Naughty Editor Reveals Hidden Reports on Energy
Thursday, December 13th, 2007Original post by pfairley
Archive for the ‘Renewable Energy’ Category
Earthzine: Widening the scope
Monday, November 12th, 2007Original post by pfairley
European Wind Power Meets European Humour
Thursday, October 25th, 2007Time for Carbon-Nation to take a walk on the lighter side. That said I would, in all seriousness, be curious what you make of this ad for German wind farm and solar power developer Epuron. What does it say about the image of wind power? To my mind is speaks to the greater awareness of the European […]
Original post by pfairley
Fixing Power to Power Grids — Today’s Batteries Mean More Wind Power Tomorrow
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007It was probably my greatest embarrassement as a journalist. Within weeks of publishing a major feature on energy storage in Technology Review (see “Recharging the Power Grid”), the half-completed demonstration project we profiled — a giant battery to stabilize the power grid in eastern Mississippi — was scrapped by its developer. The corporate parent of the battery […]
Original post by pfairley
BC Premier Shows that at Least the Political Climate is Changing
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007British Columbia’s generally conservative Liberal Party premier, Gordon Campbell, earned my respect this winter when he banned new coal-fired power plants from releasing CO2 — in effect mandating the use of carbon sequestration (or, as my coverage at TechReview.com indicated, driving planned coal plants to instead burn renewable wood). Now Campbell has gone much further — at least on paper.
Campbell […]
Original post by pfairley
BC Premier Shows the Political Climate Can Also Change
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007British Columbia’s generally conservative Liberal Party premier, Gordon Campbell, earned my respect this winter when he banned new coal-fired power plants from releasing CO2 — in effect mandating the use of carbon sequestration (or, as my coverage at TechReview.com indicated, driving planned coal plants to instead burn renewable wood). Now Campbell has gone much further — at least on paper.
Campbell […]
Original post by pfairley
Solar cars get ready to race
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
The World Solar Challenge is celebrating 20 years this year, and continues to go from strength to strength with renewed interest in sustainable transport, as well as continued improvements in technology that have seen the speeds of these vehicles more than double in the two decades that the competition has been running.
The event, in which teams design and build a vehicle capable of running purely on solar power and race them for 3000 km from Darwin to Adelaide across some of Australia’s harshest environments, will run from October 21 to 28 and attracts teams from high schools, universities and research groups around the world. Sixty-one teams from twenty countries will compete this year, with the event expanding to promote sustainable combustion-engine vehicles in its Greenfleet Technology Class as well as prototype experimental vehicles, such as the University of South Australia’s “Trev” electric vehicle and the H2Solar hybrid vehicle from Japan’s Team JonaSun.
The steady increase in solar panel efficiency over the last two decades has helped the competition, with event director Chris Selwood saying that the solar panels being used are twice as efficient as they were when the event started.
“Certainly 20 years ago, most photovoltaic cells were in the realms of experimental devices,” he said. “Winning speed was 67km/h average in the first event.
“At the last event in 2005, the winning team averaged 103km/h and clicked a maximum speed of 147km/h at one point.
“We are now trying to bring some practical attributes to the solar car, that people can get in and out themselves and sit upright.”
Anyone interested in watching the race, or participating in the 2009 event, can find information through the World Solar Challenge website.
(Sources: WSC, The Advertiser)
Original post by Nathan
Solar Thermal Power: Reliable Renewable Energy?
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007Solar proponents love to run the math on how much (or how little) Southwestern desert one would need to cover with solar energy installations to power the United States. David Mills, founder and chairman of Palo Alto, CA solar startup Ausra, has his own estimate: 145 kilometers. Mills’ estimate is more credible than most, and not […]
Original post by pfairley
Rethinking Energy Deregulation’s Green Dividends
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007The European Commission proposed new rules today to break up Europe’s energy monopolies and I must say it makes me wonder whether they aren’t trying to fix something that isn’t broken–at least as far as the environment is concerned.
Commission President José Manuel Barroso told reporters today that: “We need a common European response to combat climate […]
Original post by pfairley
Cleaner Coal is Cheap, But So Are Renewables
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007When the U.S. Energy Department under an adminstration like Bush/Cheney tells you cleaning up our energy system is cheap, you know the walls are coming down. This summer Carbon-Nation made the case that Cleaning Up Coal is Cheap thanks to affordable technology for capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide. Now the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) is projecting […]
Original post by pfairley
SEJ 2007 on Altamont: Wind Energy’s Problem Child
Sunday, September 9th, 2007I’m back from the ultimate professional recharge: the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference, held south of San Francisco last week on the leafy Stanford University campus. This week I’ll be giving highlights from a packed agenda exploring environmental technology, politics, culture and science.
A first highpoint for me was a trip across the Bay to Altamont Pass, where cool air sucked over coastal […]
Original post by pfairley
Solar power records smashing like pumpkins
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007Wow. What a time for solar energy. On top of recent gains in plastic and thin-film photovoltaics the University of Delaware now reports the world’s most efficient solar cell at 42.8% — if the finding is confirmed it will boost high-end PV output an incredible 2.1% over the previous record set by Boeing-subsidiary SpectroLab last […]
Original post by pfairley
Solar Redux: Thin Film’s Time in the Sun
Friday, July 27th, 2007Power-plant scale installations of solar panels using next-gen technology from photovoltaics developer First Solar’s provided a nice follow-up to a story I wrote for IEEE Spectrum five years ago, when BP’s solar subsidiary pulled its investment in the same technology, casting a pall over solar R&D. The followup on First Solar’s success perserverance and success is on the MIT Technology Review […]
Original post by pfairley
Let the Electrons Blow
Friday, July 20th, 2007For several years now the American Wind Energy Association has been telling anyone who’d listen that access to power transmission lines was quickly emerging as the greatest impediment to continued expansion of wind farms — renewable energy’s biggest success story of the decade. This puts wind power in a very uncomfortable place given the cost […]
Original post by pfairley
Fire the Grid
Monday, July 16th, 2007People around the world answered a call today to “fire the grid” this morning at 11:11am Greenwich Mean Time (7:11am EST). Unfortunately they’re not firing the grid that concerns me — the power grid — but rather the ‘earth grid’. Seems a near-death experience followed by other-worldly “light beings” inspired the organizer to call for a global spiritual embrace of […]
Original post by pfairley
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