The politics of progress; cleantech, the economy, antiwar
The primary goal of the project is to demonstrate that advanced control technology with energy storage can help expand the delivery of wind energy by effectively increasing the capacity of constrained transmission facilities in the area.
Power generated by the turbines will be stored for future use in the flywheels. IN addition, they flywheels aid in [...]
By 2020, Scotland expects to power 750,000 homes with commercial-scale wave and tidal power
Discover Magazine has a slideshow of the wave and tidal devices that will be used, such as the pictured tidal turbine.
PS These devices do not include Scotland’s vast potential amount of offshore wind power. That’s a whole separate subject.
The Vindicator fiber optic laser wind sensing system measures real-time horizontal and vertical wind speed and direction at varying ranges out to 300 meters ahead of the sensor. When mounted on a wind turbine nacelle, this forward-looking information facilitates smarter turbine control for increased power output and reduced turbine stress.
First Solar joins Desertec Initiative, a gigantic solar and wind power project in the Sahara to power Africa and Europe.
Comprehensive article on LEDs.
Overview of geothermal energy.
Solar water heaters.
Microbes that eat pollution.
Energy-generating self-heating roadway.
Solar Thermal captures heat from the sun to create power. The heat can also be stored and used later. R&D now is focusing on computer-controlled reflector mirrors and more efficient ways to store the heat.
More from Ecogeek.
It’s a classic example of a state regulatory agency not knowing what other agencies are doing, or even being on the same clue train with them.
California air quality regulators have shut down multi-million dollar manure-to-electricity generators on farms because they output nitrogen oxides, or NOx, even though such facilities greatly reduce the amount of methane [...]
Ten huge energy and engineering firms in Europe are joining together in Friends Of The Supergrid to build a renewable energy supergrid to power Europe. Most of the power will come from offshore wind turbines, as well as from wave, tidal, and solar.
They want the EU to be energy-independent by 2050 and plan to build [...]
The Oil Drum continues their informative series explaining how those mammoth offshore wind turbines are assembled and installed. Lots of photos.
“Amidst Iowa’s massive expansion of wind power, our average electricity prices have remained below the national average and in fact have not increased as quickly as the national average price in the last four years,” the study said.
Iowans pay an average of 7 cents per kilowatt vs. a national average of almost 10 cents. The [...]
The platform is self-stabilizing, doesn’t need to be tethered to the ocean floor, and designers say it could run for decades with little maintenance.
I’m unclear on how it could not drift and how the power lines are connected to shore.
More info at Ecofriend, Inhabitat, and Hexicon.
On Feb. 28, at 12:54 pm, wind power in west Texas generated a whopping 22% of demand, a new record. But the grid couldn’t handle it, so they had to throttle back. Temporarily.
Texas is investing $5 billion to build more lines from wind farms to cities. They already have a self-contained grid and ranks #1 [...]
Wired profiles ten companies doing amazing, positive things, creating our new energy future. The innovations include plants that turn themselves into sugar, speeding the process to create biofuel; high altitude kites that produce electricity from the jet stream, superconductor electricity lines that carry more and waste less, and new ways to harness geothermal heat.
The Bourne Energy BBP-2 weighs 25 lbs, fits in a backpack, is entirely self-contained, and outputs up to 600W of energy from river current with no heat or emissions. They can be daisy-chained in large arrays as can the BBP-1 (pictured)
Tip: Inhabitat
Way high tech.
“Carbon is a cost. If we can remove carbon from a supply chain, ultimately they become more competitive. If they can use less energy in the manufacturing of the product, or if the consumer uses less energy, they are certainly reducing their costs or putting dollars in the pockets of their customer,” said Walmart SVP [...]
