Tag Archives: Green Energy

Fuel cell switched on at Cal State San Bernardino

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A new 1.4 MW utility-owned a fuel cell is now in full operation at Cal State San Bernardino.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>”Electricity generated by the fuel cell is going straight into the Edison grid, and the university will be able to utilize the waste heat it produces to preheat the campus heating system, resulting in an estimated annual savings of $120,000 from avoided natural gas costs,” said Tony Simpson, senior director of facilities services at Cal State San Bernardino.

The combined heat and power configuration —known as cogeneration — of the fuel cell will reduce the campus’s carbon dioxide emissions by lessening reliance on the high temperature hot water generators currently in operation. The fuel cell will continue to use natural gas to generate ultra-clean electricity through an electrochemical reaction, but because there is no combustion, unhealthful emissions are reduced.

Additionally, the fuel cell is highly efficient, generating more power from a given unit of fuel and lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to combustion-based power sources in a similar size range. Cogeneration DFC power plants can achieve total thermal efficiencies up to 90 percent, depending on the application.<

See on www.elp.com

UN and World Bank promote sustainable energy financing

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The United Nations and the World Bank announced what they call “a concerted effort” by governments, international agencies, civil society and the private sector to scale up financing for sustainable energy.

 

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Kim stressed that financing is key, with $600 billion to $800 billion a year needed from now until 2030 to reach the goals for access to energy, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

“We are now starting in countries in which demand for action is most urgent,” he said. “In some of these countries, only one in 10 people has access to electricity. It is time for that to change.”

Ban praised achievements already attained such as Brazil’s ‘Light for All’ programme that has reached 15 million people, Norway’s commitment of 2 billion kroner ($330 million) in 2014 for global renewable energy and efficiency, and Bank of America’s Green Bond that has raised $500 million for three years as part of its 10-year $50 billion environmental business commitment.<

See on www.renewableenergymagazine.com

Renewable Geothermal Power – a Vast & Untapped Energy Resource

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There are no plans for new coal plants to be built in the United States. This opens doors for the geothermal industry possibly more than ever before in U.S. history.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

> Geothermal energy is a renewable source of electricity that has the same important baseload qualities […]  (of coal for) electric power generation in the U.S. at a fraction of the cost.

“Baseload is always better,” […] “[I]t assures a steady revenue stream which is much better for financing.”For a nation that’s thinking to the long term, geo plants are:

Firm. They can run 24 hours a day regardless of extraneous conditions.Flexible. Geothermal’s flow can be load following or allow for imbalance, can provide a spinning reserve or a non-spinning reserve, and works well as replacement or supplemental reserve.

Falcone says of geothermal’s flow options: “By being able to load follow, geothermal can be reduced during low need time and increased without much effort. There is no need to store power that cannot be used. The price of power can be kept lower than other renewables since more of it is sold than the intermittent power sources like wind and solar.”

Falcone adds, “There are now efforts to marry solar with geothermal so that extra power can be produced during sunny peak hours.

“There is no need to invest in fossil fuel to create heat in order to generate power, so the environment is better off.”But today’s solicitations for renewable energy in Western states tend to ignore these unique benefits of geothermal power. Additional long-term analysis shows geothermal plants are:

Small. Geothermal-impacted land in 2030 is expected to be around 7.5 km2/TW-hr/yr, as opposed to 9.7 .5 km2/TW-hr/yr for a coal plant.Hardy. Long-lasting geothermal plants include those at The Geysers in California (since the 1960s) and at the Lardarello field in Italy (since 1904).<

See on www.renewableenergyworld.com

NSF awards grant to Mechanical Engineer prof for underwater kite marine power research

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A three-year, US$300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will allow Worcester Polytechnic Institute associate professor of mechanical engineering David Olinger to conduct research on developing a new form of ocean energy.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“The research builds on Olinger’s prior research, funded by the NSF and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in which he developed a low-cost kite system that used wind to generate power. Olinger and a team of graduate students developed computational models that predict trajectories and power output for kites of different sizes and tethers of different lengths, which can be used to design kites capable of flying in stable, high-speed figure-eight patterns under changing weather conditions.

The same algorithms can be applied to the design of underwater kites, Olinger said, but “instead of moving air, you have moving water and the kites have rigid wings.”

Olinger will now evaluate possible designs for undersea kites and explore methods for tethering them to floating platforms similar to those used for oil and gas rigs.

WPI said the team will also examine the advantages and disadvantages of mounting turbine generators directly to the kites or placing the generators on the platforms. […]

Olinger’s kite system is similar to one already being developed by Swedish company Minesto, though a WPI representative said the two projects are not related.”<

See on www.hydroworld.com

Sweden’s Minesto Ocean Energy Kite System Proven Operational

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2013-11-12

Minesto’s step-change marine power plant now producing electricity in Northern Ireland proving viability for huge ocean current power market

The Deep Green ‘underwater kite’ marine power plant is now producing electricity in the waters off Northern Ireland. This is the first time ever a marine power plant designed for low velocity currents produces electricity at sea, anywhere in the world, and the ocean trials verify the ability to unlock ocean currents as a renewable energy source. “This is a break-through for the entire renewable energy industry,” said Minesto’s CEO Anders Jansson.

deep-green-underwater-kite

Image source: minesto.com

Company Press Release:  http://bit.ly/18mXIfT

UK Proposed ban on Food Waste Landfill Disposal & Re-Purpose to Green Energy Feedstock

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Government, council and retailer-backed report says ban on landfill could save UK £17bn and heat 600,000 homes

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The ambition is to save the UK economy over £17bn a year through the reduction of food wasted by households, businesses and the public sector, preventing 27m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year from entering into the atmosphere.

The new study, Vision 2020: UK Roadmap to Zero Food Waste to Landfill is the culmination of more than two years’ work and has the backing and input of local authority and industry experts. It sets the framework for a food waste-free UK by 2020.

Last week official figures revealed the average UK family was wasting nearly £60 a month by throwing away almost an entire meal a day. A report from the government’s waste advisory group Wrap showed Britons were chucking out the equivalent of 24 meals a month, adding up to 4.2m tonnes of food and drink every year that could have been consumed. Almost half of this is going straight from fridges or cupboards into the bin, Wrap found. One-fifth of what households buy ends up as waste, and around 60% of that could have been eaten.

At the same time the UK’s largest retailer, Tesco, recently agreed to reduce its multi-buy items and other promotions after revealing that 35% of its bagged salad was being thrown out. It also found that 40% of apples were wasted, and just under half of bakery items.<

See on www.theguardian.com

Greening Coal Power with CO2-eating Microalgae as a Biofuel Feedstock

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Successful microalgae-to-biodiesel conversion has been the goal of some renewable energy researchers for more than two decades.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>To that end, Algae.Tec has signed a deal with Macquarie Generation, Australia’s largest electricity generator, to put an “algae carbon capture and biofuels” production facility next to a coal-fired power station in Australia’s Hunter Valley. Macquarie Generation, which operates the Sydney-area 2640 MW Bayswater Power Station, will feed waste CO2 into an enclosed algae growth system. […]

Projections are for the first year of production to hit 100,000 tons of algae biomass; half of which would be converted to an estimated 60 million liters of biodiesel. One sea-land container would generate 250 tons of biomass per annum, said the company, which would be harvested on a continuous basis. […]

Stroud projects that some 75 percent of his company’s income will come from biodiesel. The remaining 25 percent of Algae.Tec’s income will hinge on the sale of the microalgae’s leftover biomass for animal feed.<

See on www.renewableenergyworld.com

Bloomberg predicts: Solar to add more megawatts than wind in 2013

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Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that for the first time more new solar power capacity — compared to wind — will be added to the world’s global energy infrastructure this year.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>In an BNEF’s analysts forecast 36.7GW of new photovoltaic capacity this year, compared to 33.8 GW of new onshore wind farms, and  1.7 GW of offshore wind.

In 2012, wind — onshore and offshore — added 46.6 GW, while PV added 30.5GW, record figures in both cases. But in 2013, a slowdown in the world’s two largest wind markets, China and the US, is opening the way for the rapidly growing PV market to overtake wind.

“The dramatic cost reductions in PV, combined with new incentive regimes in Japan and China, are making possible further, strong growth in volumes,” said Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Europe is a declining market, because many countries there are rapidly moving away from incentives, but it will continue to see new PV capacity added.”<

See on www.renewableenergymagazine.com

Algae Biofuel Emits at Least 50% Less Carbon than Petroleum Fuels

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Algae-derived biofuel can reduce life cycle CO2 emissions by 50 to 70 percent compared to petroleum fuels, and is approaching a similar Energy Return on Investment (EROI) as conventional petroleum according to a new peer-reviewed paper published in…

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The study entitled Pilot-scale data provide enhanced estimates of the life cycle energy and emissions profile of algae biofuels produced via hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is the first to analyze data from a commercial-scale algae-to-energy farm. Researchers examined field data from Sapphire Energy facilities in Las Cruces and Columbus, New Mexico.

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently concluded that 14 percent of land in the continental United States, or the combined area of Texas and New Mexico, could be used to grow and produce algae for conversion into transportation fuels. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy found that for algae fuel to completely replace petroleum in the United States it would need roughly 30,000 square kilometers of land, or half the area of South Carolina, so the potential is certainly there for a massive transition from dirty oil-based transportation fuels to cleaner burning domestic green crude from algae.<

 

See on inhabitat.com

Robotic Technologies Applied to Solar Energy Market – Installation and Maintenance

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Mountain View CA (SPX) Sep 20, 2013 – … robotic technologies deliver revolutionary installation and cleaning services at highly competitive prices … for building and maintenance of utility-scale solar plants..

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The typical installation process for utility-scale projects is similar to that of a small-scale, 20-panel, residential installation. Despite incremental improvements to the process, a 200,000-panel installation has retained many of the characteristics of a 20-panel installation.

They are both labor-intensive, and require repetitive bolt-tightening and glass-hauling. While these are minor flaws in a 20-panel system, they create significant inefficiencies in 20,000- or 200,000-panel systems.

Alion Energy has plugged the shortcomings of the current installation methods by changing the materials and design used in the mounting structure as well as by automating the installation. By combining robotic installation technology with established construction practices, Alion Energy has built a system twice as fast and 75 percent more labor-efficient that lowers solar electricity’s levelized cost of energy (LCOE) to compete with traditional energy sources.<

See on www.solardaily.com