https://qz.com/1169226/the-worlds-largest-wind-farm-is-being-planned-by-electric-grid-firm-tennet/

ICE-AGE DREAMS

The Dutch plan to build an artificial island to support the world’s largest wind farm

Wind farms need a lot of space—not something the world has much to spare. That’s why they’re being pushed out into the sea.

TenneT, the operator of the Netherlands’ electric grid, has come up with an ambitious plan to build an artificial island in the middle of the North Sea that on completion would support the world’s largest wind farm.

The location for the artificial island is a region called the Dogger Bank, about 100 km (60 miles) off the coast of Yorkshire in the UK. During the last Ice Age some 20,000 years ago, when sea levels were 100 meters lower than today, Dogger Bank was actually a landmass called Doggerland, which connected mainland Europe to the British isles. The bank’s shallowness means it won’t require ungodly amounts of sand to build the island, and it will be able to support the thousands of wind turbines that need to be tethered to the sea floor. Its location also puts any electricity generated from the farm within reach of five countries.

Wind power generators are searching for better locations because wind farms are a much less dense form of electricity generation compared to fossil-fuel power or nuclear power. A nuclear power plant can generate 400 times as much energy per unit of area compared to a wind farm.

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The post No Man Is An Island – But this wind farm may need one appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979

World’s first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland

The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines.

The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes.

Manufacturer Statoil says output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current ones.

It hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the US, where waters are deep.

“This is a tech development project to ensure it’s working in open sea conditions. It’s a game-changer for floating wind power and we are sure it will help bring costs down,” said Leif Delp, project director for Hywind.

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The post Turbines That Float – What a wonderful idea appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.caranddriver.com/best-hybrid-electric-cars

Hybrid and Electric Cars 2017-2018: The Best and the Rest

• Starting at

  $21,035

  Take the uninspired underpinnings of the Toyota Yaris and mix with it an even less powerful version of the Prius hybrid powertrain and you get the Prius C.

• 

  Honda CR-Z

  The Editors’ Rating summarizes a vehicle’s overall degree of excellence and is determined by our editors, who evaluate hundreds of vehicles every year and consider numerous factors both objective and subjective.

  Editors’ Rating
• Starting at

  $21,130

  The CR-Z is an ambitious attempt at making a sporty hybrid, but its performance doesn’t match its adventurous styling.

• 

  Hyundai Ioniq

  The Editors’ Rating summarizes a vehicle’s overall degree of excellence and is determined by our editors, who evaluate hundreds of vehicles every year and consider numerous factors both objective and subjective.

  Editors’ Rating
• Starting at

  $23,035

  Sharing its underpinnings with the Kia Niro, the Hyundai Ioniq is a hybrid in many flavors.

• 

  Mitsubishi i-MiEV

  The Editors’ Rating summarizes a vehicle’s overall degree of excellence and is determined by our editors, who evaluate hundreds of vehicles every year and consider numerous factors both objective and subjective.

  Editors’ Rating

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The post Environmentally Friendly Cars – I suppose it depends on what you mean by friendly appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2016/02/15/infographic-worlds-most-energy-efficient-countries/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GlobalWarmingIsReal+%28Global+Warming+is+Real%29

Infographic: World’s Most Energy Efficient Countries

here is a sense of excitement in the wake of a momentous Paris Climate Agreement and adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals last year. The “energy revolution” is already underway, the consequences of which are far-reaching, transforming the way we do business, build our homes and live our lives.

But there’s an even more immediate solution available to all of us, and it will not only reduce our carbon footprint, but save money as well. It’s the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency. From the largest business to the smallest household, energy efficiency is the first step in building a sustainable future.

As individuals and businesses go, so goes an entire nation. Courtesy of the home improvement experts at HalfPrice.com.au, the infographic below illustrates the most energy efficient countries in the world, based on information from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). As this infographic demonstrates, one important aspect of promoting energy efficiency is government policy and incentives:

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The post Why Can’t America Make This List – Maybe in my lifetime we will appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bosch-active-gas-pedal/

Andrew Krok

 See full bio

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The post Car Helps You Drive – Instead of driving you appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_germany_is_getting_to_100_percent_renewable_energy_20121115/

How Germany Is Getting to 100 Percent Renewable Energy

Posted on Nov 15, 2012

By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law

There is no debate on climate change in Germany. The temperature for the past 10 months has been 3 degrees above average and we’re again on course for the warmest year on record. There’s no dispute among Germans as to whether this change is man-made, or that we contribute to it and need to stop accelerating the process.

Since 2000, Germany has converted 25 percent of its power grid to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass. The architects of the clean energy movement Energiewende, which translates to “energy transformation,” estimate that from 80 percent to 100 percent of Germany’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050.

Germans are baffled that the United States has not taken the same path. Not only is the U.S. the wealthiest nation in the world, but it’s also credited with jump-starting Germany’s green movement 40 years ago.

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The post Germans Wonder About America – Will they ever get serious appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://energy.aol.com/2012/10/08/the-green-republic-germany-s-wind-energy-boom/?a_dgi=aolshare_linkedin

The Green Republic? Germany’s Wind Energy Boom

Published: October 8, 2012

The German wind industry sits at the heart of a European energy market preparing for a disruptive transformation intended to promote integration and allow the rich wind resource of the North to fuel continent-wide growth, without the risks of nuclear power and reliance on foreign energy producers.

It is a comprehensive, ambitious vision that in Germany alone the environment minister Peter Altmaier has compared in scale to the country’s painful post-Communist reunification.

The EU is preparing to release its latest communication on an integrated energy market ahead of a goal of operational integration it has set for 2014. The energy market remains one of the rare nation-state functions that has hardly been impacted by European integration at all, despite the EU’s origins in a post-WWII agreement over the continent’s coal sector.

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The post Wind Power In Germany – Killing time until the presidential election is over appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428423/new-solar-panel-designs-make-installation-cheaper/

With solar panel prices falling more than 80 percent in the last few years, many solar companies are turning their attention to reducing the cost of installing them. Two leading solar companies, Solon Energy, based in Berlin, and Trina Solar, based in Changzhou, China, have announced new designs for mounting solar panels to roofs—the companies say these designs can reduce the installation time by more than half, greatly reducing labor costs. The new designs reduce or eliminate the tools and hardware needed to install solar panels, and standardize solar installations, which have largely been ad hoc, reducing the time needed to design them.

While solar panels themselves used to account for most of the cost of large solar installations on commercial rooftops, the modules now account for about 40 percent of the cost. The rest comes from things like the necessary hardware, power electronics, and labor—which alone accounts for about 30 percent of the total.

Mounting solar panels on the flat rooftops of commercial installations typically involves anchoring long metal racks to the roof to create a framework that will angle the panels toward the sun and hold them together. Installers bolt the panels to this frame, wire the panels together, and electrically ground the racks.

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The post Solar Panels Go Plastic – Light weight and easy to mount, what’s not to like appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Flats_Plant

The Rocky Flats Plant was a United States nuclear weapons production facility near Denver, Colorado that operated from 1952 to 1992. It was under the control of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) until 1977, when it was replaced by the Department of Energy (DOE).

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Then see her book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/books/book-review-full-body-burden-by-kristen-iversen.html?_r=0

Full Body Burden is a haunting work of narrative nonfiction about a young woman, Kristen Iversen, growing up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated “the most contaminated site in America.” It’s the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and–unknown to those who lived there–tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium.

It’s also a book about the destructive power of secrets–both family and government. Her father’s hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats (cleaning supplies, her mother guessed)–best not to inquire too deeply into any of it.

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The post Rocky Mountain Flats Sucked Then – And it still sucks now appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://iwantrenewableenergy.com/

Visit our News Archive

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We hope you like the brand new look to our web site.  We have made numerous changes included the design and c…

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