Category Archives: solar power

Solar Power In The Mohave Desert – What a great use of a resource

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It doesn’t hurt that they got an environmental award as well. This the way it should be done.

http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/the-ivanpah-solar-project-named-2012-energy-project-of-the-year

The Ivanpah Solar Project Named 2012 Energy Project of the Year

April 24, 2012

Project recognized for its innovative approach, job creation and scale of clean energy production

(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) April 24, 2012 – NRG Energy, Google, BrightSource Energy and EPC partner Bechtel announced that the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (Ivanpah SEGS) received the 2012 Energy Project of the Year Award by the USC CMAA Green Symposium. Ivanpah SEGS in California’s Mojave Desert is currently the world’s largest concentrating solar power (CSP) plant under construction. When completed, it will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US.

“The sheer magnitude of the Ivanpah project is reinforcing California’s position as the leader of renewable energy in the United States,” said Caroline Fletcher, USC Green Symposium Co-Chair. “The project has demonstrated an innovative approach to partnerships and is significantly contributing to job creation in the region. We’re very pleased to honor this important project with our 2012 Energy Project of the Year Award.”

“Ivanpah is a flagship project, widely recognized for its environmentally-responsible design, and lauded for its role in helping to grow Southern California’s High Desert economy,” said Joe Desmond, SVP of Government Relations and Communications, BrightSource Energy. “We look forward to completing this important solar power facility and help California meet its economic and clean energy goals.”

“We are pleased to be a part of this award-winning project. The innovation applied to the engineering and construction of Ivanpah will help advance the renewable energy industry and make solar energy a viable option for more people,” said Jim Ivany, president of renewable power at Bechtel.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Summer Solar Fun – Some useful toys too

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Not much to say about this. As the founding father’s said, “We hold these truths to be self evident”.

 

http://www.savingpower.com/three-new-fun-renewably-powered-gadgets-to-get-you-saving-energy/

There seems to be no end of interesting and innovative renewably-powered gadgets coming on the market these days, some more affordable and useful than others. But they all have one thing in common: making it easier for you to power-up your various portable electronic devices on the go with clean energy, like solar energy, kinetic energy, and even doggie-powered energy!

Take the Scosche solBAT II for instance. It’s a solar charger that hooks up to most portable devices using a USB connection. It has a 1500mAh capacity battery with a 5-volt output. You can hook it to your backpack, hang it from your car window with a suction mount, or just put it on your desk. Wherever you put it, just be sure to leave it where it will get direct sunlight. You can charge up the onboard battery within about five hours (after an initial charge that takes 4-5 days). And the best part is that it is only $30.

Then there’s the new Neon Green solar bag. Now, we know that there are a ton of solar bags around these days, but this company has put together a wide range of styles and shapes so that there’s something for almost any renewable energy enthusiast looking for a new bag. From the Piggy Back Soular Back-Up Pack (attach it to your existing backpack), to the full-sized Centurian backpack, to the Big Piggy (for powering up gadgets), they’ve got all kinds of options.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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The Military Understands Peak Oil And Global Warming – But conservatives not so much

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I am only going to post a little bit of this article. This is so in part because I have serious trouble calling killers of humans environmentalists. Still the point is that if all the militaries in the world just quit using any fuel tomorrow the price of all those fuels would crash and stay very low in price for a very long time. So here is a very little bit of a very good article. I mean really anything that gets Inhofe to pound on his table is a very good thing indeed.

The Real Reason the Military is Going Green

Big Oil is a big risk for national security. Can our military—the world’s No. 1 oil guzzler—change the politics of climate change?
posted Jun 04, 2012

 

Retired Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson calls himself  “an accidental environmentalist.”

His epiphany about climate change started with a tactical problem. In 2006 and 2007, when he served as the military’s chief logistician in Iraq, he coordinated the transport of millions of gallons of fuel across the country to power everything from vehicles to the large compressors used to cool individual tents—or, as Anderson puts it, for “air conditioning the desert.” He was taking one casualty for every 24 fuel convoys, and he was doing 18 convoys a day. That’s one casualty every other day. He needed to get the trucks off the road. He needed to find a way to reduce the military’s fuel use.

The question remains, can the weight and pragmatism of military leadership sway political leaders in Washington?

“There’s a direct relationship between energy and the military. The more energy consumed, the less effective you are militarily because you’re more vulnerable,” said Anderson, who reported to General David Petraeus. “They love to take out our field trucks. They make a big boom when they do.”

Since then, Anderson, like many military leaders, has realized that guzzling oil makes the United States vulnerable in other ways. “I’m a soldier,” Anderson said. “Why should I be concerned about climate change? Climate change brings about global instability. That makes the world more vulnerable and it’s more likely that soldiers like myself will have to fight and die somewhere.”

Never mind D.C. conservatives who claim to be tough on defense and suspicious of climate science: The Department of Defense isn’t denying that climate change is a major national security threat. “The change is happening. It’s just a reality,” said retired Marine Col. Mark Mykleby, a former strategy assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Science tells us it’s coming our way.”

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Go there and read the whole thing. More next week.

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Milwaukee Has A Pretty Phenomenal Transition Movement – Maybe this post will stay

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I tried to post about the Transition Movement in Milwaukee last year or the year before and got slammed for it by some editor/publisher woman there for using “too much” copyrighted text. She also dissed my unorthodox style. So I took the post down and replaced it with one about transition groups in Boston or Los Angeles. Maybe even the mothership in England. Let us see how this goes this time around.

http://onmilwaukee.com/living/articles/transitionmilwaukee.html?viewall=1

Transition Milwaukee: “we’re all in this together”

By Royal Brevväxling RSS Feed
Special to OnMilwaukee.com

E-mail author | Author bio
More articles by Royal Brevväxlin

Published May 30, 2012 at 5:31 a.m.

Transition Milwaukee (TM) is part of an international movement formed, in part, in response to the peak oil crisis and more generally around issues of climate change, economic security and permaculture principles.

Peak oil is a non-controversial acknowledgement from government, academic and industry experts that fossil fuels, a finite resource, reach a peak moment of production and necessarily begin to decline.

Any controversy that peak oil generates is from determining when this peak production will occur, from a few decades into the future to it already peaking in 2007. Bigger questions about what a society that can’t rely on fossil fuels looks like also stir up debate – and emotions.

Permaculture principles are those that inform design and systems theories about how to develop not only sustainable but self-maintained and regenerative ecological systems. Modern agriculture and societies based on oil consumption are not regarded as sustainable.

TM’s goals involve a “whole-systems” approach toward making our economies sustainable and regenerative for seven generations into the future.

“Right now, Transition Milwaukee acts as a network of concerned activists who are working toward reducing the radius in which we get our goods and services, food, water and shelter,” says Jessica Cohodes, TM steering committee leader, press contact and “big-picture synthesizer.”

Members of TM don’t really have official titles. Although it has a steering committee, TM is organized non-hierarchically.

“Transition Milwaukee has always been a group, grass-roots endeavor about the community, from the ground up. Part of its founding philosophy is that it isn’t someone else’s job to get us off oil, but our job,” says Erik Lindberg, a former TM steering committee member who regularly gives presentations on energy and the environment.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Solar Power From Dyes – May the force be with you

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It’s a joke son..I say I say It’s a joke son. You know dyes and clothes. I know it is not that kind of dye but it is a joke.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510113719.htm

Solar Power to Dye For: Flexible Lightweight Inexpensive Dyes Could Harvest Energy from Sun

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2012) — Researchers at the University of Turku believe that flexible, lightweight and inexpensive dyes could be used to harvest the power of the sun rather than our relying on costly and fragile semiconductor solar panel that use crystalline silicon

Writing in the International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management this month, Jongyun Moon and colleagues Aulis Tuominen and Arho Suominen, explain that dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) are set to become a ubiquitous source of energy without the complex and expensive clean-room manufacturing processes associated with current solar panels. They point out that the rapid increase in research into novel solar energy conversion technology looks set to revolutionise the industry making electricity generation accessible to all without government or other subsidies.

Solar power is an essential part of the green energy mix, but adoption has been limited in many parts of the world where government subsidies and financial incentives have not been in place. However, as part of a sustainable approach to electricity generation, it offers a clear view of a future in which domestic supply relies less and less on grid power systems or else provides a localised grid for remote places, particularly in sunny climes. Photovoltaic solar cells based on poly-crystalline silicon are the most commonly used devices, having first been used as space satellite technology back in the 1950s and 1960s.

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The Military Sheds Its Dependence On OIL – Shouldn’t we be doing the same thing

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I know this week and next week, maybe all summer, may look like a chaotic mish mash of subjects but to rejuvenate my sense of purpose I am only blogging about stuff that I find interesting today. I find the military’s attitude towards peak oil to be much more pragmatic then the capitalists they serve.

http://grist.org/renewable-energy/u-s-military-kicks-more-ass-by-using-less-fossil-fuel-energy/?fb_ref=.T7uRMi_E9bl.like&fb_source=home_multiline

 

David Roberts

Energy, politics, and more

 

U.S. military kicks more ass by using less fossil-fuel energy

By David Roberts

This is my contribution to a dialogue on the military and clean energy being hosted by National Journal.

To understand the promise of renewable energy for the U.S. military, it helps to start as far from Washington, D.C., as possible. (This is true for most forms of understanding.) Start far from the politicians, even from the military brass, far from the rooms where big-money decisions are made, far out on the leading edge of the conflict, with a small company of Marines in Afghanistan’s Sangin River Valley

Not long ago, for a three-day mission out of a forward operating base in Afghanistan, each Marine would have humped between 20 and 35 pounds of batteries. One of the reasons Marines are so lethal in such small numbers today is that they are constantly connected by radios and computers. But radios and computers require a constant supply of batteries, brought by convoy over some of the deadliest roads on earth and then piled on the backs of Marines in highly kinetic environments.

In late 2010, India Company, from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, tried something new. They packed Solar Portable Alternative Communications Energy Systems, or SPACES — flexible solar panels, 64 square inches, that weigh about 2.5 pounds each. One 1st Lieutenant from India 3/5 later boasted that his patrol shed 700 pounds.

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Go there and read. This guy writes well. More tomorrow.

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The Green Economy – It cares about everyone not just the rich

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I have written about the need for cookers in Africa and India…any third world country really that gets sunshine that is…before. In fact I wrote whole sections of posts on both gardening and sustainable cooking methods including canning. Do I do any of them? No. I am happy with natural gas. Some people do not have the luxury though.

http://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/glimpses/solar-cooker-kenya

Solar cooker (Kenya)

The solar-powered cardboard cooker, known as Kyoto Box, is a cheap cooker designed for use in rural countries. It is estimated that the Kyoto Box will prevent two tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per family per year by reducing firewood use-  thus saving trees and forests.

The Kyoto Box is constructed from easily available resources. It uses two cardboard boxes, one inside the other with aluminum foil and an acrylic cover that absorbs sun rays. It can be easily packed and distributed. The Kyoto Box costs just $5 to manufacture, and the design has already gone into production in a factory in Nairobi, with a capacity to produce 2.5 million boxes a month.

The Kyoto Box stove seeks to address health problems in rural villages as well as reducing deforestation and avoiding carbon dioxide emissions. By eliminating the need to use wood, it reduces the time spent gathering firewood, and cuts down on indoor air pollution and other fire hazards. It can also provide business opportunities. The project envisions a network of women distributing thousands of the flat-pack devices from the backs of lorries to families across Africa and the developing world.

The inventor is Jon Bohmer, a Norwegian-born Kenyan based entrepreneur. The Kyoto Box won the Financial Times Climate Change Challenge in 2009.

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Utility Sized Storage For Electricity Has Never Been A Problem

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The alledged lack of utility size storage has always been the coal and gas minions excuse to the public for distrusting alternative forms of energy. It also has never been true. One of the easiest storage system was proposed in the 50s. That would be pumping water up hill to a reserve and then at night letting it run down hill through a turbine. This creates a complete energy loop that could in theory last forever. Another proposed in the 70s was to heat molten salts and then extract the heat later. The one that always excited me the most was actually proposed in several different places and times; and was actually proposed to capture lightening. All it is is a giant battery in the ground which uses the earth as an insulator. But now that the tech guys are getting into the act, I am sure the utility companies will just throw up their hands and toss in the towel.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/18/new-flow-battery-does-that-cheap-energy-storage-thing/

 

New “Flow” Battery Does that Cheap Energy Storage Thing

February 18, 2012 By

Scientists on the lookout for utility-scale, high efficiency batteries are developing new “flow”systems that that store energy more effectively than lead-acid or lithium-ion batteries, but there’s a catch. The flow batteries in operation now are about the size of a house and they cost more than the equivalent in lithium-ion batteries. The race is on to find smaller, cheaper alternatives and researchers at Sandia National Laboratories believe that they are on to the solution, which is, in fact, a solution of liquid salts called MetILs.

The limits of lithium-ion for wind and solar

Lithium-ion batteries have been the gold standard of energy storage solutions for a long time, but they fall short when it comes to the utility-scale systems needed to keep up with new high efficiency wind turbines and advanced solar technology. The cost of lithium-ion batteries is one factor. Another is their relatively short lifespan, compared to flow batteries. According to Sandia chemist Travis Anderson, a flow battery can withstand about 14,000 cycles, which adds up to about 20 years of energy storage.

Flow battery basics

Flow batteries work by converting chemical energy into electricity. Stephanie Hobby of Sandia explains it thusly:

“A flow battery pumps a solution of free-floating charged metal ions, dissolved in an electrolyte — substance with free-floating ions that conducts electricity — from an external tank through an electrochemical cell to convert chemical energy into electricity.”

Flow batteries charge and discharge rapidly, and they have a long lifespan, but all is not perfect in flow battery land. The most promising systems so far use zinc bromine and vanadium, both of which are “moderately toxic” according to Hobby. In addition, the price of vanadium can spike wildly on the open market.

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Living Off The Grid Has Gotten Sexy – Thanks to Natgeo’s Preppers

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I have only seen one episode of Preppers so I am no expert. The show did seem intrusive because many of the “preparing for catastrophe” types are really sensitive to outside interest.  Some fear laughter, others fear exposing their hoards to people who might try to take them away from them, and others are just by nature isolationists. Also many of their theories about the impending “end of the world” are just plain incoherent. Thus painful to listen too. Most the off the grid people I know are not Preppers, they are, like me, cheap. They hate giving money to the utility companies.

http://www.off-grid.net/

What is living off-grid?
by LINDAM on FEBRUARY 11, 2012 – 1 Comment in OFF-GRID 101

The literal definition of living off-grid (or offgrid or living off the grid) is living without Utility power or water or waste disposal.

It can go further than this, to include being disconnected from the infrastructures that make life convenient, including roads, banks, schooling, doctors and so on. Even the Internet is a grid of sorts. Wikipedia has an extended discussion

In the absence of Utility electricity, energy needs are often supplied by solar, water or wind energy. (more…)

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Cuba Moves Ahead With Alternative Energy – Will they move ahead of the U.S.

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As rediculous as it sounds, Cuba could very easily overtake the U.S. in its use of alternative forms of energy. Why? Because like China they have a planned economy.

http://peakoil.com/alternative-energy/cuba-on-the-road-to-clean-energy-development/

Cuba on the Road to Clean Energy Development

More than a decade ago, solar electricity changed the lives of several mountain communities in Cuba. Now this and other renewable power sources are emerging as the best options available to develop sustainable energy across the island.

“If the world’s clean energy potential exceeds our consumption needs, why do we insist on using the polluting kind?” asked Luis Bérriz, head of the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Respect for the Environment (CUBASOLAR), a non- governmental organisation that promotes the use of alternative and environmentally-friendly power sources.

According to his calculations, the amount of solar radiation Cuba receives is equivalent to 50 million tonnes of oil a day.

“If we covered the 1,000-kilometre-long national highway with solar panels we would generate all the power currently used, without using fossil fuels or occupying a single square metre of agricultural land,” Bérriz said to IPS in an interview.

Moreover, “nobody can block the sun; it belongs to all of us,” he added.

Bérriz is a researcher and long-time advocate of renewable power sources who prefers to talk about “reversing” climate change – which he says is caused by “the destructive actions of today’s societies” – instead of “adapting” to it.

In his opinion, adapting to what others destroy sounds more like “conformism”. Industrialised countries are responsible for 75 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which cause global warming. The leading GHG is carbon dioxide (CO2).

For Bérriz, the best course of action is to move from oil to clean energy sources, which exceed power needs. The way to do this is to develop the knowledge, technology and industry necessary to tap into the various renewable energy sources most available in each area, he says.

Key components of this process, Bérriz argues, are the training of scientists, technicians and skilled workers to cover human resource needs, and the creation of an energy and environmental culture that will raise the awareness essential for the development of solar power based on “fairness and solidarity”.

 

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It’s a big article, so go there and read. More tomorrow.

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