Tag Archives: Green Energy

Global Warming – Paused or Peaked? – draft U.N. report

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OSLO (Reuters) – A “hiatus” in global warming so far this century is partly caused by natural variations in a chaotic climate and is unlikely to last, a draft United Nations report by leading climate scientists says.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The fact that temperatures have risen more slowly in the past 15 years despite rising emissions of greenhouse gases has emboldened sceptics who challenge the evidence for man-made climate change and question the need for urgent action.

But the IPCC draft reports do not project any long-term respite. Instead, they forecast a resumption in the warming trend that is likely to cause ever more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels. […]

“There are a number of explanations (for the hiatus), any one of which might be correct,” said professor Myles Allen of Oxford University, who contributed to the IPCC draft. “That is very different from saying:’We have no idea what’s going on’.”

The drafts say that a reduction in warming for 1998-2012 compared to 1951-2012 is “due in roughly equal measure” to natural variations in the climate and factors such as “volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the current solar cycle.”<

See on news.yahoo.com

Stanford Scientists Analyse Life Cycle Costs of Energy Storage vs Curtailment for Renewables

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Stanford CA (SPX) Sep 17, 2013 –
Renewable energy holds the promise of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But there are times when solar and wind farms generate more electricity than is needed by consumers.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>”We calculated how much energy is used over the full lifecycle of the battery – from the mining of raw materials to the installation of the finished device,” Barnhart said. “Batteries with high energetic cost consume more fossil fuels and therefore release more carbon dioxide over their lifetime. If a battery’s energetic cost is too high, its overall contribution to global warming could negate the environmental benefits of the wind or solar farm it was supposed to support.”

For this study, he and his colleagues calculated the energetic cost of grid-scale photovoltaic solar cells and wind turbines.

“Both wind turbines and photovoltaics deliver more energy than it takes to build and maintain them,” said GCEP postdoctoral scholar Michael Dale, a co-author of the study. “However, our calculations showed that the overall energetic cost of wind turbines is much lower than conventional solar panels, which require lots of energy, primarily from fossil fuels, for processing silicon and fabricating other components.” […]

To find out, the researchers compared the energetic cost of curtailing solar and wind power, versus the energetic cost of grid-scale storage. Their calculations were based on a formula known as “energy return on investment” – the amount of energy produced by a technology, divided by the amount of energy it takes to build and maintain it.

Using that formula, the researchers found that the amount of energy required to create a solar farm is comparable to the energy used to build each of the five battery technologies. “Using batteries to store solar power during periods of low demand would, therefore, be energetically favorable,” Dale said.

The results were quite different for wind farms. The scientists found that curtailing wind power reduces the energy return on investment by 10 percent. But storing surplus wind-generated electricity in batteries results in even greater reductions – from about 20 percent for lithium-ion batteries to ?more than 50 percent for lead-acid.<

See on www.solardaily.com

Boston Leads Ranking of Energy-Efficient U.S. Cities by ACEEE

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A new ranking highlights Boston’s achievements in conserving energy as the Senate debates a bipartisan energy efficiency bill.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>ACEEE graded 34 cities for their efforts in five areas: buildings, transportation, energy and water utility programs, local government operations, and community-wide initiatives.  […]

The cities’ leap forward in energy-efficiency efforts has been a stark contrast to the slow movement on Capitol Hill, where the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013, authored by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has been struggling to move forward.

The bill, […] would require the federal government—the nation’s single largest energy consumer—to update government buildings to improve energy efficiency, institute electricity-saving measures for government computers, and make it easier for agencies to switch to electric and natural-gas-powered vehicles. It also would provide training for workers in how to build more energy-efficient buildings for the private sector, and help finance private-sector renovations for energy efficiency. […]<

See on news.nationalgeographic.com

Inside look at General Motors’ new hyper-green data center

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WARREN, Michigan—General Motors has gone through a major transformation … a three-year effort to reclaims its own IT after 20 years of outsourcing.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The first physical manifestation of that transformation is here at Warren, where GM has built the first of two enterprise data centers. The $150 million Warren Enterprise Data Center will cut the company’s energy consumption for its enterprise IT infrastructure by 70 percent, according to GM’s CIO Randy Mott. If those numbers hold up, the center will pay for itself with that and other savings from construction within three years. […]

The data center is part of a much larger “digital transformation” at the company, Mott said. GM is consolidating its IT operations from 23 data centers scattered around the globe (most of them leased) and hiring its own system engineers and developers for the first time since 1996. Within the next three to five years, GM expects to hire 8,500 new IT employees with 1,600 of them in Warren. “We’re already at about the 7,000 mark for internal IT from our start point of about 1,700,” Mott said. […]

So far, three of the company’s 23 legacy data centers have been rolled into the new Warren data center. That’s eliminated a significant chunk of the company’s wide-area network costs. “We have 8,000 engineers at (Vehicle Engineering Center) here,” Liedel said. And those engineers are pushing around big chunks of data—the “math” for computer-aided design, computer aided manufacturing, and a wide range of high-performance computing simulations.

“Now with the data center on the same campus, we’re not paying for the WAN bandwidth we had before,” Liedel explained. “We’ve got dark fiber here on the campus, and the other major concentration of engineers is at Milford at the Proving Ground.” Milford and Warren are connected over fiber via dens wave division multiplexing, providing 10 channels of 10-gigabit-per-second bandwidth.<

See on arstechnica.com

Canadian renewable energy output continues to fall

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The contribution from renewable energy sources continues to decline in Canada in comparison to conventional carbon-based fuel according to Federal statistics

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>“While wind output dropped 14.4% and solar slipped 3.6%, Canada’s total generation of electricity declined 0.8%, which means that renewables continue to lose share” said Bill Eggertson, the Executive Director of the Canadian Association for Renewable Energies. “We’ve been warning for some time that the good news on the growth in renewables, is overshadowed by the even-greater growth in conventional energy output. The recent meeting of energy ministers in Yellowknife noted that green power capacity has grown at a rapid pace over the last decade and the trend is expected to continue, but that is not due to sources which many Canadians regard as truly renewable. Feed-in tariffs and legislated renewable portfolio standards are key, but there must be stronger efforts to curtail the growth of conventional energy sources, or the share from renewables will continue to drop.”<

See on www.renewableenergymagazine.com

Net Energy Metering Policies Helping To Spur Solar Growth

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All across the United States, rooftop solar panels are popping up on homes, businesses and schools like mushrooms in a forest, and utility-scale solar projects are bringing huge amounts of clean energy into our communities.  Why?

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Today, smart policies — likeRenewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and Net Energy Metering (NEM) — are helping to fuel solar’s explosive growth. Our industry now employs 120,000 Americans at 5,600 U.S. companies. What’s more, we’re now generating enough electricity to power more than 1.5 million homes…

Part of this amazing success story can also be attributed to the fact that the average cost of a solar system has dropped by nearly 40 percent over the past two years and by a whopping 50 percent since 2010.  As a result, American consumers, businesses and schools are flocking to rooftop solar.  According to the most recent statistics, the residential market alone grew by 48 percent in the second quarter of 2013 compared to the same time period a year ago. […]

NEM has significantly contributed to this growth.  Simply put, NEM is a credit on your bill that represents the full value of electricity delivered.  Think of it this way: surplus energy generated by a home or business system is exported to the electricity grid, allowing a consumer’s meter to spin backwards.  This allows the homeowner or business owner to have greater control over their energy use and prices.  […]”<

See on www.renewableenergyworld.com

Supply of Renewable Wind Power Surges in Texas with some Plant Closures

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Market Upheaval In the U.S., hydraulic fracturing techniques used to drill shale have produced a flood of cheap natural gas. That, combined with the growth in wind and tepid customer demand, is upending power markets, leading to plant closures and bankruptcy for some generator owners.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Traditional power companies across the U.S. and Europe are struggling to compete in wholesale markets with newer generators supplying subsidized wind and solar energy. In Texas, wind has more than doubled in the past six years and now makes up 13 percent of the state’s generation capacity.[…]

Falling Prices – Electricity prices for 2014 also have fallen. The on-peak North Texas power price for next year has dropped 19 percent since reaching a peak on May 23, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

During a heat wave in the first week of August, ample wind supplies served to keep a lid on prices that would’ve normally spiked from the higher demand, NRG Chief Executive Officer David Crane said during a call with investors on Aug. 9. “Wind energy reduces electricity prices and that is good for consumers,” said Michael Goggin, an analyst for the American Wind Energy Association, an industry trade group. “Wind energy has no fuel costs, allowing it to replace more expensive and polluting sources of energy.”

Once complete, Oncor’s power lines will be part of a system that can eventually deliver about 18,500 megawatts of wind power, nearly double the amount now available in Texas and 25 percent of the state’s current generation capacity.<

See on www.renewableenergyworld.com

Coal Power Plants to be retired – Duke Energy Settles Edwardsport air permit Dispute

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Duke Energy Corp. said it reached a settlement with the a handful of environmental and activist organizations over outstanding issues with the.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued the new Knox County, Ind., plant’s air permits in 2008, and- -under the settlement with the Sierra Club, Citizens Action Coalition, Save the Valley and Valley Watch–they remain approved with no changes. The dispute centered on technical issues surrounding the permits that enabled the company to build and operate the plant, the company said.

The settlement also addresses deadlines for retiring units at Duke’s Wabash River Station in Vigo County, Ind. Prior to the settlement, the company had said it planned to retire four, 1950s-vintage units totaling 350 megawatts at the station by the 2015 federal mercury rule deadline. In the agreement, the company agreed to finish the retirements by the compliance deadline or, if the mercury rule is vacated or delayed, by June 1, 2018, whichever comes first.

Duke also had been exploring converting another unit at the Wabash station to natural gas, and, under the settlement, the company agreed to cease burning coal at that 318-megawatt unit by June 1, 2018. The deadline won’t prevent Duke Energy from converting the unit to natural gas earlier.

The settlement also includes a commitment to pursue additional green energy sources.<

See on www.nasdaq.com

Are developing Microgrids the Answer to supply next generation Electricity Markets?

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Managing the effect of intermittent renewables on the grid is one of the critical challenges we address in making the transition to renewables. One of the primary goals of grid modernization (aka “Smart Grid”) is to adapt grid management to account for the effects of intermittency in real time.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Microgrids are one possible solution to these challenges. Microgrids, part of the Smart Grid toolbox, are autonomously managed and powered sections of the distribution grid that can be as small as a single building, or as large as a downtown area or neighborhood. Automation and digital communications are used to manage rooftop solar, small scale combined heat and power systems and storage systems, along with matching supply to demand.  Heating or cooling may also be a part of a microgrid. Microgrids can efficiently manage smaller sections of the grid, according to the local demand patterns and availability of renewable resources. They can also disconnect, or “island” from the larger grid to provide higher reliability.

Can microgrids reduce complexity and increase options for electricity market participants? What are the major barriers to microgrid implementation, and how might they be overcome? Are there other approaches, besides the microgrid, that might be employed as well?<

See on www.ourenergypolicy.org

Proliferation of wireless devices and networks detrimental to environment

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Cloud computing should be driving sustainable development, but its turning us into energy consuming monsters, write Stuart Newstead and Howard Williams

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>There is a familiarity and comfort in our almost-everywhere connection to always-on communications networks and to the ever-increasing array of services they deliver us. We don’t just consume these network services directly, they give us what economists call “options” – options to connect, options to seek out new services, options to find new information. Clearly we don’t use this network services 24/7, but we value highly the options for instantaneous and simultaneous access at any time.

Cloud-based applications – those stored and managed by massive data centres run by the likes of Amazon, Google, Facebook or Apple – are providing step changes in the financial and environmental efficiency of delivering these services. But the centralising power of the cloud has its corollary in the dispersing effect of wireless networks and devices.

In wireless networks and devices we see fragmentation, duplication and a fundamental shift from mains power and green sources of energy to battery powered always-on devices. In environmental terms here lies the rub. Rather than the “aggregation of marginal gains” (the Sir Dave Brailsford strategy that has propelled success in British cycling), in which lots of tiny improvements add up to a large visible improvement, we are witnessing the aggregation of environmental disadvantages from billions of low-powered but fundamentally energy-inefficient antennas and devices providing the ‘last metre’ connectivity to global networks.

Wireless networks and devices, technologies that should drive sustainable development, are turning into energy-consuming monsters.<

See on www.theguardian.com