Renewable energy development continued at a good pace this year, with record-breaking projects announced almost as often as once per week. The editors of the renewable energy world network put our heads together to compile a list of the biggest renewable energy projects installed or completed this year as our year-end wrap-up report.
Full Story
Showing posts with label World's first. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World's first. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Denmark 100% Fossil Fuel Free by 2050? CleanTechnica.com
Following up on some great news regarding renewable energy targets and possibilities in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Germany, Denmark also recently announced great potential for weening itself off fossil fuels.
A report by the Danish climate commission found Denmark could create an energy network completely free of fossil fuels by 2050 as a result of falling renewable energy costs combined with rising oil and gas costs.
The report predicts that biomass and wind energy could provide the majority of the country’s energy needs.
“The report will also send a very clear and important signal to other countries that wind is a sustainable source of energy for future development,” said Ditlev Engel, chief executive of Danish wind energy giant Vestas.
“This is a great opportunity to solidify Denmark’s reputation as a laboratory for green, CO2-free power technology solutions that are globally required.”
A report by the Danish climate commission found Denmark could create an energy network completely free of fossil fuels by 2050 as a result of falling renewable energy costs combined with rising oil and gas costs.
The report predicts that biomass and wind energy could provide the majority of the country’s energy needs.
“The report will also send a very clear and important signal to other countries that wind is a sustainable source of energy for future development,” said Ditlev Engel, chief executive of Danish wind energy giant Vestas.
“This is a great opportunity to solidify Denmark’s reputation as a laboratory for green, CO2-free power technology solutions that are globally required.”
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Scotland to get 100 pct green energy by 2025. Reuters
(Reuters) - Scotland should produce enough renewable electricity to meet all its power demand by 2025, First Minister Alex Salmond said Tuesday.
"Scotland has unrivalled green energy resources and our new national target to generate 80 percent of electricity needs from renewables by 2020 will be exceeded by delivering current plans for wind, wave and tidal generation," Salmond said.
"I'm confident that by 2025 we will produce at least 100 percent of our electricity needs from renewables alone, and together with other sources it will enable us to become a net exporter of clean, green energy," he said a statement ahead of a renewable energy investment conference.
"Scotland has unrivalled green energy resources and our new national target to generate 80 percent of electricity needs from renewables by 2020 will be exceeded by delivering current plans for wind, wave and tidal generation," Salmond said.
"I'm confident that by 2025 we will produce at least 100 percent of our electricity needs from renewables alone, and together with other sources it will enable us to become a net exporter of clean, green energy," he said a statement ahead of a renewable energy investment conference.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
World's top 15 electricity producers... Rediff.com
The world is already in the grip of a major power crisis. With the developing nations' appetite and demand for more energy, the situation is likely to get even worse if steps are not taken to find alternate and clean/green sources of energy.
Almost all natural resources that are used to generate power -- oil, gas, even water -- seem to have limited availability. Thus alternative sources of energy -- wind, nuclear, solar -- might be the way out for the developing as also the rich countries.
After the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, many nations pledged to reduce their carbon emissions. Developing countries, including India and China, believe it is the responsibility of wealthy industrialised nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States to cut more carbon emissions as they have already achieved a certain standard of living.
Almost all natural resources that are used to generate power -- oil, gas, even water -- seem to have limited availability. Thus alternative sources of energy -- wind, nuclear, solar -- might be the way out for the developing as also the rich countries.
After the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, many nations pledged to reduce their carbon emissions. Developing countries, including India and China, believe it is the responsibility of wealthy industrialised nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States to cut more carbon emissions as they have already achieved a certain standard of living.
Friday, August 13, 2010
World's first solar power plant that can work at night. ScientificAmerican.com
By David Biello
How can one use solar energy after the sun sets? Simple: store the sun's heat in molten salts.
The world's first solar power plant to employ such technology—a thermal power plant that concentrates the sun's rays with mirrors on long, thin tubes filled with the molten salt—opened in Syracuse, Sicily, on July 14. Dubbed Archimede—after the famous Syracusan scientist Archimedes who supposedly coined the term "Eureka" for scientific discovery and reputedly repelled a Roman fleet through the use of mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays and burn the invading ships—the power plant can harvest enough heat to generate five megawatts of electricity, day or night, and can store enough energy to keep producing power even at night or during cloudy daytime hours.
In addition to the benefit of storage, molten salts also operate at a higher temperature (roughly 550 degrees Celsius) enabling them to capture more of the sun's energy—as well as create the steam for turbines in conventional power plants. Meaning that such solar thermal power plants could be swapped in for fossil fuel-burning ones. This power plant is on the grounds of a natural gas combined-cycle power plant.
The molten salts also don't burn like the oils used as working fluids in other concentrating solar power plants operating today. If Archimede springs a leak, it will end up with piles of fertilizer (the salts in question are potassium and sodium nitrates, which are literally used as fertilizer in agricultural applications). Of course, the freezing point of such salts is a balmy 220 degrees C so Archimede will have to capture a lot of heat to keep the salts fluid. That's why the plant's owner—Italian energy giant Enel—is supplementing the sun's rays with a little old-fashioned natural gas burning as well.
Of course, it requires 30,000 square meters of special parabolic mirrors and 5,400 meters of high heat-resistant pipe to collect the sun's rays in the molten salts, even in Syracuse. All that adds up to a building cost of roughly $80 million for just 5 megawatts of electricity. But Italy is hardly alone in pursuing such plants: the Andasol power plants in Spain use more than 28,000 metric tons of such salts to store thermal energy from its otherwise conventional concentrating solar power plants and the U.S. company SolarReserve plans to deploy such molten salt technology in its "power towers" coming soon to the Nevada desert. Eureka!
Source
How can one use solar energy after the sun sets? Simple: store the sun's heat in molten salts.
The world's first solar power plant to employ such technology—a thermal power plant that concentrates the sun's rays with mirrors on long, thin tubes filled with the molten salt—opened in Syracuse, Sicily, on July 14. Dubbed Archimede—after the famous Syracusan scientist Archimedes who supposedly coined the term "Eureka" for scientific discovery and reputedly repelled a Roman fleet through the use of mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays and burn the invading ships—the power plant can harvest enough heat to generate five megawatts of electricity, day or night, and can store enough energy to keep producing power even at night or during cloudy daytime hours.
In addition to the benefit of storage, molten salts also operate at a higher temperature (roughly 550 degrees Celsius) enabling them to capture more of the sun's energy—as well as create the steam for turbines in conventional power plants. Meaning that such solar thermal power plants could be swapped in for fossil fuel-burning ones. This power plant is on the grounds of a natural gas combined-cycle power plant.
The molten salts also don't burn like the oils used as working fluids in other concentrating solar power plants operating today. If Archimede springs a leak, it will end up with piles of fertilizer (the salts in question are potassium and sodium nitrates, which are literally used as fertilizer in agricultural applications). Of course, the freezing point of such salts is a balmy 220 degrees C so Archimede will have to capture a lot of heat to keep the salts fluid. That's why the plant's owner—Italian energy giant Enel—is supplementing the sun's rays with a little old-fashioned natural gas burning as well.
Of course, it requires 30,000 square meters of special parabolic mirrors and 5,400 meters of high heat-resistant pipe to collect the sun's rays in the molten salts, even in Syracuse. All that adds up to a building cost of roughly $80 million for just 5 megawatts of electricity. But Italy is hardly alone in pursuing such plants: the Andasol power plants in Spain use more than 28,000 metric tons of such salts to store thermal energy from its otherwise conventional concentrating solar power plants and the U.S. company SolarReserve plans to deploy such molten salt technology in its "power towers" coming soon to the Nevada desert. Eureka!
Source
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Masdar: Abu Dhabi's carbon-neutral city. BBC News
By Tom Heap
Presenter, Radio 4's Costing The Earth
The world's first zero-carbon city is being built in Abu Dhabi and is designed to be not only free of cars and skyscrapers but also powered by the sun.
The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the last place you would expect to learn lessons on low-carbon living, but the emerging eco-city of Masdar could teach the world.
Read Full Story:
Presenter, Radio 4's Costing The Earth
The world's first zero-carbon city is being built in Abu Dhabi and is designed to be not only free of cars and skyscrapers but also powered by the sun.
The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the last place you would expect to learn lessons on low-carbon living, but the emerging eco-city of Masdar could teach the world.
Read Full Story:
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Norwegian Company Develops World’s Largest Wind Turbine. AlternativeEnergy
March 1st, 2010
As fossil fuels continue to diminish and climate change poses an ever-increasing threat, scientists around the world are searching for new and more efficient methods of generating energy. Wind energy is one of the more promising alternative energy sources and Norwegian scientists are currently in the development stages of what promises to be the world’s largest wind turbine. As if creating the biggest wind turbine in the world was not enough, it also floats. Current plans for the world’s largest wind turbine have the machine standing 533 feet tall.
The proposed rotor diameter of this machine is 475 feet. Obviously, these gargantuan dimensions make it difficult to imagine many places able to accommodate such a device. Fortunately, the floating design makes the turbine suitable for open ocean use.
In addition to being the world’s largest wind turbine, the proposed machine (which is to be built by the Norwegian company Sway), will also be the most powerful. A single floating turbine will be able to generate 10-megawatts to power more than 2,000 homes. These figures make this proposed new design at least three times more powerful than the existing wind turbines in use today.
Read Full Story
As fossil fuels continue to diminish and climate change poses an ever-increasing threat, scientists around the world are searching for new and more efficient methods of generating energy. Wind energy is one of the more promising alternative energy sources and Norwegian scientists are currently in the development stages of what promises to be the world’s largest wind turbine. As if creating the biggest wind turbine in the world was not enough, it also floats. Current plans for the world’s largest wind turbine have the machine standing 533 feet tall.
The proposed rotor diameter of this machine is 475 feet. Obviously, these gargantuan dimensions make it difficult to imagine many places able to accommodate such a device. Fortunately, the floating design makes the turbine suitable for open ocean use.
In addition to being the world’s largest wind turbine, the proposed machine (which is to be built by the Norwegian company Sway), will also be the most powerful. A single floating turbine will be able to generate 10-megawatts to power more than 2,000 homes. These figures make this proposed new design at least three times more powerful than the existing wind turbines in use today.
Read Full Story
Monday, December 28, 2009
World’s Largest Solar Energy Office Building Opens in China. Inhabitat.com
A vast fan-shaped compound in China has officially taken the title of “largest solar-powered office building in the world“. Located in Dezhou in the Shangdong Province in northwest China, the 75,000 square meter structure is a multi-use building and features exhibition centers, scientific research facilities, meeting and training facilities, and a hotel – all of which run on solar power.
See more...
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
USA remains most attractive country for renewable energy. RenewableEnergyFocus.com
07 December 2009
The United States remains the most attractive country overall for renewable energy, but China has moved ahead of Germany to take second spot in the rankings released by Ernst & Young.
The quarterly Renewable energy country attractiveness indices provide scores for national renewable energy markets, infrastructures and their suitability for individual technologies. The weighting in the latest rankings has been amended to give 68% for wind (both onshore and offshore), 15% for solar (PV and CSP) and 17% for biomass and other renewable energy technologies.
The USA scores in top spot in the ‘All Renewables’ index, with a 70 comprised of 71 for wind, 75 for onshore wind, 59 for offshore wind, 72 for solar PV, 76 for CSP, 64 for biomass / other, 67 for geothermal, and 68 for renewable energy infrastructure.
China moves from third spot to second with an overall renewable energy score of 67, with high marks in onshore wind and infrastructure. Germany drops to third spot with a 66 overall, with high scores in offshore wind and solar PV.
Other countries in the top 10 for renewable energy include India (61), Spain (59), Italy (59), UK (57), France (57), Canada (54) and Portugal (53). In descending rank, the balance of the top 25 countries are Greece, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Brazil, Norway, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey, South Africa and Czech Republic.
Read Full Story
The United States remains the most attractive country overall for renewable energy, but China has moved ahead of Germany to take second spot in the rankings released by Ernst & Young.
The quarterly Renewable energy country attractiveness indices provide scores for national renewable energy markets, infrastructures and their suitability for individual technologies. The weighting in the latest rankings has been amended to give 68% for wind (both onshore and offshore), 15% for solar (PV and CSP) and 17% for biomass and other renewable energy technologies.
The USA scores in top spot in the ‘All Renewables’ index, with a 70 comprised of 71 for wind, 75 for onshore wind, 59 for offshore wind, 72 for solar PV, 76 for CSP, 64 for biomass / other, 67 for geothermal, and 68 for renewable energy infrastructure.
China moves from third spot to second with an overall renewable energy score of 67, with high marks in onshore wind and infrastructure. Germany drops to third spot with a 66 overall, with high scores in offshore wind and solar PV.
Other countries in the top 10 for renewable energy include India (61), Spain (59), Italy (59), UK (57), France (57), Canada (54) and Portugal (53). In descending rank, the balance of the top 25 countries are Greece, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Brazil, Norway, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey, South Africa and Czech Republic.
Read Full Story
Friday, December 4, 2009
First Passenger Flight Powered by Biofuel--But Are the Petroleum Alternatives Ready to Takeoff?: Scientific American
December 3, 2009
Test flight results have been good, but questions remain whether jet biofuel be produced in large quantities--and sustainably
By David Biello
Dutch airline KLM has completed a fifth jet biofuel test flight—and the first with passengers other than flight crew. Using a 50–50 blend of regular jet fuel and biofuel refined from camelina oil in one of its four engines, the flight carried 42 "observers" for an hour on November 23 from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, enough to fill business class, according to chemist Jennifer Holmgren, who was on board.
"The civil aviation authority in the Netherlands said we've seen enough of this fuel that I'm comfortable putting people on it," says Holmgren, who works for refiner UOP, a division of Honeywell International. "We went from people saying we couldn't do this three years ago, to making a drop-in sustainable aviation fuel today."
The test flights are part of an aviation industry plan to derive 1 percent of jet fuel from petroleum alternatives by 2015, or roughly 600 million gallons a year. Already, biofuel producers are gearing up production. Camelina grower Sustainable Oils—which provided the camelina oil to make the 1,000 gallons of jet fuel needed for the KLM flight—plans to cover more than 20,000 hectares in Montana with the weedy relative of canola, enough to deliver some 9.5 million liters of raw oil. And algae grower Solazyme recently won a contract to supply more than 75,500 liters of fuel derived from algae oil to the U.S. Navy, which would be a first for the industry.
Read Full Story:
Test flight results have been good, but questions remain whether jet biofuel be produced in large quantities--and sustainably
By David Biello
Dutch airline KLM has completed a fifth jet biofuel test flight—and the first with passengers other than flight crew. Using a 50–50 blend of regular jet fuel and biofuel refined from camelina oil in one of its four engines, the flight carried 42 "observers" for an hour on November 23 from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, enough to fill business class, according to chemist Jennifer Holmgren, who was on board.
"The civil aviation authority in the Netherlands said we've seen enough of this fuel that I'm comfortable putting people on it," says Holmgren, who works for refiner UOP, a division of Honeywell International. "We went from people saying we couldn't do this three years ago, to making a drop-in sustainable aviation fuel today."
The test flights are part of an aviation industry plan to derive 1 percent of jet fuel from petroleum alternatives by 2015, or roughly 600 million gallons a year. Already, biofuel producers are gearing up production. Camelina grower Sustainable Oils—which provided the camelina oil to make the 1,000 gallons of jet fuel needed for the KLM flight—plans to cover more than 20,000 hectares in Montana with the weedy relative of canola, enough to deliver some 9.5 million liters of raw oil. And algae grower Solazyme recently won a contract to supply more than 75,500 liters of fuel derived from algae oil to the U.S. Navy, which would be a first for the industry.
Read Full Story:
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Sweden Aims to be World's First Oil-free Nation. About.com:Environmental Issues
Using Renewable Energy, Sweden Plans to End Oil Dependency by 2020
By Larry West, About.com Guide
Sweden has moved to the forefront of the world’s “green” nations by setting an ambitious goal to achieve a completely oil-free economy by 2020—and without building more nuclear power plants.
Motivated by global warming and rising oil prices, the Swedish government says it intends to replace all fossil fuels with renewable alternatives before climate change undermines national economies worldwide and diminishing oil supplies force astronomical price increases.
"Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper. "There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline."
Read Full Story:
By Larry West, About.com Guide
Sweden has moved to the forefront of the world’s “green” nations by setting an ambitious goal to achieve a completely oil-free economy by 2020—and without building more nuclear power plants.
Motivated by global warming and rising oil prices, the Swedish government says it intends to replace all fossil fuels with renewable alternatives before climate change undermines national economies worldwide and diminishing oil supplies force astronomical price increases.
"Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper. "There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline."
Read Full Story:
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Royal Society puts historic papers online. BBC News
One of the world's oldest scientific institutions is marking the start of its 350th year by putting 60 of its most memorable research papers online.
Read Full Story:
Read Full Story:
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Bioethanol plant in Denmark inaugurated - BiomassMagazine.com
By Lisa Gibson
Posted November 19, 2009, at 1:25 p.m. CST
The Inbicon A/S bioethanol plant in Kalundborg, Denmark, will be prepared to distribute its first stock of fuel next year, with the capacity to produce 5.4 million liters (1.4 million gallons) annually.
The facility, one of the world’s first demonstration plants for second-generation bioethanol, was inaugurated Nov. 18.
Read Full Story:
Posted November 19, 2009, at 1:25 p.m. CST
The Inbicon A/S bioethanol plant in Kalundborg, Denmark, will be prepared to distribute its first stock of fuel next year, with the capacity to produce 5.4 million liters (1.4 million gallons) annually.
The facility, one of the world’s first demonstration plants for second-generation bioethanol, was inaugurated Nov. 18.
Read Full Story:
Friday, November 20, 2009
First test for record solar plane. BBC News
The prototype of a solar-powered plane destined for a record round-the-world journey has made its first trip across a runway.
On Thursday, the plane covered at least 2km at speeds of up to five knots on the landing strip in Switzerland.
This week saw the Solar Impulse plane outside its hangar for the first time, with tests of its motors and computer.
As wide as a jumbo jet but weighing just 1,500 kg, it will be piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard.
The plane's maiden flight is scheduled for February, and a final version will attempt to cross the Atlantic in 2012.
Read Full Story:
Thursday, November 5, 2009
First Hydrogen Power Plant in Italy. AlternativeEnergy
August 21st, 2009:Italy has come up with world’s first hydrogen power plant. This power plant is situated in Fusina, near Venice in the Veneto region of Italy. Enel is constructing this power plant producing no undesirable greenhouse gases. It is Italy’s largest power company with a track record of fifty million power and gas customers. Enel is procuring hydrogen from an accompanying production from Polimeri Europa’s petrochemical plant. This hydrogen will be brought to the establishment by especially built pipelines. Polimeri produces a wide range of petrochemical products, and its ethylene-cracking process will be responsible for the hydrogen feedstock. This hydrogen power plant will be operational in 2010. It will provide power to 20,000 households.
This hydrogen power plant is an off shoot of the Environment and Innovation Project known as Hydrogen Park. 7.4 billion euros will be assigned for the whole project by 2012. Another 40 million euro plant will be established on the line of Enel’s existing coal-fired power station in Fusina. It will have an investment of 4 million euros from the local Veneto region. According to Enel this power plant will save the emission of more than 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. This power plant has a capacity of 12 MW and burns hydrogen gas in a turbine developed in partnership with General Electric.
Read Full Story
First Solar Powered Passenger Ship for Berlin. AlternativeEnergy
August 25th, 2009: Alternative Energy Manufacturers who are concerned not only about profit but about future too are developing such products that are clean and green and run on alternative fuels. Though currently clean and green products are costly, efforts are on to make them easy on pocket too. Solon SE is a Berlin-based solar company that has produced a zero emission solar ship. Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit was present at a ceremony to launch the “SOLON.” It is Berlin’s first passenger ship deriving its power from solar energy.Solon SE also supplied the 24 solar modules with a capacity of 5.6 kWp.
Read Full Story
Osmotic Power Plant Set To Open. AlternativeEnergy
November 4th, 2009:
With the big push on alternative energy sources, world leaders everywhere are pushing for new power technology to create power plants that will use different resources to keep the earth greener. Her Royal Highness, The Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway has just made a huge step as a leader in this movement as she has announced the opening of the world’s first osmotic power plant, due to begin operations on November 24, 2009.
Read Full Story
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)