Techdiplomacy

Solar Power in urban areas is becoming more viable, and therefore more common. The following excerpts from various papers and magazines tell the story of the growth of urban solar power. Expanding America’s power grid to connect wind and solar power plants to the urban areas they fuel will require thousands of miles of transmission lines. Most of it will be built in rural areas where locals are not likely to be very welcoming, since this power will be used in urban areas. 30 June 2009 - 1:00pm The Daily Yonder Getting Solar Power Rolling This profile from Miller-McCune looks at a Berkeley, California official who made use of a 100-year old funding mechanism to take the city solar. 25 June 2009 - 6:00am Miller-McCune Closing the Loop on Energy Use Architect Michael Palwyn is designing sustainable architecture that combines solar power and seawater into an ultra-efficient loop of resource conservation. 22 June 2009 - 6:00am. GOOD Magazine Renewable Energy System is on the Way President Obama plans to spend billions on building an interstate highway-style system for energy. 17 June 2009 - 11:00am. Discover Magazine. Smart Grid for a Smart City Amsterdam has taken its smart grid live, installing solar panels and 300 electric car recharging stations throughout the city. 11 June 2009 - 5:00am. Business Week A Solar Car By 2010? Italian car designer Pininfarina has announced that it will release a fully-electric, partially solar-powered car in Europe in 2010. 9 June 2009 - 2:00pm. Inhabitat Making Brownfield Sunny A manufacturer of solar systems has planned to develop the country’s largest urban solar power plant at a brownfield in Chicago. 5 June 2009 - 9:00am The Architect’s Newspaper Train to Run on Sunshine? An Arizona company is proposing a solar-powered elevated train running between Tucson and Phoenix. 10 May 2009 - 1:00pm Arizona Star Making Clean Energy Reliable Clean energy is a major component of the Obama Administration’s plans for an upgraded electricity grid. But with variable outputs, clean energy generation from solar and wind will need to be augmented, according to this piece from NPR. 1 May 2009 - 10:00am. NPR Building the Smart Grid Smartly In the sixth of a ten-part series, National Public Radio investigates the sustainability of smart grid technology in the places where its likely to be applied. 1 May 2009 - 7:00am National Public Radio Vatican Reveals Solar Plant Plans Vatican City has plans to build the largest solar plant in Europe, which will supply enough power for 40,000 households in a state of 900 inhabitants. 23 April 2009 - 2:00pm. Bloomberg The Planetizen News Brief - 4/23/09 [1pixelout.swf] 4:25 minutes (4.05 MB)Condos converting to affordable housing in New York, bankrupt developments converting to parks in Florida, and solar power heads to the Vatican, all on this week’s Planetizen News Brief, airing weekly on the nationally-syndicated radio show “Smart City”. 23 April 2009 - 5:00am Vatican Embraces the Power of the Sun The Vatican has announced plans to build Europe’s largest solar plant to power the state. 21 April 2009 - 9:00am Bloomberg Solar City in the Works Developers in Florida have announced plans to build a new 17,000 acre city that will run entirely on solar power. 12 April 2009 - 5:00am The Miami Herald California Desert A Hotbed for Alternative Energy On the state’s path towards drawing 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the end of 2010, California is focusing on its southern desert as the site of this alternative energy generation.

The final analogy is that we will see solar power being generated in our urban areas more and more. Whar are your thoughts on the subject, submit a comment, let’s talk. See you around the galaxy…

Offshore Wind Turbines

 

Renewable energy grew in leaps and bounds in 2008, and the future is promising with wind, solar and  geothermal power gaining in the foreseeable future.  You have the nuclear and fossil fuel industries saying that renewable energy is a good thought but is it economically feasible?  The answer is yes, although those industries would have the public believe otherwise.

Wind Power

In the past year we have seen wind power grow in places where there is surplus wind to be harnessed.  That would include Texas, Kansas, and Missouri.  There is a wealth of wind in Texas and they have done their best to utilize this power to grow tax revenues, create jobs, create a large tourism industry (people actually come to see the wind turbines in operation) and increase educational resources.  Towns that used to see most of their population moving on as they reached the age of the majority.  Now these towns are witnessing a rebirth of sorts as young people are staying in droves. 

The year 2008 was the best year in United States wind power history.  The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has released reports stating that the industry will easily surpass 2007, they added Wyoming and West Virginia to the list of states with the highest volume of wind power.  The AWEA revealed that only Germany, India, and Spain had more wind power capacity than Texas at the end of 2007.  They noted that West Virginia had the fastest wind power capacity growth which tripled it’s capacity.  Wyoming reportedly could have added 1,856 more turbines and around 2,800 MW of wind generation capacity. 

On the eastern seaboard offshore wind turbines seemed to be the answer according to the AWEA and is more cost effective than fossil fuel and nuclear power.  Plans have been revealed to build 96 offshore wind turbines arranged in a grid 16 to 20 miles off Cape May and Atlantic counties.

Congress has awarded wind a one-year Production Tax Credit (PTC) extension in the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.  AWEA advocates a long term extension of the wind PTC.

Geothermal Power

The Geothermal Energy Association said 47 new geothermal projects are in various stages of development in California and Nevada.  When completed they will provide more than 2,100 MW, and there are projects getting started in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.  The U.S. Department of the Interior said in October that more than 190 million acres of federal land in 11 western states including Alaska will open to geothermal energy resource development. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency  and Renewable Energy report “Geothermal Tomorrow 2008″ stated that improved geothermal technologies have “the potential to access vast untapped geothermal energy sources.”  One such technology, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) involves digging wells into hot rock, fracturing it to create a reservoir and then extracting the heat with a second well, making geothermal a viable source of power generation in areas that don’t have naturally occuring hydrothermal reservoirs.  This would mean geothermal generation could take place in much of the United States. 

There was a two year congressional PTC extension for geothermal energy, however costs are becoming economical without the PTC.

Solar Power

Solar Photovoltaic Panel Roof Installation

A congressional investment tax credit (ITC) extension is helping solar’s fast track growth.  The 30 percent federal ITC is for residential and commercial solar installations, has been extended for 8 years.  The director of research, Mike Taylor at the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), stated that was the largest solar milestone for 2008.

New Energy Finance has seen a possible change in the photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal electricity generators markets.  Some analysts think that supply will exeed demand and the result could be price decreases and consolidation. 

SEPA noted the large number of solar projects announced in 2008, both CSP and distributed PV was considered to be worthy of milestone status.  Recent estimates have CSP plants with an estimated total of 4,000 MW are in the planning stages. 

In 2008 utilities and the general public started to see the benefits of rooftop solar photovotaic and(PV)  installations, that was very fortunate rooftop PV installations are now in great demand.  Southern California Edison in March 2008 started to build what they said would be the largest solar cell project in the US.  This will be built on two square miles of commercial building roofs where they would generate 250 MW of advanced PV technology.  Duke Energy in North Carolina has stated they will build a 50 million dollar solar rooftop installation, they will generate 8 MW of of power from 425 sites over the next two years.  In April of 2008 the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion (CRSP) was launched.  Fourteen companies belong to the CRSP, the newest research center of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory.

The Future of Renewable Energy

The sector will show strong growth in 2009, although it may not be a record year due the economy.  The poor economy will not affect European expansion in wind.  The US is as usual having growing pains and they need to be overcome in order for our country to keep up with our European counterparts.  The renewable energy industry need only keep up with demand for transmission, match renewables with demand response.  This is our business model for this sector.  We’ll save Americans money and we’llsave the planet as well.  We will need intelligent infrastructure from the generating station to the customer.  This fits in nicely with our next President’s (Obama) plans.  We will need to give our president help, where is the old American spirit of invention?  Donate 50 cents or a dollar, it will go to organizations involved in saving the environment.   Let’s see what we can do working together!

Nuclear and Fossil Fuel Plants in Your Neighborhood?

Nuclear power reactors are slated by the year 2050 to produce more than a fifth of the world’s electricity.  Countries like China and India, from a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), are demanding power on a scale larger than ever before.  There are 439 reactors operating in the world.  Another 50 countries are considering nuclear power and 12 are preparing to implement it.  Over 90 new plants are in the planning stage and have been approved, according to the World Nuclear Association.  Twenty reactors have filed applications in the United States.  By June of 2008 41 reactors were being built around the world.  It takes a liittle over 5 years to build a plant according to OECD.

There is enough uranium to last the industry until 2050, the OECD released a report saying that the ratio of resource to comsumption is better that than of gas or oil.  This would mean that countries around the world would continue to build these dangerous plants for another forty years.  There is no question about the inherant danger in continuing to build nuclear power stations.  The point now is, here is another resource that is declining because of our eagerness to experiment with substances that are in short supply and unpredictable, we have no knowledge of how to harness this power without the spector of waste that includes weapons grade plutonium. If we would simply consider renewable energy resources we could generate the power the world needs, and we could (if we have the patience to wait and see) find another use for the power the we can generate if we experiment with uranium until we come up with safe uses for this precious natural resource.  Uranium is not a renewable energy resource, it is declining every day.  The money spent today on an unreliable and dangerous source of power (nuclear) could be spent on a new power grid and investing in renewable energy sources.  We would find ourselves propelled into a safer and cleaner environment in the near future.

A call has gone out from IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei  for international control over the nuclear fuel cycle to prevent using a civilian atomic energy industry for weapons development.  This would possibly be similar to the US’s NRC.  The idea would be to start a nuclear fuel bank under the IAEA to bring new enrichment and reprocessing operations under multinational control and eventually include existing facilities.  This would according to the director general help to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. 

Perhaps this would provide some measure of protection, however it still does not address the problem of waste disposal, part of which is weapons grade plutonium.  The only solution is to completely phase out nuclear power to generate electricity as it is expensive and dangerous.  We must rethink the generation of power and start encouraging investing in renewable energy.  The days of fossil fuel power stations or nuclear power stations are at an end due to global warming and other far more ominous concerns.  We must convince the world community that renewables are the future and it will be  a brighter and safer future for all concerned.

Nanotechnology is a simple short term solution for implementing alternative, renewable energy systems. It is a cost effective way to implement solar and wind power systems, which generally depend on the weather for energy output. By using chemical techniques inexpensive solutions of nanoparticles can be prepared and applied to materials for use in ultra capacitors. These units will be cost effective and will conduct electricity at a higher rate than is currently possible. Nanotechnology can be used in battery technology. Nanocomposite materials greatly increase the surface area at which chemical reactions occur in batteries. It enables increases in the battery’s output while reducing it’s size. In the long term nanotechnology could enable power to be harnessed from renewable sources and stored until we use the power at a later time. This is a technology whose time has come as we don’t have a system in place that effectively stores power in this fashion. However there are researchers who are working in this direction and new discoveries are coming almost daily. It is almost the way every major innovation in our country has occurred. When the internal combustion engine was developed, there were several inventors working toward the same end without any of them having any knowledge of what the other was doing! The same could be said of the steam engine. Credit for a great deal of this information comes from material written by David Walker and Dr. Mark Daugherty of IPC Corporation. This technology is another advent in getting to a place where we free ourselves from costly fossil fuels and embrace renewable energy. Click on the title of this blog for more information.