Alternative Energy / Renewable Energy

• German Solar Power Covers Energy Deficit of France's Nuclear Sector

  Remember last year when Germany decided to speed up its phasing out of nuclear power and switch to clean energy and everyone (not in the clean energy industry) got freaked out about how German electricity prices would rise and the country would just start importing electricity from France’s nuclear power plants? Well, as I just wrote, it seems pretty clear that solar photovoltaics are bringing down the cost of electricity in Germany. Additionally, German electricity exports to France have been increasing!“Because France has so much nuclear power, the country has an inordinate number of electric heating systems. And because France…

• Biomass: Just Because it's Green Doesn't Mean it's Clean

  Florida residents last year filed a legal challenge against a company that was planning to build a biomass incinerator in the Florida Panhandle. They complained the incinerator project was a "toxic nightmare" for the coastal area. Now, a new study conducted on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation finds that it might be awhile before burning wood instead of fossil fuels pays off for the environment. This suggests that maybe things aren't always as green as they seem. A study examining more than half of the 22 proposed biomass facilities in seven southern U.S. states found that burning wood in favor…

• Independent Analysis Proves the Effectiveness of Federal Loan Guarantees

  Take a deep breath, because what I’m about to tell you may be shocking: Federal loan guarantees for energy projects have been successful, cost-effective investments—contrary to what some conservatives insist is the case. Don’t take my word for it. That’s the message from Herb Allison, former national finance chairman for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who led a team of accountants and auditors in conducting an independent analysis of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program. Allison and his team found that, despite the hysteria around the now-bankrupt solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, this program will cost $2 billion less than initially…

• Green Energy's Positive Impact on the World's Poor

  Renewable energy is often thought of as an initiative of advanced, sane countries such as Portugal and Germany. But there is another arena where green energy is making an impact– on the lives of the world’s poorest populations, in the global South. For them, it is not a luxury or prudent planning for the future or a dutiful attempt to save the planet from the looming catastrophe of climate change fuelled by humans pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Rather, it is a way of solving their present, low-tech energy crisis. Kevin Bullis explains that many villagers use expensive kerosene…

• Hydrokinetic Power Could Grow to be a Big Player if it Passes its First Test

  Hydrokinetic power shows great promise for growth as it can be theoretically installed in both industrial waterways such as wastewater treatment and food processing plants, and natural water ways without disrupting natural flow. Hydrokinetic turbines are designed to be anchored in place in the waterway, and don’t require construction of a large dam to generate false water pressure, which reduces the huge costs in capital and carbon emissions. A company called Verdant Power has just been the first ever to win a commercial license for a hydrokinetic power facility in the US. Its Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) project will…

• In 2011, Global Spending on Renewable Energy Rose 40 Percent

  A global revolution is slowly transforming the world’s energy market, with traditional transnational fossil fuel conglomerates facing future changes that will transform their previously cozy environment, whether they like it or not. Renewable energy, starved from the outset of funding, a foundling left at the door of the world’s rising energy needs, has reached adolescence and has begun to attract investment from beyond the traditional hydrocarbon-based market dominant companies. Sez who? PricewaterhouseCoopers., a titan of Wall Street. PwC noted in its annual analysis of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in the sector shows that deal values worldwide in 2011 totalled…

• Waste to Energy: A Great Source of Clean Energy - But is it the Correct Waste?

  Converting Waste-to-Energy, and in particular MSW, are hot topics throughout the global landscape. The conversion process, which consists of a number of physical and complex chemical steps, serves a much needed civic function that at the end of the day produces potentially carbon-neutral energy in the form of electrons or fuels such as diesel, ethanol, etc. Additionally, it furthers benefits the environment by reducing the amount of landfill disposed wastes and subsequent methane emissions. The contribution of methane emissions from landfills compared to all other anthropogenic sources of methane emissions is shown below (EPA): Waste management is primarily landfills and…

• Our Energy Future: Can the Ocean Provide for all our Energy Needs?

  With the exception of tidal energy, our focus thus far has been on land-based energy sources. Meanwhile, the ocean absorbs a prodigious fraction of the Sun’s incident energy, creating thermal gradients, currents, and waves whipped up by winds. Let’s put some scales on the energetics of these sources and see if we may turn to them for help. We’ve got our three boxes ready: abundant, potent, and niche (puny). Time to do some sorting! Thermal Gradients Wherever there is a thermal gradient, our eyes light up because we can create a heat flowacross the gradient and capture some fraction of…

• European Supergrid to Revolutionise Renewable Energy?

  Europe is the world leader in renewable energy generation, but as with all renewable energy sources they face the problem of reliability. One way of overcoming this limitation and ensuring that power supply will be constant is to have expensive, traditional, fossil-fuelled power stations to generate electricity whilst conditions are unfavourable for the renewable source; but this almost makes the whole investment in renewable power sources irrelevant. A better way of ensuring consistent power is to link several diverse sources of renewable energy on one electrical grid. So when a wind farm can’t produce much power on a windless day,…

• Using Ocean Temperature Differences to Create Renewable Energy

  Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is an idea for creating renewable energy by exploiting the difference in ocean temperatures between the surface and the seabed. The OTEC permit office first opened in 1981 as part of NOAA, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the marine counterpart to NASA. It was created after the oil price spike of the 1970’s when interest in alternative power sources rose. Oil prices eventually settled and as a result interest in the alternative power sources dwindled, so in 1994, just 13 years later the OTEC office was closed without ever having issued a permit. Good…