Breaking News
'Old News': 2005 through 2001, can be found in the archive
May 15, 2008. Flying a solar-powered airplane live in a simulator. The Virtual Flight 2008 will be conducted by the Solar Impulse team from May 12 to 16 in the construction hangar of the HB-SIA prototype, at the aerodrome of Dübendorf near Zurich in Switzerland. Follow the test flights live via the internet.
May 14, 2008. One percent extra. The Californian company SunPower announced yesterday in a press release that they have successfully produced a prototype 5-inch solar cell with a solar conversion efficiency of 23.4%, setting a new world record for cells this size. The company's aim is to start marketing solar panels with these cells in approximately two years. The cell is part of a larger effort to reduce the price of solar panels by 50% in 2012. SunPower is the manufacturer of solar panels for very large solar PV farms. Aerial pictures of several of these farms are on display on the website of SunPower.
May 12, 2008. Tesla starts selling elektric sports car. Associated Press announced that Tesla's full-electrical car 'Tesla Roadster' is now in production. 'Governator' Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others, seems to have ordered one.
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May 5, 2008. Up and up and up. Scaring. the graph on the left shows the trend in the carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, published by US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The curve is even slightly progressive.In 2007 it went past the 380 ppm level. 400 ppm is in sight. In my country funny TV ads are being shown paid by energy companies claiming how eco-friendly they think they are (burning cow dung, among others).This is their spin towards the general public. On the other hand the big energy generators Nuon, E.ON, RWE and Electrabel have started the construction of coal-burning power stations (licensed by the Secretary for the Environment (!)). If we want to adhere to the Kyoto treaty, and if we want to reverse this dramatic trend leading to climate disaster, we have to stop wasting energy in the first place, abandon coal-beased power generation, and start generating much more and much faster environmentally benign energy (wind, solar) than we are currently doing. By the way, I am not a nukes-supporter. |
May 1, 2008. Europe Solar Days, May 16-17. More than 4,000 events will be held in 10 European countries. One of tehse eventis is the Sunny Saturday in The Netherlands, organized by ODE, when a number of PV-owners will open the doors of tyheir home sto show and explain their solar-PV and solar-thermal installations. An announcement of the European Solar Days can be found at www.solardays.eu, and the details of the event in Holland at ODE (in Dutch).
April 24, 2008. Ever amazing Yankees. Americans always surprise me. As a nation, the USA is the most exuberant energy guzzling country on earth. Some Americans are proud patriotic Hummer drivers. Movie stars drive Toyota's Prius. Texans build the biggest wind farms, and among the biggest PV generators on earth is the 14 MW installation at Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, NV. I recently ran across the US Army Hawaiii Family Housing website, featuring a web camera on one of the newly built army family Housing residential areas. Take a look! Amazing! All homes equipped with solar water heaters, and in the backyard sheds with PV roofs that caught the eye of a New York Times Dot Earth reporter.
April 10, 2008. About jobs .The number of people employed by companies working in the renewable energy sector in Germany increased last year to 249,300. In 2004 this number was 160,500 so this sector is enjoying unparalleled job growth. In 2020 there could be as many as 400,000 German workers earning their living in the renewable energy sector. Solar currently employs 38,600. In my country a paltry 300 people are employed in the solar energy sector. The gap between neighbouring Germany and my country is alarmingly wide. This gap is the result of the progressive German Renewable Energy Law which is far more advanced compared with the conservative poor-man's handouts by the Dutch goverment and very tight local regulation. Source: RenewableWorld
April 7, 2008. Greg's Sun Cubes to collect energy from sunlight. The Australian Greg Watson, the inventor and manufacturer of the SunCube™ has installed a Sun Cube™ farm on the roof of his manufacturing facility in Adelaide, South Australia. The South Australian government has commissioned Green and Gold Energy, Greg's company, to build and operate three big Sun Cube energy farms. A Sun Cube™ is a solar concentrating, sun tracking system very well suited for sunny, hot climates like that of Australia, the southwestern USA, parts of Africa, the Middle-East and maybe southern Europe.
April 4, 2008. Burns all for you to generate electricity. In my country, energy suppliers are compelled by law to publish every year their fuel mix, that is the stuff they have burned to generate the electricity purchased by their customers. Here is the 2007 fuel mix of several of the public energy companies in The Netherlands.
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| coal l |
22%
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24%
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20%
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26%
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0%
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| natural gas |
40%
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46%
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61%
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48%
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0%
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| renewable |
29%
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17%
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9%
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4%
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100%
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| nuclear |
7%
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9%
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7%
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19%
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0%
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| rest |
3%
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5%
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3%
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3%
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0%
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No surprise that my electricity supplier is the rightmost one ! Source: Energeia
March 30, 2008. Mallorca, Spain, turns solar. The German company, Phoenix Solar has announced plans to install a 1.2 MWp solar PV generator on the island of Mallorca, Spain. This PV station will become on line July, 2008. The company is installing much more in sunny Spain: 5.3 MWp in the province of Castilla La Mancha and another 4.7 Megawatts of PV in the province of Granada. Installed solar power in Spain currently stands at 625 Mwp. Source: Phoenix Solar
March 29, 2008. Power off tonight at 20:00. A number of world cities is switching off city lights tonight between 20:00 and 21:00 as a warning against climate change. Sydney (Australia) was the first, turning off the lights of the famous Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge. Bangkok, Toronto, Chicago and many more cities world wide will follow. As a sympathizer I will turn off the lights of my home at 20:00 p.m. local time and keep only one little light on until 21:00. Also my computer and internet access gear will be shut off. See ya tomorrow, mates. Source: BBC
March 2, 2008. Mind boggling numbers. If you add all the things done during a lifetime, oh boy, that accumulates impressively. The same holds for the production of anything, even solar photovoltaic panels. The Japanese company, Sharp, which has been one of the pioneers in mass manufacture of solar cells and solar panels, published recently in a modest message that the company had reached at the end of 2007 the accumulated production of 2 GWp. This is an impressive achievement, and worth congratulations. Assuming that a 100 Wp panel approximates 1 square meter the Japanese company has manufactured in 15 years the amount of 20 milion square meters of solar apnel. According to Wikipedia the length and width of a soccer field is 100 and 75 meters respectively, so we are discussing here the equivalent of paving 2,667 soccer fields with blue tiles. Sharp encounters strong competition of German and Chinese comnpanies which threaten the market leading position of Sharp. Things move fast in the PV world.
February 24, 2008. Economy of photovoltaics. Solar photovoltaic energy for the home may enjoy increasing popularity in the USA, yet their costs far outweigh the benefits, according to a recently published economic analysis by dr. Severin Borenstein who is professor at the University of California and head of the University's Energy Institute. Borenstein: "We are throwing money away by installing the current solar PV technology, which is a loser" (quote taken from the press release of the University of California).
Thank you, dr Borenstein! I am a staunch supporter of PV. You suggest that I am supporting a losing scheme. Supporting a losing scheme can be done only by losers. Consequently I am a loser! Wow! Should I immediately stop this website and sell my PV panels? Of course not, and I am sure that dr. Borenstein did not intend to offend me nor my co-supporters of solar energy, he only intended to warn us not to be too optimistic. So I downloaded the paper from www.ucei.berkeley.edu to read the analysis myself. It is an impressive article, well researched. Borenstein did a good job. He investigated 26,522 solar PV systems in his home state (which by the way is an amount roughly equal to the number of privately owned systems in my home country).
Borenstein's paper concludes that, even after considering that the panels reduce greenhouse gases, their costs still far outweigh their social benefits. Part of this is caused by slow integration of solar systems by utility companies. However, the premium value of solar PV could be from 30 percent to 50 percent higher if U.S. systems were run with less capacity and prices were allowed to rise as demand increases at different time.
Econonomic studies like dr. Borenstein's always project the curent economic situation on the future and they work with hard facts. 1) there is no carbon tax, 2) efforts by private citizens to reduce CO2 emissions are not awarded 3) utility electricity rates remain stable over the years and are not tied to the oil price 4) the environmental and health costs of fossil electricity generation are never taken into consideration, an important factor is missed also, notably that owners of PV systems get used towards looking at power consumption from a different point of view than plain consumers do.
In an interview, Borenstein said that if one had money to spend, the most economic way to invest in the environment would be to take measures to insulate the home. I completely agree with him on this issue.
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February 16, 2008. Logging the energy yield is a dream of many owners of PV systems, and quite some inverters are equipped with logging functions. Most of the inverters owned by me however do not have built-in logging, so when I saw an advertisement for a cheap energy logger I was immediately caught. I received a packet with the device last Tuesday, and only today I had time to connecte the instrument to the mains of my PV system array and let it run. This logger is an interesting device since it contains memory on which logging data is stored (every minute: time stamp, voltage, current, cosinus phi). After a while you can dump the contents of the memory onto a SD-memory card and transfer the data to your computer. That's the theory. The the vendor has printed a text on the cardboard package that the logging files can be imported in an Excel spreadsheet which, unfortunately, does not work.Excel does not recognize the .bin file format in which the data is saved. A helpful programmer (thanks, TD!) wrote for a solar friend a conversion utility that converts the binary data into the .csv format which is importable into spreadsheets. The entire procedure is somewhat clumsy but it works. |
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The result can be appreaciated on the left. The conversion utility is a DOS-tool and has to be run at command line level. I remembered the syntax from the good old DOS days and from Linux excercises. Excel is a recognized powerful tool to prepare nice graphs. The graph shows the power output of the system. We had a great day: cold weather, crisp atmosphere, sunshine all day. A record sunshine day for February. Because the logger is logging the power output of the entire system the curve is not symmetrical but has a shoulder on the descending part. The highest power output was recorded between 11:30 and noon: 705 Watts. Not so bad for Northwest Europe in winter! The original SunPower panels face the south-east, and later during the day sunshine starts hitting the other panels. We had a lot of sunshine today which resulted in a record 4 kWh production. This month is on its way to become a rememberable solar month. |
February 9, 2008. No coal, no nukes? is it possible to support the electricity needs of a society completely from renewable sources? Some Germans think so and they set out to prove it scientifically. A group working at Kassel University has investigated the output of a so-called combined renewable power plant which is in reality a series of inteconnected renewable energy generating systems hooked up to a computer monitoring, prediction and regulating system: wind turbines in the north of Germany, solar parks in the south, and biomass generating stations in between. An existing pumping storage system was hooked to the array to store excess wind energy or to assist the biomass generators in case of darkness, no wind and high demand. The outcome was surprisingly positive. See a movie explaining the concept and the workout (in English) on the site, op www.unendlich-viel-energie.de (endless energy).
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Januari 23, 2008. A big advantage of solar electricity is a stable utility bill. Take a look at the electricity whereabouts of my PV-supported household and the impact of net metering. The graph shows electricity consumption of my household with 6-month intervals between 1999 (no PV yet) through 2000 (fist 6 solar panels) and 2005 (most recent expansion: 1 kWp PV extra). The main electricity meter has two displays: day (expensive) and night (cheap). Needless to say that excess electricity is sent back into the public grid during daytime. This 'export' causes my meter to run backward, short and slow in winter, long and fast in summer. Plotted is the difference in consumed electricity registered by the daytime tariff meter. The first six solar panels (0.6 kWp) arrived mid-2000. Result in 2001: a slight dip (15% self-generated). In the years following I installed more panels. The sum of electricity consumption (the bill!) decreased. After the last great expansion (2005, 1 kWp), registered yearly consumption hovers around zero. The excess (negative consumption) in the summer is offset by 'import in the winter season. The impact on my electricity bill is that I do not have to pay an advance and in addition that I only pay for the electricity used in the (cheap) nightly tarifff hours. We burned less natural gas as well for heating because of improved insulation, a solar water heater in 2003 and in the same year a new ultra-efficient CV heating unit. And remember: solar electricity is green and ultra-ultraclean. |
January 12, 2008. I wonder how thoughtful it is to reconsider nuclear power. The British light bulb (and the European as well) must keep burning. But isn't it a better idea to replace the 95% inefficient incandescent bulb with the 90% efficient CFL lamp? If every home in the UK and continental Europe would be really energy efficient, would there be need for nuclear power stations, these monolithic molochs that generate so massively electric power that must be consumed and therefore conflict brutally with energy conservation ? In The Netherlands the only thing the single national nuclear power station does is to power an aluminium smelter. Is that wat we want? More aluminium? Do we need more aluminium smelters or should we recycle beer and soda cans instead of throwing them away. The point here is that nuclear power is centralized massive monolithic electrical power generation of the past, big ugly and dangerous things with huge high voltage stations and power lines, while renewable power is decentralized, no big power line necessary because the power is consumed where it is being generated. You don't feel radiation from radioactive emissions, your DNA just gets damaged without the owner knowing it.
Then there is the nucear fuel, the radioactive waste issue and the assumed reduction of emission of carbon dioxide. Nuclear fuel is imported, just like oil is. There ain't any uranium mine in the entire UK. Somebody has to protect the transports. The military? World supplies of usable uranium are limited and the shortages are for the time being replenished with dismantled nuclear warheads. Uranium has to be mined in the first place and from poorer and poorer ores which means more rock to grind and more mine tailings. What is the CO2 emission for hauling billions of tons of rock and grinding all this stuff ? Isn't it natural to consider breeding technology once the step has been made to invest in nuclear fission reactors? How safe are breeder reactors? Is there any commercially operating breeder reactor in the entire universe? Who is going to pay for 100,000 years of waste storage? Will future generations thank us for waste cleanup, just like the British taxpayer currenly thanks the previous generation for leaving for us roughly 7 billion pounds worth of waste cleanup?
Then there is the money. You can flip a coin only once. Money invested in a nuclear powered society is not invested in a renewable energy powered society. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to build a nuclear power station. Both have in ALL cases of nuclear power plants exceeded. Construction of the new Finnish Olkiluoto-3 reactor is two years behind schedule, and the cost overrun is company secret. In my country the municipality of Steenwijkerland threatens to demolish a newly built home because completion took two years longer than announced in the contract. I suggest the Steenwijkerland mayor sends his bulldozers all the way to Finland. There's work to do!
Finally, do you have to bury a wind turbine 10,000 feet deep after it has fulfilled its task? Come on! Nuclear energy is not green, the reduction in CO2 emisions is doubtful if one considers the entire supply chain, nuclear power is at odds with saving energy, uranium supply is in doubt and in foreign hands, the investments are gigantic, cost overrun more than likely, and there is highly radioactive waste to consider. And, who will pay the insurance policy?
January 5, 2008. Ambitious solar plans in Japan. Call it the 14 million solar homes plan. In de Japan Times one could read on Januari 1 that the Japanese Government has published plans to support policies to have in 2030 solar panels installed on 30% of all homes in Japan. The solar systems will be full-blown 3,7 kWp systems. One such a system produced sufficient electricity to supply an average Japanese family with electrical power. Installed PV power will grow fronm the curent 1300 MWp to 40 GWp, a 30-fold increase. Sourcen: Japan Times.
January 3, 2008. What does 100$ per barrel mean 4U? - You don't have to be a professional economist to expect this:
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December 30, 2007. 99 cents per peak Watt on the horizon? In Europe, consumer prices of standard silicon solar panels currently hover in the € 5.50 (US$ 7.75) range. That's a lot of money to invest for Johnny the Consumer. With a lot of press hoopla, the innovative company, Nanosolar, has started large-scale printing of CIGS-PV nano-ink on a flexible aluminum carrier foil. The result is a thin-film PV panel with relatively low conversion efficiency, yet with a very spectacular price-to-performance ratio. Nanosolar says that they may be able to produce their PV panels for as little as 99 dollar cent per peak Watt. The US price for conventional silicon solar panels according to SolarBuzz is at the moment 4 dollar 83 per peak Watt. Quite a lot compared with 99 cents!. Nanosolar says that their production portfolio is fully booked until mid-2009 with orders from investment companies starting up their own solar powers tations. The consumer has to wait a few years, which given the flaws that came with the early silicon panels, is not such a bad idea. Sceptics remain critical about durabillity. we will see. Keep an eye on Nanosolar. Source: The Guardian.
December 24, 2007. 35 GWh solar electricity produced in the Netherlands in 2006. Imagine a moist climate that directs rain-laden clouds day after day over a flat, windswept country in Northwestern Europe. Could this be the scene for the production of electricity via solar panels? Yet it is happening. An amazing 35 GWh of solar electricity was produced in the Netherlands in 2006, according to a report published by the Central Netherlands Bureau for Statistics (CBS). Quite a lot of electrical power, sufficient to provide 10,000 Dutch homes all year round with this free, zero-carbon dioxide emission, green stuff.
December 19, 2007. President Bush signs energy bill. Today, mr Bush signed H.R.6, the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007. One of the most attractive aspects of the bill is the fuel efficiency of cars which will be set at 35 mpg in 2020 for all new cars. The bill does not particularly support renewable energy. Quite the contrary. Mr. Bush made a few remarks that may sound like music in the ears of the nuclear industry lobby. Source: The White House.
December 17, 2007. Leiden icicles. On the 12th of February, 1929 the 16th century city hall of Leiden burnt completely to the ground. The only thing leftw as a ruined facade. It was so cold that day that water from the fire fighting formed grotesque icicles all the way from the gutters to the ground. This historical event inspired an artist and a group of Leiden citizens to design a daring Christmas time illumination of the city hall.
The project 'Lichtjes Leids' includes reindeer, angels, strings of lights on the town square facade of the city hall, an illuminated bell tower and these LED-icicles on the front facade at the Breestraat ('Broad Street'). The entire icicle assembly probably uses less electricity than the three ornaments spanning the Breestraat. Tourists, please travel to Leiden to see this fantastic Leiden-by-night spectacle which will be around until the 6th of January, 2008. Take youc camera with you because several more photogenic opportunities are on offer in the close vicinity of the city hall.
December 14, 2007. Mass solar! According to Boston.com the Massachusetts administration has launched a new rebate program to boost solar energy in this northeastern US state. 68 million dollar will be spent to support homeowners who want to join the already 3,000 Massachusetts home owners that profit from the free energy coming from the sun. Currently 4 MW of solar energy is installed; the program aims to increase this to 27 MW in 2012 and as much as 250 MW in 2017.
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December 10, 2007. Ireland bans bulb. Legislation is being introduced in the Irish parliament to forcibly ban the incandescent lightbulb effective January 1, 2009. The Secretary for the Environment, John Gormley, announced the ban and said "By getting rid of these bulbs we will save 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year." Irish consumers are estimated to save €185 million in electricity costs every year as a result of the measure.Source: Eetimes The Dutch Minister for the Environment coined a similar measure this spring, but following intense pressure she had to cancel her proposal. Too bad, and all the poohah around the measure painfully showed how conservative and environment-unfriendly many of my compatriots think. |
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December 1, 2007. How much solar power in winter? I constructed with my spreadsheet program this picture showing the November (red bars) and December (yellow bars) production patterns across the last seven years. November 2007 wasn't that bad after all. On average the 6 SunPower panels produce in November 11,5 kWh, with 2006 holding the record. In December on average 7,5 kWh is collected. These are modest production numbers (June yields on average 56 kWh) but an amazing fact remains that even in winter there is plenty energy out there, sufficient to ppwer for instance my Christmas light strings. Last year I bought LED-illumination for the Christmas tree, and now the power balance for the Christmas lights is positive. There is surplus! The difference between June (56 kWh) and December (7,5 kWh) is a factor 8. In winter the earth receives much less solar energy than in summer. That's why it is cold in December and warm in June, after all.. |
November 29, 2007. Money back from the utility company. I received a check worth 120 euros from the utility company to balance the bill for electricity consumption, past year. Checks like these (in addition to the already modest monthly charge for electricity compared with my neighbours) are the result of having PV panels on the roof of my home. The ownership of photovoltaic panels pay off!
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November 23, 2007. Which one is the energy saving lamp? (see message of (November 13). Both fixtures contain energy saving lamps! The left one features a classical 1.5W mini compact fluorescent lamp (bought at IKEA) while the right one houses a Pharox LED lamp (3.4W). Most respondents (n=16) gave the correct answer. Typical for the Pharox LED lamp is the reddish light. Most of this reddishness is not seen by the human eye, it is produced by the CCD chip in my digital camera. My own eyes perceive the light coming off the Pharox LED lamp as yellowish white while the IKEA lamp provides a more distinct yellowish light. This picture has not been tinkered with Photoshop or the like. To all respondents: thanks a lot folks for your comments. |
November 22, 2007. Chrysler in the electric car business. Chrysler will be presenting the all-electric, pluggable Dodge Zeo at the Detroit Auto Show (to be held January 2008). The Zeo will carry a load of Li-ion batteries which will provide a driving range of 250 miles. An increasing score of car manufacturers is designing or even planning to sell electric cars. An electric power train is much more energy efficient, simpler to manufacture and and lighter than the good old, CO2 spewing explosion motor. Many people including myself judge it immoral to steal food out of the mouths of hungry poor people in the Third world to convert that into ethanol to power SUV's. I bet on electric cars provided that those Li-ion batteries remain stable and don't explode like the infamous Dell laptop batteries, last year. Also Fisker is going to show a plug-in electric sports car at the Detroit show.
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November 16, 2007. Action against coal burning power stations. The Green Party of The Netherlands is opposed to plans submitted by the energy companies, Nuon, Electrabel, E.ON, Delta and Essent to construct five big new coal burning electricity power stations. These plans are indeed ridiculous. CO2 emissions from the new power stations will equal those of 7.5 million cars. Our country will be among the first to drown when sea levels rise because of climate change. By raising atmospheric CO2 even more these power stations will in effect help to get our feet wet faster. This is completely unacceptable because in the mean time our society is wasting billions of kilowatt hours of electricity on ridiculous things as stand-by power (one complete generating station), light bulbs (95% energy wasted as heat!), inefficient applicances (another generating station), illuminating the entire country by night (including wind mills - one additional power station) and so forth. These proposed new power stations are therefore redundant and unwanted, and the promise by the energy companies to develop CO2 sequestering techniques is just propaganda, first because these techniques do not exist and second since CO2 storage methods store the carbon dioxide in the soil (which is integral part of the environment). The web site is www.kappenmetkolen.nl (in Dutch) |
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November 13, 2007. Which one is the energy saving lamp? Left or right. Some people argue that the light fro energy saving lamps is ugly, cool, too little, and that one is inclined to let these lamps burn longer, offsetting the savings. I have placed these two lamps next to ach other, and you may tell me which one burns an energy saviung lamp. E-mail your solution.:
As soon as I have received sufficient answers, I will publish the results and reveal the solution. |
November 8, 2007. Fifty things that will save the planet is a list published recently by the Guardian with measures, tips and tricks by 25 experts to save energy, waste, reduce your carbon dioxide footprint and the like.
November 7, 2007. International Energy Agency confirms oil shortage next seven years - and beyond. Peak oil has begun.
November 5, 2007. Oil shortage in foreseeable future? In the 100-page report "Crude oil: the supply outlook", published October 2007 by the Energy Watchgroup a chilling prognosis for future fossil fuel production is predicted. According to the report, world production of oil has reached a plateau and probably will not further expand. So many oil fields are 'mature' (this means: over the top; yields declining), and so little is being found, that there is fair chance that the stagnating production in spite of huge price hikes messages that we are witnessing peak oil right now. The main message of the report: do not expect the production of oil to grow substantially anymore, it may even start to decline in spite of all efforts to pump up more oil. Don't expect the price of petrol to go down; fuel shortages will begin to occur in poor countries as richer nations claim remaining fuel. The poor will be hurt first. Natural gas will follow in a couple of years, and coal will peak later. I checked the oil production numbers on BP's website, and these look very similar. According to BP, oil production in 2006 was 81.7 Mb/d. Oil reserves estimated by BP in 2006 1208.2 gigabarrels (Gb). According to EW the reserve stands at 1,050 Gb. The optimistic US Geological Survey estimated in 2000 oil reserves at 2,300 Gb. Maybe the latter number includes tar sands and oil shale, but oil from these sources is hard to extract. Since 81.7Mbd * 365 days equals 29 Gb, it follows that the last drop of oil can be expected to flow out of the empty pipe in 36-40 years, if demand remains constant. Since demand still grows and keeps growing, those 36 years may shrink fast. The last oil will be hard to extract. Peak oil therefore is imminent if not already occurring, according to The Energy Watchgroup.
October 30, 2007. IBM announces a way to produce solar silicon out of rejected wafers. At IBM's Burlington (VT) microchip facility a procedure has been developed to grind solar silicon out of wafers that do not satisfy production standards. See the report movie on the IBM website.
October 28, 2007. France will turn green, Président Sarkozy promises. No new motorways, no new airports, unless green?
October 27, 2007. Gigawatts in Singapore. Last week the Norwegian company, REC (Renewable Energy Corporation) announced that they had agreed with the Government of Singapore to construct an integrated solar silicon -PV manufacturing center in Singapore. Accoring to REC Singapore offered the best combination of geographical location, fiscal and investment opportunities, personnel and profitability forecasts. Plans are to build the plant piecemeal. Groundbreaking will be in the first half of 2008. In its final stage production will be a stagering 1.5 GWp worth of solar panels per year.
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October
26, 2007.
Final classification
World Solar Challenge
* Nuon Solar Team
at 2007-10-25 16:54:00 Website of the organization at www.wsc.org.au |
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October 22, 2007. 2nd day of the World Solar Challenge: passage in Tennant Creek: Belgian team ahead of the pack. * Umicore at 2007-10-22
11:08:00 |
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Devil's
Marbles, Tennant Creek, NT
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October 21, 2007. Start of the World Solar Challenge. The two Dutch teams (Nuna-4 and Twente-1) performed well, but the Belgian team (Umicore) beat them all ! Positions in Dunmarra after the first leg: * Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-21 16:13:00, * Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-21 16:39:00,* Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-21 17:30:00. Superb!
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October
12, 2007.
Today is the start of the Solar Decathlon.
This decathlon is a design contest organized by the US Department of
Energy in which 20 university teams across the nation compete for the
most beautiful, original and efficient solar home. Model homes have
been built on the Mall in Washinton. The display will be open to the
public until October 20. The web site is www.solardecathlon.org.
The aerial picture on the left has been kindly provided by the organizing
committee. . |
September 23, 2007. Solon AG to build a 44MWp solar electricity generating station near Ayora, province of Sevilla, Spain. Source: Solarserver.
September
17, 2007. Chernobyl cleanup. The
French firm, Novarka, will construct a giant steel structure (190 metres wide
and 200m long) cto replace the concrete casing built over the exploded reactor
after the 1986 accident. The project will cost an estimated 1 billion euros.
It will take five years to complete and the authorities say they will then
be able to start dismantling the reactor. The ruin still contains 95% of the
original nuclear material. Money for construction of the steel cathedral has
been collected by international donors. Source: BBC
If you want to have a look at Pripyat, the abandoned town in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: click here or on the Pripyat sign below.
September 12, 2007. Two solar parks to be built near Sault St. Marie, Ontario, Canada. Each solar park will consist of 10 MWp solar panels. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) signed contracts under the Standard Offer Program supporting renewable energy. Source: RenewableEnergyAcess
September 12, 2007. Oil closes at record US$ 79,85 (NYMEX) after hitting the all time high 80 bucks.
September 11, 2007. Record oil price: US$ 78, 26 at the NYMEX. This may cause a local natural gas price hike. usually, prices are fixed for 6 months; the price for the first 6 months of 2008 will be published early Novermber. Should I consider buying more solar panels or extra heat insulation for my home?
September 7, 2007. Oil up and up. One barrel of Texas Sweet Crude Oil is featuring US$ 76,70 at the NYMEX. Oil is going up relentlessly. Only one year ago, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affair was still calculating economical forecasts based on 40 dollars per barrel. And winter on the northern hemisphere is still some months away.
August 28, 2007. High EG import tariff on energy saving light bulbs prolonged. The European Commission has decided to retain import tariffs on Chinese-made energy-efficient light bulbs for up to another 12 months. Source: BBC
August 27, 2007. Around the world in a solar taxi. A Swiss team of adventurers is touring around the world in an exclusively solar-driven car, the Solar Taxi. The start has been on July 3 in Luzern (Switzerland). Current position is Jordan, at the border with Israel. The trek will take 14 months during which the car will travel 50,000 kilometers. A website devoted to this epochial event can be found at www.solartaxi.com.
August 22, 2007. Ozzie schools and families go solar. The federal government of Australia will provide funding to help every school in the country to install a solar hot water system and rainwater tanks. To this purpose, Aus$ 336 million has been earmarked. Another Aus$ 252 million over five years will be made available to provide for 225,000 solar thermal rebates of $1,000 for homes which install solar and heat pump water heaters. The rebate is available if electric water heating and storage water systems are replaced. Some income restrictions have been imposed. Source: Renewableenergyfocus
August 13, 2007. Is Peak Oil at hand? The International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a warning today that oil production has to rise [i.e. that of OPEC members] because otherwise a shortage of oil might be on the horizon. I's an easy guess what the consequences of such a shortage would be for the petrol prices at the pump. My conclusion is that consumption is simply too high. Oil prices took a ride on the rollercoaster the last few days but the cause of that was the popping up and down of stock exchanges. Source: Financial Times.
August 9, 2007. The Chevrolet Volt is coming. General Motors Corporation will begin road testing its Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid in the spring of next year and remains on track to produce the rechargeable car by late 2010, a senior executive said Thursday. More news about the Volt and its competitors on the website CNN.com
August 5, 2007. US House of Representatives approves Renewable Electricity Portfolio bill. If approved in the Senate as well and signed by the President, this bill will force American utility companies in 2020 to generate 15% of their energy from renewable sources. However, the bill will have to pass the Senate, and Big Oil is really powerful here. Source: BBC.
August 1, 2007. Toyota testing a plug-in hybrid car. The Toyota Prius is a fuel efficient car (1 litre of petrol provides 23 kilometres). When you tweak the software and put in a few more batteries the car can do a lot better, especially when it is possible to charge the batteries at home or at work from an external electrical power source. The Japanese car maker apparently knows this and has announced that it is working on a plug-in variant of its hugely succesful Prius: the Plug-In HV. Source: Yahoo News.
Much more about plug-in hybrid cars on www.gm-volt.com/
July 30, 2007. New record set for conversion efficiency of solar cells. Researchers at Delaware University, USA reported today that they had developed a solar cell with 42.8 % conversion efficiency, that is more than two per cent better than the previous record set by folks at Boeing, Seattle (40.7%). According to the Delaware investigators, the 42.8% conversion efficiency is a step on a road towards the dream target of 50%. The conversion efficiency is the amount of energy in sunlight finally converted by a solar cell into electricity. The remaining energy is lost as heat. Current commercial polycrystalline silicon cells like the ones on my own home have conversion efficiencies of 14-15%. The best, monocrystalline, commercial solar cells for the home achieve 20%. Source: RenewableEnergyAccess
July 29, 2007. Manhattan in a nutshell. Researchers at Georgia Tech have succeeded in building carbon nano-skyskrapers on a silicium suface and then coating the assembly with PV-material. Result is a highly efficient solar cell that traps nearly all photons that hit it. The efficiency is enormous. Breakthrough? See: www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=1337
July 26, 2007. Biggest CSP generator in the world to be constructed in California. In California, legislation compels power utilities to generate in 2010 20% of their electricity in a renewable way (RPS, Renewable Portfolio Standard). The Californian utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced yesterday that they have ordered a 553 MW CSP power station to be constructed in the Mojave desert. The solar generating station will be finished in 2011: nine square miles, 1.2 million mirrors. The technology is the same as in the 25-year old, recently expanded (150 MW) installation at Kramer Junction. See for CSP the page dealing with other solar energy. (Source: SolarBuzz)
July 21, 2007. Additional PV panel. One measure to fight the mighty Ampere (see July 19, below) is to install more solar panels on the roof of your home. Also in Holland, hidden or parasite consumption by stand-by numerous electrical gadgets is rampant. One way to do something about this is to generate your own clean power (of course the best thing to do is not to buy energy-savvy gadgets) I found via the Web a nice used 110 Wp monocrystalline Siemens PV panel for a reasonable price. I bought it, picked it up and mounted it this afternoon on the roof of the shed. The blue panel in the background is a 145Wp that I bought in 2003.
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July 19, 2007. The Ampere Strikes Back is the title of a fascinating report published by the Energy Savings Trust. This organization extrapolates current trends in ownership of electrical appliances and gadgets. If things develop according to an 'business as usual' scenario, in 2020 a whopping 45% of the electricity consumption in the average UK home will be caused by computer games, entertainment and ICT applications. To generate the extra power consumption alone, 14 new average electricity power generation units would be necessary in the UK.
One of the nice things about the report (apart from the dazzling lay-out) is the distribution page. This page is an account of the average ownership of electrical gadgets in the UK. Compare with your own possessions:
| gadget/appliance |
average
|
in
your household
|
| TV |
2-3
|
|
| video cassette recorder |
1
|
|
| DVD speler-recorder |
1-2
|
|
| set top TV box / digi box/ decoder |
1
|
|
| stereoinstallatie muziek |
2
|
|
| mobiele telefoon |
3
|
|
| MP3 speler / ipod-achtige |
1-2
|
|
| computer |
1
|
|
| notebook computer |
1
|
|
| printer |
1
|
|
| scanner/fax |
1
|
|
| huistelefoon (DEC) |
3
|
|
| telefoonbeantwoorder |
1
|
|
| computerspelletjes console |
1
|
|
| breedbandmodem//router |
1
|
|
| digitale fotocamera |
1
|
|
| videocamera |
1
|
|
| radio |
2
|
|
| afwasautomaat |
1
on 4 households
|
|
| stofzuiger |
1
|
|
| wasdroger |
1
on 2 households
|
|
| magnetron |
1
|
July 12, 2007. California declares war on parasite energy consumption. On July 1, 2007 a new rule has become effective in California demanding that standby use of electronic appliances not exceed 0.5 Watt. The regulations, already approved by the California Energy Commission in December 2004, will limit the amount of electricity used while electronic devices are on standby power. They are a significant step toward meeting the state's 20 percent renewable energy goal by 2010.
The conservation standards, known as Title 20, target "standby power" and reduce the ever-increasing consumption of residential electricity. Standby power is defined as the power consumed by an appliance during the lowest possible electricity consuming mode. The new regulations mandate that external power supplies sold in California must draw only 1/2-watt of energy. Previously, such power supplies could produce as much as five watts of energy. Californians may save as much as $75 dollar a year on power bills. Source: California Energy Commission.
Comment: If California can take the initiative and outmanoever Bush and a big-oil dominated Congress, so why can't any European country do the same? (i.e., being more progressive and faster than the European Commission?).
July 10, 2007. Off grid in the Dutch canals. Buy a houseboat and you can live anywhere in Holland. However, the conventional houseboat needs a connection for electrical power, water, gas and sewage. Not this one. The gewoonboot has a fully autonomous power generation and sewage treatment system. It is an energy-zero houseboat. Designed and made in Holland. The only thing you need is a jerrycan with drinking water and a few gallons of Diesel fuel per year. If I had the money I would be tempted to buy one. You can download a virtual tour. The site is in Dutch only.
July 3, 2007. Solar thermal installations extremely unpopular in the Netherlands in 2006. Sales in solar thermal installations grew in Europe in 2006 with an astonishing 47% (Belgium: 76%, France: 81%, Germany: 58%). One peculliar exception to this surge are The Netherlands where sales collapsed (--27%). 2007 is going to be a poor year as well for solar thermal installations in Holland. This is remarkable given the fact that next to insulating the home a solar thermal installation is the next major step to save energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Apparently nobody cared in 2006, or anyway there was absolutely no government support at all for energy saving measures. Maybe the new center-left government with its huge ambitions (20 % energy savings in 2020) will induce by its inspiring words an all-out run by consumers on solar thermal installations in 2008 and beyond.Source: Holland Solar
June 23, 2007. San Francisco to develop solar energy web mapping. Enterprise Management Solutions, together with the City and County of San Francisco's Department of the Environment, has announced the development of the first solar mapping Web portal.
The portal estimates the solar energy potential for every commercial and residential rooftop in San Francisco and allows building owners to visualize the potential environmental benefits and monetary savings that would result from installing solar energy panels on their property. The Web portal can provide the following information for a specific rooftop: the estimated amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy that could be installed on the roof; the estimated amount of solar PV energy that could be generated at that site; potential electricity cost reduction resulting from the solar PV installation; estimated cost of installing a solar PV system, before and after state and federal incentives; potential carbon dioxide/greenhouse gas (CO2) reduction as a result of installing a solar PV system; case studies of other San Francisco businesses and homeowners who have already installed solar PV systems; and information about how to install a solar PV system, including contact information for local solar installers. Source: Alternative Energy
June 20, 2007. Google has also installed a 1.6 MWp solar PV system on the roofs of their headquarters. Watch the system of 9212 panels and the daily yield at Google's website.
June 19, 2007. Google.org, the philantropic arm of Google, has launched an initiative, RechargeIT, promoting plug-in electric hybrid vehicles. See www.google.org. The goal is a 100 mpg electric/hybrid plugin car
June 15, 2007. Minister sets goal of 3,000 MW land-based wind power in 2011. In a speech this morning, the Dutch Secretary for the Environment announced a new target for wind power in The Netherlands in 2011. Celebrating the landmark 1500 MW currently employed, she aannounced thatshe and her colleagues, the Secretaries of Economic Affairs and Agriculture, will do everything they can to support doubling existing wind power on land in 2011. This means adding 1500 more megawatts worth of wind turbine capacity in three years.
June 14, 2007. Dutch Government to incease spending on measures to reduce CO2 emissions, support for renewable energy and on measures to save energy. Today, the Prime Minister announced plans to increase Government spending the next 4 years with substantial money (although not spectacular). Big-business renewable energy will receive 51 million Euros on top of the existing program, and all sorts of projects improving energy efficiency and clean air will get 74 million Euros in 2008, with a gradual increase to 449 million Euros in 2011.
June
12, 2007.
City to offer solar shares to citizens. Ashland,
OR, will soon become one of the first cities in the world to offer solar energy
shares to its citizens. Everyone will be able to buy them and not only profit
financially, but also live in a more sustainable and energy-independent town.The
first package will be worth $ 0.5m, allocated in renewable energy bonds. An
additional $0.3 m will be made available through tax credits to businesses.
Each share will cost around $1,000, and there will be some 375 available in
this first phase. Each citizen will be able to buy up to ten, and the revenues
produced by the facility can be deducted from their energy bills.
The project will kick start with one big solar array built on top of a storage
facility. would be built on the roof of a large storage building in the city.
It will be able to produce around 0.75% of the Ashland's yearly energy needs.
The facility is expected to be ready by the end of the summer. Source:
EPIA
June 7, 2007. Solar thermal bill approved by California Assembly. The bill deals with USA's largest solar water heating program. The Solar Water Heating and Efficiency Act of 2007 (AB 1470), authored by Assembly member Jared Huffman, sponsored by Environment California, and supported by hundreds of organizations and businesses, would create a $250 million ten-year program to provide consumer rebates for solar water heating systems. Source: Common Drearms
June 7, 2007. Macy's goes solar. The big retailer Macy's will install rooftop solar arrays at 26 of its California stores that will produce 8-megawatts of green electricity. Coupled with an energy-efficiency overhaul, the retailer expects to cut its utility bill at the stores by an estimated 40 percent. Solar cell maker SunPower's (SPWR) PowerLight subsidiary will install the solar energy systems. Macy's will buy the arrays for 11 of the stores. For the other 15 stores, Macy's will purchase the electricity produced by the solar panels from a third-party financier who will retain ownership of the systems. Macy's is just the latest big retailer to go solar. Last month, Wal-Mart (WMT) said it will install solar arrays at 22 stores using third-party financing in deals with SunEdison, BP (BP) and SunPower. Source: Green Wombat
May 31, 2007. Vatican adopts solar energy A rooftop garden of solar panels is set to be installed on the Vatican's Paul VI Audience Hall. The solar energy project will begin next year and, when completed, will create enough electricity to heat, cool and light the entire building year-round, the Catholic News Service reported. When the project is finished, more than 1,000 solar panels will cover the football field-sized roof. Whatever solar power the hall is not using will be funneled into the Vatican's energy grid and benefit other energy needs. Source: UPI.
May 30, 2007. The Spanish sun shines mainly on the plain. The Iberinco company (subsidiary of Iberdrola) yesterday released news that they had signed a contract to develop the 60-hectare, 10 MWp Talayuela PV park, in the Careres province, Spain. The PV station will take ten months to build and is scheduled to go online in the first quarter of 2008. The Talayuela solar park is Iberinco's second solar PV project; it recently won a contract to build a 11.65 MW PV facility in Soria. The plant is cover at two sites with each 5 MW of nominal power: 50 plants of 100 kilowatt (kW) with silicon-crystal PV panels installed on double-axis solar trackers. Power delivery will start early 2008.
The Talayuela solar park is Iberinco’s second solar PV project; it recently won a contract to build a 11.65 MW PV facility in Soria. Iberinco has brought 8.2 MW of solar power online in the last few years, with another 21 MW in the pipeline. Source: RenewableEnergyAcess
May 21, 2007. ZAP the petrol car? Dr. Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutchman in space and currently Professor in Renewable Engineering at the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands, is an outspoken advocate of the fully plug-in elecrically powered car. No stinking gasoline, no environmentally incorrect biodiesel, no hydrogen, just electricity. The power grid is here, all homes are fitted with electrical outlets, and charging can be done overnight. Most people drive small distances anyway. Electrical power is very efficient comapred with an extremely expensive hydrogen infrastructure. And it seems much, much more efficient to charge batteries and drive than to manufacture hydrogen first in with the aid of electricity, transporting and pumping the volatile and combustible stuff, pumping it into the tank of your car and then burning it. Hydrogen makes little sense. It is only a matter of battery capacity and renewable electrical power generation.
And forget to consider electric cars as ugly, lazy and heavy. There are beautiful designs out there. Look at the Tesla, the Chevrolet Volt, and now the ZAP-X (zero air pollution car). And if you think that an electrical car does not accellerate like a Ferrari or a Porsche: watch this movie at You Tube.
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May 7, 2007. Finish in sight. Tomorrow the solar boat Sun21 will arrive in New York harbor. Sun21 is the first man made solar ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean. See the website of the Sun21. |
May 3, 2007. Watch BBC World Channel on May 5 and 6. View Feed-In Tariffs Documentary on BBC World. London, UK [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] "Pay-Back Time," a documentary on feed-in tariffs, will be broadcast as part of TVE's 'Earth Report' series on the BBC World channel May 5 and 6 (see first link below for schedule). Householders installing wind turbines and solar panels in the UK must wait many years for a pay-back on their investment, so it is an ethical not an economic choice. Now Germany is buying back spare clean energy from customers at four to five times the price it charges them for conventionally generated electricity. More than 40 countries, states and provinces now follow the German lead. But some countries like the UK use a quota system, which critics argue is inequitable and fundamentally flawed. Earth Report investigates.
May 3, 2007. 2750 kWp solar PV panels installed in the UK in 2006. Congratulations, fellows, this amount of solar panels was six times more than in my own country, the Netherlands. On August 18, 2006 the Dutch Government made an historical blunder by declaring that it had done enough for the environment. It halted all government support for renewable energy.
April 28, 2007. All time high record yield for April. At noon today, the registration of the original six Sunpower PV-panels displayed 2664,3 kWh. This implies that in the current month these panels have yielded an astounding 57,6 kWh. In the previous record year (2003) the meter recorded over the entire month of April a yield of 56,7 kWh. The old record has been smashed and a new record is being born. And yet a couple of sunny days ahead!
April 27, 2007. Canadians do it bigger. The largest PV system of the Americas will be built near Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Today, the Minister for Energy of Ontario, mr. Dwight Duncan, made public that more than 1,000, 000 PV panels will together form a 40 Megawatt-peak installation. The system will be built by Oti-Solar, and become fully operational in 2010. source: CBCNews
April 25, 2007. US Air Force goes solar. One of larger US Air Force bases is Nellis Air Force Base, located at the northeastern edge of Las Vegas, NV. Spying via Google Earth you can observe some F16's and F18's on the vast tarmac (N 36 13' 56.42", W 115 02' 09.13"). The military have recently broken ground for the construction of a 15 MWp solar photovoltaic power generating system: 70,000 PV panels mounted on trackers that will supply the base with electricity. The system will generate 25% of electrical power consumption on a yearly basis. Remarkably, the US Air Force relied in 2006 for 11% of electrical power consumption on renewable energy. Follow the aircraft and vehicles?. Source: www.nellis.af.mil
April 16, 2007. Alice Springs goes Solar. AliceSprings is the fourth Australian city to receive funding under a federal program promoting solar power.The Northern Territory town joins Adelaide, Townsville and Sydney's Blacktown under the Solar Cities program set up three years ago. The Feds will provide Alice Springs with $12.3 million to install solar photovoltaic panels on 230 homes and business, 1000 solar hot water systems and roll out 400 smart meters. Source: The Australian
April12, 2007. Solar energy on YouTube. You may find several movies about solar photovoltaic energy at You Tube. A very interesting movie with people explaining why they inested in solar electricity is the one you will see when you click here.
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April 8, 2007. A moment to remember. Each of the 6 Sunpower PV panels (see home page) has its own mini-inverter. Today, one of these inverters, serial number #13303 achieved the 500 kWh production performance. Number 13303 is a real die-hard veteran. This inverter was installed together with 5 other inverters on the 21st of June, 2000, being part of the original Sunpower system. Three of its colleagues passed away and have been replaced. #13303 was taken off its panel in 2004 and re-mounted inside my home on the [extremely well insulated] attic. It has been humming cheerfully all the time ever since. A small calculation learns that 500 kWh in 7 years equals 71 kWh/year. Not bad for an inverter serving a 95 Wp Shell PV panel on a roof in Holland. 500 kWh equals 284 kilograms CO2 emission avoided. Both the 500 kWh and the 284 kilograms make me feel very happy. |
April 7, 2007: Modest man, modest car. Here is a website that deals with a fully electric, fully equipped Daihatsu Cuore.
March 30, 2007: 11 MWp Solar photovoltaic generating system in Portugal. The major solar electrcity plant at Serpa, Portugal was officially opened last week. The array of electricity-generating solar panels covers about 60 hectares (150 acres) in one of Europe's sunniest areas in southern Portugal. The installation is made up of 52,000 solar photovoltaic panels. Production will be 20 GWh yearly, sufficient to power 8,00 homes. The plant is also meant to bring development and jobs to the Alentejo region 200km (125 miles) southeast of Lisbon, a poor area traditionally dominated by cork and olive production. Emission of 30,00 tons of greenhouse gases is revented by the solar power plant. Source: BBC
March 25, 2007: 64 MW Solar One Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) generator due to be completed at Eldorado Valley, Nevada, USA. This installation is the first large-scale CSP plant to be built in the US, and more are expected to follow. The construction counts 760 parabolic cylinder concentrators and 18,240 high-spec receivers newly developed by the Schott Company, Germany. Source: Renewable Energy World
The
picture shows how CSP power stations work. In the focal area of mirrors (the
parabolic cilinder concentrator, also called 'solar throughs'), runs a metal
tube that contains water, salt or another heat transporting medium. The transport
medium in the tube is heated by the solar irradiation concentrated on the
tube. The hot medium is led to a steam turbine which powers an electricity
generator.
The parabolic cilinder concentrators can be tilted to make full use of the daily course of the sun through the sky.
There is a natural preference to built CS power stations at extremely sunny locations. Several solar power stations exist already for quite some years. The most well known are the CS power stations near Kramer Junction, Mojave Desert, California.
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March 20, 2007: Pharox! One of the light bulbs in my home has been replaced with this bulb-lookalike LED-lamp. Installation is very easy: bulb out, Pharox in. If you want to combat CO2 emissions in earnest, you may choose to boost supply or reduce demand. Boosting supply means installation of solar panels. Reducing demand is looking at your appliances and replacing those that are most inefficient. Light bulbs are extremely inefficient and you can supplant them by energy saving fluorescent lamps or by this hi-tech LED lamp. According to the manufacturer (Oxxio), energy consumption of this lamp is 3.5 Watt. The amount of light produced would equal that of a conventional 40 Watt bulb. This means 90% less energy consumption This lamp indeed uses too little energy to measure with my equipment. The amount of light is certainly below the 40 Watts promised. I would say 25 watts. This makes this lamp an ideal replacement as a background illumination source (85% less energy). Oxxio of Hilversum, The Netherlands is acknowledged for their kind cooperation. |
March 15, 2007: Uranium oxide ('yellow cake', U3O8) made today 91 dollars per kilogram on the spot market. There has been an incredible price hike. Six months ago, one kilogram cost 50 dollars, and two years ago the price was 20 dollars. Source: UXC.com. If oil had seen a similar price hike, oil would now cost about 227 dollar, 50 cents per barrel. Speculation? Who counts on future nuclear energy must be prepared to pay dearly. There's a sign on the door of the uranium shop saying 'sold out' .
March 6, 2007: All you want to know about global warming, climate, carbon dioxide and what to do about it on this website.
February 28, 2007: German solar boom. Germany installed an astounding 100,000 solar systems in 2006, representing 750 MW of solar-electric generation. This follows on the back-to-back record-setting years of 2005 (750 MW), and 2004 (600 MW).
February 20, 2007: Light bulbs to be phased out in Australia from 2009 onwards. The standard incandescent light bulb, which has been around for 125 years, will be phased out by 2009. It will be replaced by the compact fluorescent bulb which costs AUS$ 5 more, but saves an average of AUS$ 30 a year, and is around 80 per cent more energy efficient. Mr Turnbull said new government standards will be in place by 2009. "We are introducing new energy efficiency standards and these old lights simply won't comply, they will be phased out and basically over a period of time they will no longer be for sale," Mr Turnbull told Channel 9 TV. He also said that the plan was expected to save up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in Australia over time and, if introduced globally, could have an enormous impact. "If the rest of the world supports us ... follows our lead, this will reduce an amount of energy ... to the tune of five times as much energy as Australia consumes," he said. "It's a little thing but it's a massive change." Low efficiency halogen lights will also be phased out but the more efficient ones will remain.
February 7, 2007: Political deal in Holland opens the way to a new center-left coalition. In a 53-page document the Dutch Christian Democratic Party (CDA), Labour (PVDA) and Conservative Christians (ChristenUnie) agreed to form a new coalition government. There is ambition all over the place. Among others, energy eficiency has to increase at a rate of 2% per year.According to the document, Holland will become one of the most energy-efficient and environment-friendly economies in Europe by 2020. CO2 emissions have to go down 30% compared with 1990, and in 2020, 20% of all energy used has to be of renewable origin. According to good old Dutch practise, the financial section shows an inverse relationship with the ambition. An appallingly low amount of 800 million euro's will be available for all investements necessary to reach the impressive goals.
A true and bold innovation is the creation of a Secretary for the Environment, with Energy in his portfolio. Until now, the people (mainly economists) at the Ministry of Economic Affairs dealt with energy, and these market-oriented guys almost deliberately screwed up renewable energy all the way They seemed to be even more conservative than George W. Bush, Imagine! The times they are a'changin', that's for sure.
February 5, 2007: Solar Impulse. As if sailing the oceans with solar-powered boats is not challenging enough, Bertrand Piccard, son of Jacques Piccard and grandson of the deep-sea pioneer Auguste Piccard, has proposed to circumnavigate the globe non-stop in an all-solar plane. Piccard started out in 2003 with a team calculating and planning, conducting a feasibility asessment. Now he is actually building the plane. Test flights will commence in 2008. See the fascinating website about Solar Impulse and its predecessors.
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February 3, 2007: Solar-powered boat completes crossing. For the first time in history a 100% solar-powered boat has crossed the Atlantic Ocean (any ocean). Today, at 3 pm local time the Sun21 and its crew arrived in the port of Le Marin, island of Martinique. Congratulations, brave crew!. Take a look at the website of SUN21
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February 1, 2007: Exxon biggest profit ever. The Exxon Mobil Corporation today published earnings over 2006. Total revenue: $ 377.6 billion, net profit 39.5 billion. This is the biggest profit ever for any company anywhere in the world. 1 barrel of light sweet crude oil today on the NYMEX spot market: $ 57.42.
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January 29, 2007: Solar-powered boat halfway ocean. A few more days to go and the Sun21, the solar-powered boat, will reach the shores of the island of Martinique in the Caribbean. On December 23, last year I ran an item on this blog about the position near the Canary Islands at that moment. The ship and crew have bypassed the Cape Verdian Islands
Take a look at the website of SUN21 |
January 27, 2007: General Motors studies the Chevy Volt electrical 'plugin' hybrid car concept. In contrast to Toyota's Prius that runs essentially on gasoline and that has an electrical engine for the low speed city crawl situation, the Volt car is basically electric and has a small fossil or biofuel engine to recharge the batteries en route. Overnight the batteries are being charged via a cable that plugs into the main electricity grid. Since fossil fuel is not sustainable in the long run, both environmentally and commercially, I bet that this car, the plug-in hybrid, is going to make it. Hydrogen is too complicated compared with full electric and plug-in electric, and conversion losses may be too high.
January 24, 2007: ACTION against climate change. The French environmental group, L'Alliance pour la Planète calls every European citizen to switch off all lights in their homes on February 1, 19:55 to 20:00 pm to demonstrate their government that they want bold government action against climate change.
January
24, 2007: Germany world champion in renewable energy. German
renewable energy sector shows impressive growth
In Germany, the renewable energy sector showed impressive growth on all fronts
in 2006, reinforcing Germany’s position as the European leader in terms
of renewables. And Germany goes further; the environment ministry announced
that they will almost double investments in renewable energy in 2007, to €
83 million, and Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) announced plans
for a draft law to promote and oblige the use of renewable heating.
In Germany, the share of renewable energy in total energy consumed reached 7.7% in 2006 compared to 6.8% in 2005, according to a report published by the German federal renewable energy association, Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energie (BEE). Renewable electricity generation in Germany grew to 71.5 billion kWh in 2006, which represents 11.6% of total German electricity consumption and an increase of 12% compared to the previous year. This 2006 figure is only just below the German renewable electricity target for 2010 of 12%. The main renewable sources for electricity in 2006 were wind and biogas, followed by solar power.
German wind power in terms of installed capacity grew by 23.5% in 2006 and total installed capacity exceeded 20,000 MW, according to the German wind energy institute (DEWI). In 2006, 1,208 wind turbines were built in Germany. Total installed wind capacity amounts to 20,621 MW and accounts for 30.6 GWh (7 per cent) of German electricity consumption. Around €2.9 billion was invested in new wind parks in 2006.
The share of biofuels in the German transport fuel market jumped by 50% between 2006 and 2005. The share of biofuels in German fuel consumption grew to 5.4% from 3.6% in 2005, again already approaching the European target of a 5.75% share by 2010.
Renewable heat production rose by 10% in Germany in 2006. The contribution of renewable energy sources to heat production increased to 98 billion kWh, from 89 billion kWh in 2005.
In 2006, renewable energy in Germany saved 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, according to the BEE. The German environment ministry announced that they will increase the subsidies to energy efficient buildings from the current level of €360 million to €1.4 billion per year in 2007.
source: Greenprices
January 11, 2007: "One million energy saving lamps" is the title of the sweeping campaing by Greenpeace. Aim is to propagate the use of more energy saving lamps in Dutch households. How many lights does a regular home have? How many of these lamps are incandescents bulbs, how many save energy? I took a notepad and inspected my home from top to bottom, including the shed and the garden lights. I counted every lamp (a fixture with five lamps was counted as 5 lamps). The result was a bad surprise (I was considering myself an advanced energy efficient human being with only an occasional old fashioned 'glowing' light bulb). Still 13 incandescent bulbs, only 18 energy saving bulbs, 30 TL tubes of some sort (many in the kitchen, loft, shed), 7 LED-lights, 15 halogen spots. I also ran into 15 (yes, fifteen) devices that are on a 24/7 This situation has to change Let's arrange that every bulb that fails will be replaced by a energy saving lamp. In a few years my home must be free of every single 'glowing' light bulb (I won't allow even a spare one).
December 31, 2006: Production of my 6 Sunpower PV panels this year 399.1 kWh, or 66.5 kWh/panel. That is about the same as last year. We had a gorgeous month of July complemented by a hopeless August. See page Monthly Production
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December 27, 2006: LED-spots in the spotlight. Recently I discovered the hottest (wrong phrase! No heat production at all!) in LED-spots: white or warm white 38-LED reflector spots which fits a standard E-14 lamp holder. These spots do not need an adapter; just plug the cord into a 230V wall outlet. Electrical load: 2 Watts. Dimensions: length 78 mm, diameter 50 mm. Compared with high-frequency fluorescent energy saving lamps, a LED-spot produces less light per Watt, but on the other hand these are perfect spot illumination lamps: very long lifetime, very low power consumption. I consid |