s Glenn Hurowitz noted an Associated Press story with a comment indicating that the White House was telling Congress they’d have to compromise on this issue. But on Thursday the White House reassured progressive bloggers that it was opposed to any amendments to funding bills that furthered “unrelated policy agendas.”
The energy speech
The energy speech that President Obama delivered at Georgetown this week, however, did not do much to reassure climate activists that the administration will put forward a strong vision on these issues. The president talked about decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and set a goal of having 80% of the country’s electricity come from clean energy sources by 2035.
But as David Roberts at Grist writes, Obama skirted some of the trickiest issues. “The core truth is that for the U.S., oil problems mostly have to do with supply and oil solutions mostly have to do with demand,” he says. “America becomes safer from oil by using less. From the Democratic establishment, only retiring Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is telling the public that truth.”
Is clean energy green energy?
President Obama is right that the country has room to pursue more clean energy opportunities. As Public News Service’s Mary Kuhlman reports, America is behind in the clean energy race. The Pew Environment Group just released a report that, according to Kuhlman, “finds the United States as a whole is falling behind in the global clean-energy race….The U.S. maintained the top spot until 2008, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, but fell in 2010 to third behind China and Germany.”
But as I point out at TAPPED, when politicians use the words “clean energy,” they’re generally talking about mid-point solutions like natural gas and nuclear energy. President Obama’s proposed standard does not necessarily support renewable energy — wind and solar projects that are truly sustainable.
The alternatives
And as Gavin Aronsen writes at Mother Jones, renewable energy projects need more support. “The near-term future of solar power in the US will also depend on whether President Obama’s stimulus money keeps flowing,” he explains. “For now, energy companies have until the end of the year to qualify for funding. Meanwhile, some solar advocates are suggesting alternatives like installing panels on urban rooftops.”
If these projects flag, the alternative to renewable, or even clean, energy is not appealing. The world is beginning to depend on energy sources that require greater effort and create more environmental damage. Oil from tar sands is one such source, although as, Beth Buczynski reports at Care2, “a research group at Penn State spent the past 18 months developing a technique that uses ionic liquids (salt in a liquid state) to facilitate separation of oil from the sands in a cleaner, more energy efficient manner. The separation takes place at room temperature without the generation of waste water.” Sounds like an improvement!
Does genetically modified alfafa do a body good?
The Obama administration is not only disappointing on energy issues. At GritTV, Laura Flanders talks to New York Times food writer Mark Bittman about the future of organic food, and the two agree that the only person whose agriculture and food policy they can wholeheartedly endorse is Michelle Obama’s. Too bad she’s not part of the administration.
One recent gripe is the Department of Agriculture’s decision to approve genetically modified alfafa. “Essentially it’s the beginning of the end of organic,” Bittman said. “Once you introduce alfafa, which pollinates by the wind, you can’t guarantee that any alfafa doesn’t have genetically modified seed in it. And alfafa is used as hay, hay is used to feed cows, there goes organic milk. There goes a lot of organic meat.”
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
President Obama made an energy speech... more
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http://theenergycollective.com/breakthroughinstitut/54322/doing-math-comparing-germanys-solar-industry-japans-fukushima-reactors?ref=side_popular_comments
Doing the Math: Comparing Germany's Solar Industry to Japan's Fukushima Reactors
By Sara Mansur and Devon Swezey
Posted March 24, 2011 by Breakthrough Institute
Grist environment writer Christopher Mims has written a widely read post comparing Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor complex to solar photovoltaic energy in Germany. The post, "Germany's Solar Panels Produce More Power Than Japan's Entire Fukushima Complex," implies that solar PV may be an adequate substitute for aging nuclear reactors in both Germany and Japan.
But an analysis of the electricity generated by Germany's solar PV industry and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactors finds that Germany's entire solar PV capacity, installed at a cost of at least $86 billion, generated only half the amount of electricity generated by the Fukushima plants in 2010.
Mims writes:
"It's worth noting that just today, total power output of Germany's installed solar PV panels hit 12.1 GW -- greater than the total power output (10 GW) of Japan's entire 6-reactor nuclear power plant."
There are two problems with this.
First of all, the total installed capacity of Japan's Fukushima six-reactor Daiishi plant is actually 4.5 GW. The total power output of Japan's entire Fukushima complex, which consists of ten reactors--six at Daiichi and an additional four at Daini--is 8.8 GW. So Germany's peak solar PV output of 12.1 GW is nearly three times greater than Japan's Daiichi reactor complex.
Does that mean that solar in Germany is somehow equivalent to three of Japan's nuclear complexes? The answer is no, and this leads to the second problem with Mims' post.
The 12.1 GW that Mims cites is the total power generated at one peak time of day. But Mims' numbers don't tell us anything about what we really care about, which is electricity generation.
As Mims himself notes, solar power production varies with weather and the time of day--it doesn't supply 12.1 GW of power continuously. Rather, looking at total electricity generated over a year gives us a much more accurate, apples-to-apples comparison of each technology's contribution to a country's energy needs.
According to Mims:
"To find out how much energy those panels generated today in total, you'd have to calculate the area under that curve in the lower right hand corner."
Fortunately, we've run those calculations, and they present a much different picture than the one implied in Mims' post.
In 2010, Germany's cumulative installed solar PV stood at 17.3 GW. In 2009, Germany's PV solar capacity factor--the ratio of actual energy output over the year and the energy the plant would have produced at full capacity--was 9.5%. This is quite low for solar PV, which typically has capacity factors around 15%, and is likely due to the fact that
Germany doesn't actually get that much sun. If we assume the same 9.5% capacity factor for 2010, then Germany's 17.3 GW translates into about 14,397 GWh of actual annual electricity generation from solar cells.
By comparison, in 2010, Fukushima's six Daiichi reactors--which have a nameplate capacity of 4.5 GW--produced 29,221 GWh of power generation.
That is, one nuclear power plant complex produces more than twice the power generation of Germany's entire installed solar industry.
Furthermore, Germany's entire solar PV output is equal to a little more than one percent of Japan's total electricity generation.
So could we feasibly replace the power generated from nuclear in Japan with electricity from solar?
The German solar industry was built over 20 years with expansive government support. Using an estimate of $5 per watt of installed solar PV capacity, we estimate the country's 17.3 GW in installed solar capacity to have cost at least $86.5 billion dollars. The actual costs are likely higher, since this estimate assumes 2010 module prices, while costs have substantially declined in the past decade.
As Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger make clear in today's Atlantic:
Present day renewables remain too expensive and undependable for any economy in the world to rely upon at significant scale. So Germany, despite its vaunted solar feed in tariffs, will rely more heavily upon coal, which it has in abundance, as it retires its aging nuclear fleet. The US, already in the midst of a natural gas boom, will use more gas.http://theenergycollective.com/breakthroughinstitut/54322/doing-math-comparing-germanys... more
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U.S. naval barges loaded with freshwater sped toward Japan's overheated nuclear plant on Saturday to help workers struggling to stem a worrying rise in radioactivity and remove dangerously contaminated water from the facility.
Workers at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been using seawater in a frantic bid to stabilize reactors overheating since a tsunami knocked out the complex's crucial cooling system March 11, but fears are mounting about the corrosive nature of the salt in the water.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. is now rushing to inject the reactors with freshwater instead to prevent pipes from clogging and to begin extracting the radioactive water, Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday.
CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reports radiation levels around the plant have been fluctuating, as workers struggle to stabilize the facility.
The latest threat at the Fukushima number 1 nuclear reactor is a pool of radioactive water.
Efforts to bring the plant under control have been sidelined as workers fight to bail out three of the plant's six reactors. Three workers have been burned at reactor number 3, by radiation levels that have spiked 10,000 times normal.
On Saturday a spokesman for the utility operator Tokyo Electric Power said no one is sure where the radioactive water is coming from, but they haven't had a chance to check the structural integrity of the building since the quake.
If there is a crack in the building, this TEPCO official said, there is a possibility that contaminated water has seeped in.
The situation at the stricken plant remains unpredictable, government spokesman Yukio Edano said Saturday, adding that it would be "a long time" until the crisis is over.
"We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse," he said. "But we still cannot be optimistic."
The switch to freshwater was the latest tactic in efforts to gain control of the six-unit nuclear power plant located 140 miles northeast of Tokyo.
The switch was necessary because of concerns that salt and other contaminants in seawater were clogging pipes and coating the surface of reactor vessels and fuel rods, hampering the cooling process, NISA said.
Defense Minister Yoshimi Kitazawa said late Friday that the U.S. government had made "an extremely urgent" request to switch to freshwater. He said the U.S. military was sending water to nearby Onahama Bay and that water injections could begin early next week.
cont.U.S. naval barges loaded with freshwater sped toward Japan's overheated nuclear... more
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With the situation in Libya causing a spike in fuel prices worldwide there's some good biofuel-related news out of the U.S. Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) that could help to reduce many countries' dependence on oil imports. For the first time, BESC researchers have succeeded in producing isobutanol directly from cellulosic plant matter using bacteria. Being a higher grade of alcohol than ethanol, isobutanol holds particular promise as a gasoline replacement as it can be burned in regular car engines with a heat value similar to gasoline.
Due in large part to its natural defenses to being chemically dismantled, cellulosic biomass like corn stover and switchgrass, which is abundant and cheap, has been much more difficult to utilize than corn or sugar cane. This means that producing biofuel from such biomass involves several steps, which is more costly than a process that combines biomass utilization and the fermentation of sugars to biofuel into a single process.
Building on earlier work at UCLA in creating a synthetic pathway for isobutanol production, the BESC researchers managed to achieve such a single-step process by developing a strain of Clostridium cellulolyticum, a native cellulose-degrading microbe that could synthesize isobutanol directly from cellulose.
"In nature, no microorganisms have been identified that possess all of the characteristics necessary for the ideal consolidated bioprocessing strain, so we knew we had to genetically engineer a strain for this purpose," said Yongchao Li of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The research team chose Clostridium cellulolyticum, which was originally isolated from decayed grass, because it has been genetically engineered to improve ethanol production, which has led to additional more detailed research. While some Clostridium species produce butanol and others digest cellulose, none produce isobutanol, an isomer of butanol.
"Unlike ethanol, isobutanol can be blended at any ratio with gasoline and should eliminate the need for dedicated infrastructure in tanks or vehicles," said James Liao, chancellor's professor and vice chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and leader of the research team. "Plus, it may be possible to use isobutanol directly in current engines without modification."
Earlier this week, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu visited the BESC to congratulate the research team, saying, "Today's announcement is yet another sign of the rapid progress we are making in developing the next generation of biofuels that can help reduce our oil dependence. This is a perfect example of the promising opportunity we have to create a major new industry – one based on bio-material such as wheat and rice straw, corn stover, lumber wastes, and plants specifically developed for bio-fuel production that require far less fertilizer and other energy inputs."
The team's work is published online in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
http://www.gizmag.com/isobutanol-biofuel-cellulose-bacteria/18106/With the situation in Libya causing a spike in fuel prices worldwide there's some... more
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The kite, which at full size will have a wingspan of 8-14 metres, carries a turbine below it. The kite is tethered by a cable to the sea floor and then "flies" in the tidal stream. It swoops round in a figure-of-eight shape to increase the speed of the water flowing through the turbine tenfold, just as sailing boat cuts across the wind to go faster.
That manoeuvre means the kite can generate renewable electricity in tidal streams that would be too slow to drive the first-generation tidal devices, such as the SeaGen turbine also installed in Strangford Loch. The kite has neutral buoyancy, so doesn't sink as the tide turns and the turbine mouth is protected to stop fish flying through.The kite, which at full size will have a wingspan of 8-14 metres, carries a turbine... more
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Breaking News Updates Washoe County School District posted this alert today (Wednesday, Feb 16, 2011) — Washoe County schools are on a two hour delay. Project is One of Many Where Schools Nationwide Have Turned to United Solar for Green Energy Solutions
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., — United Solar, a leading global manufacturer of lightweight, flexible, thin-film solar modules and a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq:ENER), announced the completion of a 1.05 megawatt solar power system on a total of 21 school rooftops across the Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada.Breaking News Updates Washoe County School District posted this alert today... more
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