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Map produced by National Renewable Energy Laboratory for U.S. Department of Energy James Wimberley over at The Reality Based Community takes a look at the geographic distribution of solar, wind and geothermal sites in this country, using some nifty maps from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and considers some implications, including political ones. [...] Given their huge amounts of still untapped wind, wave, and tidal power, Scotland is well on its way to becoming the ‘Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.” Not only does Scotland plan to be 100% renewable energy by 2020, they’ll have plenty left over to sell. This makes the looming issue of Scottish independence even more [...] Workers harvest seaweed at a coastal farm for Berkley, California-based Bio Architecture Lab. The company has engineered a microbe to derive sugars from seaweed to make fuel and chemicals. | Bio Architecture Lab Inc./MCT Scientists from Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, California have just announced that they have created a microbe that can convert [...] The Department of Energy says California has the potential to generate enough power for 14 million homes if its wave and tidal power were developed fully. Even if it was only half of that, it would be a substantial new source of clean renewable energy; all produced a few miles off California coasts. DOE [...] HyperSolar says they have a new solar-powered technology that can create renewable energy, hydrogen and natural gas, from waste water. If so, this would turn an liability into an asset. The Oil Drum Obstacle 1: Wind energy is dependent on large subsidies. All renewable energy is. Most big wind and solar farms are backed in some way by the government. Obstacle 2: Wind energy is more variable than electricity produced by fossil fuels and nuclear. This is also true for solar. Variable power requires [...] defense.gov “Energy Security needs to be one of the first things we think about, before we deploy another soldier, before we build another ship or plane, and before we buy or fill another rucksack” – Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen The US military wants to be free of dependence upon fossil [...] It’ll be the biggest wind farm in the Americas. Austin now has the biggest solar plant in Texas at 300 MW while San Antonio plans 400 MW more in the next five years. Texas leads the country in wind power and is now moving fast on solar too.
In our experience, all of the big U.S. solar module manufactures have one approach: they sell their modules to only a few big distributors, and the more you buy, the bigger the discount. But today there is an interesting twist coming from global competitors around the world. China will sell directly to just about any [...] |  | ||||
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