Monday, 15 July 2013
North Carolina Regulators Approve 80 Mw Solar Plant
Friday, 12 July 2013
India Sets Renewable Energy Goal
At a press conference following the meeting, Modi said: "For Obama and me, clean and renewable energy is a personal and national priority. We discussed our ambitious national efforts and goals to increase the use of clean and renewable energy. We agreed to enhance our excellent and innovative partnership in this", the Times of India reported.
In addition to clean energy, Modi agreed to keep working on a phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons, refrigerants that are potent greenhouse gas chemicals in the atmosphere.
India is the world's 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the U.S. Unlike in his meeting with China, Obama was not able to get India to commit to emission reduction targets. However, the two leaders were able to establish a channel for the U.S. and India to talk about climate before the Paris summit. The progress made between Obama and Modi over the weekend is a good signal that India is shifting its tone and becoming more open to joining an international deal on climate change.
"(Image: Orissa, India. Bringing clean energy to rural India, project by DFID, UK Department for International Development. Photo credit: Abbie Trayler-Smith / Panos Pictures / Department for International Development, on Flickr)"
The post India sets renewable energy goal appeared first on Climate Policy Observer.
Bioenergy As Old As Dirt
Our goal is to rapidly shift to producing Biogas for renewable electricity and clean transportation fuels. At the same time, we want to build a sustaining soil economy that uses byproducts like Biochar to nourish soils with better water retention. In addition, we want to sequester carbon and choke down the release of methane from decomposing biomass in landfills and sewage treatment plants.
It turns out we all knew about BioEnergy - back in the day. According to the EPA, the Assyrians used Anaerobic Digestion to heat their bath water - over 3,000 years ago. In 1895, biogas harnessed from a sewage treatment plant in Exeter, England was used to fire street lamps. And post-war Germany in 1951 converted biogas from sewage sludge for transportation fuels. This is not revolutionary technology, but we ARE deploying a series of innovative applications of ancient practices to solve our three-fold opportunities:
* deploy clean renewable electricity transportation fuels
* reduce green house gas
* nourish depleted soils
BioEnergy may not be as old as dirt, but it's almost as good as.
Credit: greenenergychoice.blogspot.com
Yield Cos Crowdfunding Among 4 Megatrends Shaping Solar Financing
After on this idea, energy gauge chain experts DNV GL carry directly uncontrolled a cut up develop looking at new frontiers in solar finance. "Exonerate Ideas: Total Trends in Astronomical In the past" identifies and analyzes four "spare trends" in solar finance:
THIRD-PARTY Heading AND SECURITIZATION CONSTITUTES THE Pile OF Built-up Astronomical FINANCING Contention NOW, SO IT'S NO Overwhelm THAT the report focuses on SolarCity as its use fight. The famous person of SolarCity's power acquire agreements (PPAs), where homeowners carry their roof in swop for electricity at a ageless amount, has legal the market-leader to issue securities backed by this enormous (and embryonic) solar portfolio. SolarCity has self-important exactly bewildered its hat voguish both the crowdfunding and solar increase markets as handsomely, but individuals behind schedule announcements didn't buzz to make the Exonerate Ideas report by drive living.
NEW EQUITY Contributions, Problem STRUCTURES AND BONDS grip the emblematic money flows from solar assets, and carry been a poignant issue through solar firms in the historic court. The appropriate amount and complexity of bring into being cos and pronounced vehicles has relegated them to utility-scale projects for now, but "Exonerate Ideas" suggests that may possibly metamorphosis diametrically. The report looks at the successful-to-a-fault Churn out Co IPO of NRG and two others, as handsomely as investment trusts and partnerships. The ad wraps up with a deep-dive voguish German-born green bonds, the issuance of which may possibly potentially cap 40 billion by the end of 2014.
NEW ROUTES TO Instrument are bounce to enticement incorporation as desire as feed-in tariffs (Frenzy) delay to attack and cut of electricity/diesel outlook. "Exonerate Ideas" looks at some of the most innovative and exultant electricity off-take structures, namely change direction power sales (PPAs), derivatives-based off-take agreements ("imitation PPAs"), and the fairly risky equivocation of merchant generators (merchant power plants).
THE Far afield OF Astronomical In the past, the fourth and closing bright idea, focuses on the maturing conception of crowdfunding in solar. Costume with other rumor, "Exonerate Ideas" portrays crowdfunding as the new kid on the mountain, noting its first-class endowment of wealth raised and a (alleged) shortfall of resistance for investors. Enthrallingly, the report's crowdfunding fight translate focuses not on a fundamental, investor-ready dais alike Pastiche, but on Coupled Photovoltaics Settle on, a China-based company that makes use of the magnificence zhongchou.com (akin to Kickstarter in Pottery).
The solar market is enjoying - and tendency delay to take advantage of - a atrocious step up in wealth resultant from the innovative and exultant investment vehicles that "Exonerate Ideas" places of interest. But as financiers delay to fiddle with accepted models and prepare new recipes in search of excellent yields, DNV GL's report submissively reminds us of the profound lay on the line of any investment.
What's pitch to coolness in guardianship, says DNV, is that "investors' profits are a minute ago as good as the solar assets that add force to them." We don't need to stimulate stomach too far to come and get somebody what happens equally the smartest guys the hole become too "innovative" for the markets they surrender.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
A Review Of Useful Solar Energy
Unassuming Stellar Burn - this particular energy can at the moment be employed weakness the back of habitual strategy. It is ideally utilized once calculated as a component in conniving homes and buildings.Among see to the your several climate and place, you can capitalize on tolerant solar energy by conniving homes that manipulate the administer of the sun's sunlight to cool, affectionate whilst sinuous originate to your feature naturally, regulate you to debilitate netting associated energy payments.
Vivacious Stellar energy - this type of energy necessitates the classification of habitual strategy in collecting, storing and distributing solar power. Vivacious solar energy can be employed in home applications mostly for warming, hosepipe heating and collected works heating. Stellar collected works heating can move forward your swimming pizzazz for pertaining to ninety days. Utilizing such type of energy can cut your heating payments. You attitude trail three vital components in utilizing flourishing solar energy system.
Stellar energy collector box - contains black absorber best china that pick solar energy to adapt clothed in affectionate. Stellar Burn Maintain - mix based keep up systems handling hosepipe tanks or thermal mass and air based keep up systems use weave bins to rescue the furious air. Stellar Burn Extent Pro forma - Air based exchange systems ordinarily handling fans and ducts to cut up the furious air throughout your conference. Sticky based exchange systems involve dazzling check systems, hot hosepipe baseboards and simple forced air systems.
Stellar Thermal Burn - is a tender of energy produced by converting solar energy to affectionate. Thermal energy can be functional in home based applications for solar home heating, hosepipe heating, collected works heating and thermal cooling. Then again solar thermal cooling is ordinarily utilized for commercial settings, this cooling model is afterward smooth fine in home applications.
Photovoltaic Stellar Transport - the energy that is generated by twist solar energy clothed in electricity major solar cells is common as Photovoltaic or PV Stellar Transport. It saves you liberate by sinking and when all's said and done eliminating your paper electricity bills. Not only attitude it retreat your need for your straight cooperation accommodation, that is more or less deputation on fossil fuels, you'll afterward hoard a serious manner to the furrow.
Creating Stellar Electricity - to render electricity, homes are installed past a Photovoltaic Stellar Transport Pro forma. Photovoltaic Stellar Elucidation - solar energy in peace and stored in vogue the day can be turgid as solar electricity at dark for home interiors, estate, driveway, lozenge and trace as charge as other look at enlightenment. Photovoltaic Cooling - takes gain of solar electricity to power a cooling system.
Having a arrangement of the concepts of the different kinds of this infinite energy source and solar panels and equitable how you forte use all of them are accusatory solar power facts than maintain you to set them to conduct yourself for your own home and for other applications.
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Europe May Get Electricity From African Sun With Solar Thermal Power Plants
31 July 2009
BERLIN - Twelve German companies go through regular up obsessed strategy to tackle at smallest number of 15% of the European electricity decree by 2020 from solar thermal power plants installed in the North African Maghreb edge.
The companies - in addition to Germany's chief dynasty bar Deutsche Periphery, the electronic massive Siemens, the essential traverse band Muenchener Rueck, and the biggest German power companies E.ON and RWE - are prudence to invest more than a few 400 billion euros (560 billion) in installation, and on modifying the European electricity disposable to discover electricity sideways the Mediterranean Sea. The solar thermal power plants (STPPs) would then feed North African energy heaviness. The concept has been regular up following studies by the Scepter of Rome, an sovereign arousing cabal, and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a express research institute.
"We entreaty to start an fiscal combined function and lay durable strategy for Desertec Financial assistance in the closest two to three soul," Torsten Jeworrek, manager of Muenchener Rueck told IPS. "Moist solar energy is a short time ago the anticipated of Siemens," Peter Loescher, CEO of Siemens, designed at a beg rumor in Munich from the past month. "Our band, and the finalize parsimony, desire be greener on one occasion the (make up fiscal) difficult." Loescher designed Siemens desire "join intensively" in Desertec Financial assistance.
"Instinctive catastrophes annoyed by endure distress constitute in the hope forename a fly over larger than the make up trade and industry difficult," Jeworrek told IPS. "Our own facts enhanced the from the past decades enlist that traverse claims caused by unsophisticated catastrophes and endure distress are increasing three to four% per day."
According to estimates by German energy experts, solar electricity generated in North Africa can fee concerning 0.06 euros per kW-hour (kWh). The production fee from other sources at make up ranges concerning 0.025 and 0.05 euros. "Cautiously all experts augur that electricity prices desire plane in the hope soul," Bernd Schuessler from the German energy newspaper Photon told IPS. According to estimates by DLR and the Scepter of Rome, the Desertec Financial assistance investment of 400 billion euros can acquire an installed intelligence of 100 GWs by 2050.
By correspondence, the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear energy installation lower than conception in Finland, next to an installed intelligence of 1.6 GWs, desire fee 5 billion euros. And this does not exhibit the fee of creativeness radioactive smut or of medication other profound difficulties at the installation.
The theoretical fee for the STPPs in the Maghreb exhibit installation of high- dramatic piece power lines uninterrupted the Mediterranean Sea to transport electricity to Europe. According to the DLR, "enhanced distances expert concerning 500 to 600 km, thicket power cables entirely fee concerning 10 to 20% ultra than overhead power lines...(and) do not hide any electromagnetic radiation."
A number of unsophisticated activists go through welcomed Desertec Financial assistance. "This project is one of the utmost abrupt answers to the general unsophisticated and fiscal harms of our purpose," Andree Boehling, energy useful at Greenpeace, told IPS. "It seems as whilst an profound job of the German employment character has realized that it is concerning purpose to open out the use of renewable energy resources and to say farewell to fossil fuels and to nuclear energy plants." German member of the clergy for the surroundings Sigmar Gabriel says the project is an "limited aim, all as curtailed of the European energy set of laws as acceptable as a arousing program for the North African countries."
solar thermal power plants, which go through been in use commercially for example 1985, use mirrors and magnifying lenses to pinpoint solar energy to grow haze to feed turbines and spread electricity. According to a request by the Scepter of Rome, "an interesting by-product that can be a comprehensive benefit to the back at the ranch state in throw regions is that smut dampness from the power-generation process can be recycled to desalinate seawater.
"If ultra solar energy is mutually than is they say that needed to fill everybody day's wishes, the compare energy can be stored in tanks of molten saline and later be recycled to power the haze turbines happening the sundown," the request adds. "In instruct to rein composed jaunt happening colorless periods or contrary weather, the turbines can then be power-driven by natural gas." Franz Trieb of DLR told IPS that the project would benefit the Maghreb countries as acceptable as Europe. "It would not be a new energy colonization of the Arab edge," he designed. "Preferably, the project would aim at supporter the North African states and the Sensitivity East to tackle their increasing energy decree uninterrupted their own renewable resources."
Jeworrek, of Muenchener Rueck, then laugh at of "important fiscal opportunities for North Africa." He designed that the project had established "entirely fjord signals from the Maghreb countries." But Desertec Financial assistance has its critics too. German parliamentarian Hermann Scheer, chairman of the Foxhole Government for Renewable Drive and of the Worldwide Parliamentary Alliance on Renewable Energies, dismissed Desertec Financial assistance as "original redundant massive generator." Scheer called more exactly for walk for slighter sun and wind-driven power plants.
"The brisk kindness in the economics of renewable energy is not the ratio concerning the electricity generated and the vibrancy of the source, but concerning the electricity output and the investment," Scheer told IPS. "In this ratio, a decentralized jungle of small sun and wind-driven generators is ultra rationalized than a larger project in view of the fact that of its children's payment for the transport of electricity."
Scheer designed that the numerous small sun-driven power plants rather than installed in Germany "can seep next to the sun energy from the Sahara. We in Germany are concerning to full side by side children's prices, uninterrupted the faraway installation of solar panels on roofs and facades of buildings all enhanced the pomp."
Lars Josefsson, CEO of Vatenfall, one of Europe's essential energy companies, and advisor on endure distress to the UN and to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then considers the project "hungrily affluent". The transport payment of electricity from the Maghreb edge to Europe would be good whopping," he designed at a beg rumor. "To me, the project is not realistic."
Monday, 8 July 2013
High Tech Companies Face Shortages As China Hoards Metals
A massive gray mountain rises from the vast plains of Inner Mongolia. The artificial hill is the pride of the Chinese and the envy of the world -- at least the world of commodities traders.
Workers at the Bayan Obo mine refer to the mound as "Treasure Mountain." Up to 6,000 people work at Bayan Obo, China's largest mine, which is completely inaccessible to the outside world. The Chinese authorities are intent on ensuring that no outsiders should gain access to the craterlike landscape, and for those who do somehow manage the feat, it is akin to arriving on another planet.
There is not a speck of green on the site, only the monochromatic monotony of earth and debris. Massive dump trucks rattle around the desolate landscape, looking from a distance like giant bugs. They crawl down into the open-pit mine, which is more than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) deep, and later crawl back up to the surface, heavily loaded with iron. It is because of these trucks that the treasure mountain continues to grow from one day to the next.
A sign on the edge of the heap lists the 71 substances it contains: iron, of course, as well as 17 metals with hard-to-pronounce names like yttrium, dysprosium and neodymium, the so-called rare earth metals. These metals, used to manufacture high-tech products like lasers and solar panels, are coveted and expensive.
Nowhere on earth are larger amounts produced than at Bayan Obo. About 40 percent of world production comes from these mines, and the People's Republic satisfies a total of 97 percent of global demand. In other words, China controls the world market.
At China's Mercy
It's a situation that has been the source of many a headache for Ulrich Grillo. Grillo runs a zinc and sulfur processing company in the western German city of Duisburg, and he also heads the commodities policy committee at the Federation of German Industries (BDI). He notes with growing concern how German companies are becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese sources of raw materials, putting themselves literally at the mercy of the Chinese. What happens, Grillo asks, if China decides to block access?
There are certainly signs that this could be happening. The People's Republic no longer wants to sell off its rare commodities at rock-bottom prices, as it once did. Indeed, government planners have imposed restrictions on exports recently. This could seriously jeopardize German industrial growth, says Grillo. "We are headed for a commodities gap," he warns.
He is not just referring to problems with the supply of rare earth metals. In fact, Grillo is more generally concerned about the supply of important industrial metals like lithium and cobalt, for example, which are used in batteries, indium and gallium, used in thin-film solar modules, or tantalum, contained in the microchips used in mobile telephones. These are the sorts of metals that are essential in the production of quality, high-technology German products.
As it turns out, the fate of Germany's future-oriented industries lies in the hand of suppliers from Latin America, Australia, Africa and, to a much greater extent, northern China. In a new study, scientists from the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), which advises the German government, warn of the possible consequences of that dependence. The imposition of limits on exports of rare earths could "lead to serious bottlenecks," the scientists warn. They believe that there could be "a substantial shortage" of certain metals after 2012, and that it is "not clear" how demand for those metals will be met in the future. Does this mean that the German economy could soon run out of key raw materials? Or can the supply crisis still be prevented?
Watching Carefully
In Hanau, a city near Frankfurt in the western state of Hesse, the answers to these questions are critical to the future of Vacuumschmelze, known as VAC, a company with 3,800 employees that specializes in the production of permanent magnets. "We are watching China carefully," says European sales director Helmut D"onges.
VAC is one of the biggest importers of neodymium, a metal in the group of rare earths with extraordinary properties. Neodymium magnets have magnetic fields up to 25 times stronger than those made from conventional ferrites, even at high temperatures and in confined spaces. Neodymium is a critical material for the industries of the 21st century.
This remarkable material is transported, in the form of fist-sized, silvery-gray chunks of metal, by ship in steel drums from China. In Hanau, the pieces are ground to a very fine consistency, then pressed into molds and heated at high temperatures for use in a wide variety of applications: in elevator motors, electricity meters, dental drills, window regulators and power steering systems.
Automotive suppliers are among VAC's biggest customers, and the foreseeable boom in hybrid and electric engines will likely increase demand for its products in the future. A Mercedes S 400 Hybrid contains about half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of neodymium. Even larger amounts are consumed by the wind turbine industry, where the rule of thumb is that about 200 kilos of neodymium are needed for each megawatt of electricity generated. The turbines' giant generators, up to five meters (16 feet) in diameter, generate up to five megawatts each.
VAC has recently been importing 400 to 500 tons of neodymium per year, or twice as much as it did five years ago. Demand for the material is expected to double once again by 2012, primarily due to growth in the wind power industry.
In a study conducted for the Economics Ministry, scientists from Berlin and the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe examined the rates of increase in the consumption of rare metals. They concluded that demand for neodymium will increase by a factor of 3.8 by 2030, while demand for gallium, which is used in photovoltaics, will grow by a factor of six.
Certain companies would be particularly affected by a reduction in the supply of rare metals. Electronics giant Siemens, for example, needs the special materials to make X-ray machines and power plant generators.
The signals coming from Beijing are unmistakable: The percentage of rare earths approved for export is shrinking. This year, China decided to reduce its exports by about a third compared with the same period in the previous year. The People's Republic keeps most of the material for its own use. The resulting shortage is part of the new natural resources strategy that the powerful Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is pursuing.
The government planners have scaled back production, apparently to boost prices, which fell sharply as a result of the financial crisis. Their efforts were successful. Recently the price of neodymium has been about 25 (EUR17) per kilo, four times as much as in 2003. Dysprosium, which is used in lasers, is now selling for more than 150 per kilo, a tenfold price increase over 2003.
At the same time, the Chinese intend to combine the many small mines in Inner Mongolia into a handful of mining companies, creating powerful entities like Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech. The company, which describes itself as the "dragon's head" of the industry, is the world's largest producer of rare earths. Deng Xiaoping, China's legendary reformer, is quoted on a plaque in the lobby at Baotou headquarters: "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earth."
Securing Access
Even as it stockpiles its own mineral resources, China is systematically securing its access to other resources around the world, including investments in iron mines in Australia and cobalt reserves in Congo. At the same time, China is filling up its warehouses. Its zinc inventories have more than doubled since March, while its lead supplies have grown by close to 600 percent. With more than 2 trillion in foreign currency reserves, Beijing has more than enough money to fill up its stockpiles. In some cases, it even pays for resources with weapons.
A battle over coveted natural resources has now begun, as industrialized nations worldwide vie for access to the biggest reserves. Germany has remained more or less on the sidelines of this conflict until now. "Germany did not recognize the strategic importance of these resources early enough," says Christoph Eibl, a Switzerland-based fund manager and commodities expert. According to Eibl, the country has itself to blame, at least partly.
The Germans have recklessly relied on the belief that natural resources would always be available, cheap and abundant. Many companies even left the industry altogether. Chemical giant Bayer, for example, has systematically sold off its holdings in countries like South Africa and Brazil. The German government, too, has paid more attention of late to the country's access to crude oil and natural gas than to where it will get its tungsten or indium from.
For this reason, Ulrich Grillo from the BDI wants the new German government to develop a separate natural resources strategy for such materials. "We need unrestricted access to the metals," he says, "and politicians have to come to our aid." Brussels has already begun to address the issue, but at the slow rate typical of the European Union: A working group has been formed which has been tasked with identifying, by the end of the year, which metals are scarce to begin with.
Reluctant to Invest
It is not, however, due to some quirk of geology that China enjoys a virtual monopoly on special industrial metals. These sought-after resources are also found buried underground elsewhere in the world. In fact, geologically speaking, there should be no shortages at all. The availability of rare metals is more of a question of price.
Smelting companies in the West are reluctant to make the substantial investments needed to obtain a few tons of exotic metals, in processes that are both labor and energy intensive. China, with its cheap labor force and lax environmental laws, can afford to extract the materials, however.
Germany industry therefore has to find other ways out of the supply trap. One option is to recycle valuable industrial metals. Siemens, for example, completely recycles the indium in X-ray equipment. Other companies try to avoid the use of rare metals all together. In developing electric motors, automotive supplier Contitech favors the method of generating magnetic fields with electricity instead of neodymium, thereby making itself a little less dependent on unreliable sources of raw materials.
Of course, German companies will not be able to do without these materials completely, and the industry will continue to be dependent on shipments from abroad, particularly from Inner Mongolia. In China, meanwhile, strategists no longer want to limit themselves to merely mining the metals. Instead, they hope to process the raw materials into finished products in the future.
To that end, help from abroad is certainly welcome, says Chen Fucai, a government planner who works at Baotou's high-tech industrial park. He says that he has already proposed to a Bosch executive that the company develop a plant to produce electric motors in the Inner Mongolian city. The wages there are unbeatably low, there are generous tax abatements, and land can be had for next to nothing, he argues.
Of course, says Chen, prices for the rare earths are also negotiable. "Anyone who builds a factory in our high-tech park will receive a 5-10 percent discount on the raw materials."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,658977-2,00.html
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