Alternative Energy / Renewable Energy

• Time to Stop Playing Politics and Focus on Clean Energy Reforms

  Congressional investigators should prioritize clean energy commercialization solutions over political grandstanding and focus on identifying key lessons from the experience of the Loan Programs Office. Congress should put these lessons to immediate use to reform federal involvement in clean energy commercialization and establish a new Clean Energy Deployment Administration. Step right up to see the latest chapter in the ongoing political circus surrounding the bankruptcy of solar manufacturer and federal loan guarantee recipient Solyndra. Today's main attraction: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's long-awaited appearance before the eager Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Key questions remain about…

• Creating Renewable Natural Gas with Solar Power

  HyperSolar, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough technology to make renewable natural gas using solar power, announced yesterday that it has filed a patent application for the production of renewable natural gas using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. This renewable natural gas is a clean, carbon neutral methane gas that can be used as a direct replacement for traditional natural gas to power the world, without drilling or fracking, while mitigating CO2 emissions. "The sun is our greatest source of energy and a method to use this energy to make clean, renewable fuel is a very significant discovery," said Tim…

• Every Little Helps - Converting Wasted Kinetic Energy into Electricity

  Humanity is constantly looking at innovative technologies to help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Yet it’s not always the big discoveries that make the difference. Small inventions that reduce our dependence gradually can also have significant impacts. One option that is being explored by American company New Energy Technologies (NET) is to convert the wasted kinetic energy from moving wheels of cars and lorries into electricity. There are approximately 150 million cars in the US that travel around six billion miles each day, and according to Mechanical engineering professor Lei Zuo and colleagues at Stony Brook University only 10…

• Germany Faces Sticker Shock Over Renewable Energy to Replace Nuclear

  On 30 May, in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would close all of its 18 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022, which produce about 28 percent of the country's electricity. Eight have now been taken offline, and with the winter coming on Berlin is scrambling to make up the energy shortfall lest the country suffer blackouts combined with the need to import massive amounts of electricity. Despite Germany's Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (German Development Bank) being set to underwrite renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in Germany worth $137.3 billion over the next…

• Ethiopia - An Alternative Energy Future Beyond Hydropower?

  Like many countries in Africa, Ethiopia is investigating the country’s renewable energy potential. While recent hydroelectric projects, including the 1,870 megawatt $2.2 billion Gilgel Gibe III dam on the Omo River and the proposed 5,000 megawatt $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, formerly known as the Millennium Dam, on the Blue Nile have attracted international criticism, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water and Energy Sector Mapping and Database Development office has determined that the country’s wind potential could generate 10,000 megawatts annually, which has not yet been developed. The country’s wind potential was included in the first phase of a $251 million…

• Green Revolution Needed in the Asia-Pacific Region - UNEP

  Countries in the Asia-Pacific region need a new 'industrial revolution' based on green technologies to provide food, water, energy and housing while cutting down their resource consumption and emissions by up to 80 per cent, according to a report by the UN Environment Program (UNEP). The report says that countries in the region have moved rapidly from agrarian to industrial economies and consume natural resources at a growing rate; overall, they are the highest consumers of natural resources globally. Meanwhile, technology and innovation have not kept up with population growth and rising wealth, which increase resource use, according to the…

• Revolutionary New Process Turns Biomass Waste into Fuel Oil

  A University of Maine engineer and his research team have discovered a revolutionary new chemical process that can transform forest residues, along with other materials such as municipal solid waste, grasses, and construction wastes into hydrocarbon fuel oil products. (UMaine News Release here) Shortening up the process from biomass to hydrocarbons has long been an idea of intense interest, and usually skipped over to the easier fermentation, pyrolysis and other schemes to get molecular change. Maine is driven by circumstances, a lot of wood, some 6 million green tons of additional available biomass, according to a 2008 Maine Forest Service…

• Finland to Open the World’s Largest Biomass Gasification Plant

  New power plant will run on forest waste, save 230,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Finland has announced plans for the world’s largest biomass gasification plant, a 140MW facility running mainly on forest waste. Its performance is set to be closely watched by renewable energy experts, utility companies and governments across the globe, who will be keen to monitor both the robustness of the technology and its cost-effectiveness. The €40 million project involves installing a bio-gasification plant next to an existing 565MW coal-fired power station. The plant will mainly use forest residues for fuel, with the resulting gas then combusted…

• Cleantech Investors not Losing Faith Following Solyndra Setback

  Investors will not shy away from the clean-tech sector because of the collapse of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, according to an executive from the Cleantech Group. “Nobody is running for the exits just because of Solyndra,” Greg Neichin, vice-president of research and advisory at the Cleantech Group, told attendees of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference in Miami on Wednesday. “I think people kind of knew it was a problem.” Clean-tech investors were not surprised by the company’s troubles, he said. If 10 investors were polled at the time that the Department of Energy (DOE) guaranteed a $535 million…

• Germany Sets Aside $130 Billion for Renewable Energy

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on 30 May that Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and Europe's biggest, would shutter all of its 17 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022, an extraordinary commitment, given that they currently produce about 28 percent of the country's electricity. Underlining the government’s seriousness in changing the country’s energy matrix, Germany's Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (German Development Bank) is to underwrite renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in Germany with $137.3 billion over the next five years, Germany Trade and Invest reported. Overall, the German government's 6th Energy Research Program has made an extraordinary $274.6 billion available…