World’s Largest Wave Power Hub Goes Live

Over in the UK we like to do things … well, a little differently. That stiff upper lip nonsense was always a bit of a ruse, hiding a reckless ability to do those things sane human beings would never think of doing.

Like slinging a live four way power socket into a bath tub. Zap, you’re dead .. as the saying goes.

Yet this is precisely what’s been going on off the south west coast of Britain but with two crucial differences: the four huge plugs (like the one pictured) are designed as energy receivers, not emitters; and the Atlantic Ocean is a wee bit bigger than your average bathtub.

Ten miles off the Cornish town of Hayle, 180 feet below the sea, lies a 12 tonne four way plug which cost $64 million to build and install. Called the Wave Hub, it can have four 5MW marine power devices connected to it at any one time and is connected to the main national grid by a 15 mile length of cable.

Now, 5MW is peanuts compared to some of the projections for marine power installations; for example just up the coast it’s been estimated that the world’s largest tidal power generator could generate 187,000 MWh/year.

However permanent installation is not the aim of the Wave Hub. Rather, it’s all about providing a live scenario test bed for marine energy developers to come and test and tweak their inventions. If it just so happens it provides energy for 20,000 homes, then so much the better!

The first testers scheduled at the Wave Hub are New Jersey based Ocean Power Technologies, whose buoy based design is already live off the north coast of Spain. Their stint at the Wave Hub is to test out a new design which would see the buoys’ output increase by over three times.

SOURCE: GO Media – Written by Chris Milton

It also aims to reduce electricity use in selected schools and hospitals by between 5 and 10 percent, and to reduce the provincial product-to-carbon emission ratio by 10 percent, also by this date, as part of its climate-change mitigation efforts.

Source: IOL

Should we worry about engineering algae for biofuels?

The Great American Algae Rush is in full swing.

Dozens of companies and hundreds of scientists are working hard to engineer algae to produce green — literally and figuratively — fuel.

The endeavor is at the crossroads of energy and science, and the trend is spreading worldwide.Why? Because some algae strains can produce 10 or more times more fuel per acre than the corn that is used to make ethanol, or the soybeans used to make biodiesel.

Better still, you can grow algae on arid land and in brackish water, which avoids competing with food production, unlike the corn and soybeans that coat much of the Midwest’s farmland.

Best of all: algae consume carbon dioxide, combating greenhouse gas emissions.

But a new profile of the industry in the New York Times demonstrates that this technology has its share of pitfalls.

For one, efforts to engineer and manipulate the organisms has environmentalists concerned because algae are the base of the marine food chain.

For example: Screw up and over-engineer a strain, and suddenly you have an organism that’s out of whack with the biosphere, stripping water of its oxygen and harming fish — and maybe humans — in the process.

Source: Simply Green

25% solar by 2050

The International Energy Agency (IEA) presented two new solar energy analyses in Valencia, Spain this week, a Solar Photovoltaic Energy Technology Roadmap and a Concentrating Solar Power Technology Roadmap.

The key finding from these is that 20-25% of global electricity production could be from solar energy by 2050.

In a blog post on our sister site, One Block Off the Grid, I just discussed how the United States and how rooftop solar fit into this. Below, mostly from the reports themselves, is a short discussion of what government’s role in all of this needs to be.

Source: Simply Green

Solar power system in your home

When one looks at the initial cost of solar powering a home, many of us cringe at having to fork out to install the solar items that get us off grid either partially or completely.

A solar power system is an expensive home addition but it’s an extremely beneficial one, particularly given ESKOM’s price hike. If you don’t have thousands of rands to pay for these solar power systems up front, there are other ways in which you can pay for your home to be eco friendly…

One of the most obvious ways would be to apply for a loan for your residential solar power system. The problem with a loan is that the payments can be exorbitant and you could pay off a solar power system for years to come. A more economical alternative is to increase the bond on your home to include your solar system.

Getting finance for your solar power system might not be as difficult as you think. The most cost effective and economical way of financing solar power products like solar panels and geysers is to include it as part of your home bond. Bonds are long term loans and these loans can easily include your solar power products without increasing the monthly payment too much.

If you have a long term loan, one that will be paid off for the next 20 years or so, including your solar power system within your bond makes a lot of sense. In many cases, the monthly savings you will make from your solar power products will likely exceed the monthly bond payments for the system itself.

There are many benefits to using a solar power system in your home, and the payback is rewarding. solar panels and solar water heaters are only some of the solar power products available to install in your home. As electricity prices increase, so will your solar savings increase pro-rata.

Another great benefit that many of us overlook when installing a solar power system is that the solar system will increase the value of our home, especially in South Africa at a time when everyone is trying to find ways to avoid escalating electricity tariffs.

So, if you’re currently in the market for a new home, solar products such as a solar heater are that much more available to you through your bond. Certainly finances shouldn’t limit you from using a solar power system within your home.

Source: Urban Sprout

Highly conductive paper for energy-storage devices

Stanford scientists have developed featherweight, pliable batteries and supercapacitors in the form of everyday paper.

By coating a sheet of paper with ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, the scientists were able to construct a highly conductive storage device that’s both low-cost and high-performance.

(The difference between a battery and a capacitor, you ask? both hold energy to be converted to electricity, but capacitors hold it for a shorter period of time. On the other hand, they can store and discharge energy much more rapidly.)

The batteries are so strong that you can crumple them and the performance does not degrade.Led by assistant professor of materials science and engineering Yi Cui, who previously created nano-size batteries using plastics, the researchers developed a solution that is more durable than conventional batteries.

Source: Smart Planet

Samsø

The Danish island of Samsø has become one of the first industrialized places on Earth to qualify as completely energy self-sufficient.

The tiny island — just 30 miles long and 15 miles wide — first began its push toward sustainability in 1997. In just over a decade, Samsø erected 21 electricity-producing wind turbines and a heating system fueled by wood chip- and straw-burning furnaces accompanied by several small solar panels.

Eleven of Samsø’s turbines are onshore and ten are offshore; all generate one megawatt each. The onshore turbines produce more electricity than the island consumes — enough to offset 690,000 gallons of oil — while the offshore turbines produce enough power to handle the island’s transportation energy budget.

Source: Smart Planet

Prosperity without Growth

‘The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.’ — President Nicolas Sarkozy, Paris, September 2009

Is more economic growth the solution? Will it deliver prosperity and well-being for a global population projected to reach nine billion?

In this explosive book, Tim Jackson – a top sustainability adviser to the UK government – makes a compelling case against continued economic growth in developed nations.

No one denies that development is essential for poorer nations. But in the advanced economies there is mounting evidence that ever-increasing consumption adds little to human happiness and may even impede it. More urgently, it is now clear that the ecosystems that sustain our economies are collapsing under the impacts of rising consumption. Unless we can radically lower the environmental impact of economic activity – and there is no evidence to suggest that we can – we will have to devise a path to prosperity that does not rely on continued growth.

Economic heresy? Or an opportunity to improve the sources of well-being, creativity and lasting prosperity that lie outside the realm of the market?

Tim Jackson provides a credible vision of how human society can flourish – within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Fulfilling this vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

The growth debate

The book is a substantially revised and updated version of Jackson’s controversial study for the Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory body to the UK Government. Since the report was published in March 2009, President Sarkozy has asked world leaders to join a revolution in the measurement of economic progress, Sir Nicholas Stern has warned ‘at some point we would have to think about whether we want future growth’, and John Prescott has called the current economic growth model ‘immoral’.

Source: Earth Scan

THIS REPORT IS INTENDED as a non-technical examination of a basic question: Can any combination of known energy sources successfully supply society’s energy needs at least up to the year 2100? In the end, we are left with the disturbing conclusion that all known energy sources are subject to strict limits of one kind or another. Conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear are either at or nearing the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as the decades proceed—but in any case they are unacceptably hazardous to the environment. And contrary to the hopes of many, there is no clear practical scenario by which we can replace the energy from today’s conventional sources with sufficient energy from alternative sources to sustain industrial society at its present scale of operations. To achieve such a transition would require (1) a vast financial investment beyond society’s practical abilities, (2) a very long time—too long in practical terms—for build-out, and (3) significant sacrifices in terms of energy quality and reliability.

Perhaps the most significant limit to future energy supplies is the “net energy” factor—the requirement that energy systems yield more energy than is invested in their construction and operation. There is a strong likelihood that future energy systems, both conventional and alternative, will have higher energy input costs than those that powered industrial societies during the last century.We will come back to this point repeatedly.

The report explores some of the presently proposed energy transition scenarios, showing why, up to this time, most are overly optimistic, as they do not address all of the relevant limiting factors to the expansion of alternative energy sources. Finally, it shows why energy conservation (using less energy, and also less resource materials) combined with humane, gradual population decline must become primary strategies for achieving sustainability.

Read the full report: Download the PDF (2.61 MB)

Source: Energy Bulletin

Desalination

Companies will increasingly have to be established in coastal areas owing to the desperate shortage of water in South Africa.

A new report by the international McKinsey consultancy says government needs to make an annual capital investment of $365m (about R2.8bn) in its national water infrastructure. If it does not do so, South Africa could experience a 30% shortage of water by 2030.

Johan van Rooyen, director of water resources planning at the Department of Water Affairs, says government is intensely aware of the situation and is working hard to avoid future water problems.

He points out that it is important for water to be used more economically. South Africans need to learn to employ it more effectively. Consumers in the metropolitan areas could, for instance, with little effort use up to 15% less.

The aim is to save more, but that is only a start. Some water borne toilet systems, for example, use up to 20 litres of water per flush. That’s 20 litres of water that needs to be re-purified. Toilets that use five litres work just as well, Van Rooyen points out.

Linda Page, spokesperson for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, says the McKinsey report was compiled with the cooperation of various parties, including the department.

These include bodies from the private sector, such as SABMiller and Coca-Cola.

The McKinsey report indicates that, if South Africa experiences a water shortage, various industries – like the industrial, agricultural and mining sectors – will have to compete with each other for the available water sources.

This could considerably elevate water prices, Van Rooyen points out. He says it could result in industries’ increasingly having to settle at the coast.

Sea water would then be substantially cheaper to desalinate and use than fresh water.

Source: Fin24