# Green Energy



## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Post any Green Energy projects here.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Epic games of beach volleyball, urban indoor workspaces infused with natural light, enthusiasm for the outdoors – at Google, we've always taken advantage of the sun. And now we're ready to use the sun yet another way: to create clean electricity.

Soon we plan to begin installation of 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels at our Mountain View campus. This project will be the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S., and we think it's one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. The panels will cover the roofs of the four main buildings of the Googleplex, and also those of two additional buildings across the street. There will also be a portion of this installation on new solar panel support structures in a few parking lots. The amount of electricity that will be generated is equivalent to powering about 1,000 average California homes. We’ll use that electricity to power several of our Mountain View office facilities, offsetting approximately 30% of our peak electricity consumption at those buildings.

To tackle this ambitious project, we're partnering with EI Solutions. The installation of clean and renewable power represents a first step in reducing our environmental impact as a company. We believe that improving our environmental practices is not only our responsibility as a corporate citizen, but good business planning -- a new report from the North American Electric Reliability Council suggests that demand continues to outstrip power supply by a considerable margin. And of course by saving electricity (not to mention producing clean renewable energy), we also save money. In fact, we believe this project demonstrates that a large investment in renewable energy can be profitable.

If the business community continues to increase investments and focus on energy efficient and renewable power generation technologies, we have a good feeling that our future will be bright. If you're interested, visit the Solar Electric Power Association.


Click here to see updates
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home]http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home

More on Google's commitment to green energy
http://www.google.com/corporate/green/energy/]http://www.google.com/corporate/green/energy/


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has inked a deal with Vancouver-based Finavera Renewables Inc. to buy power for up to 1,500 Northern California homes from ocean buoy generators bobbing on the waves off the coast of California, the companies said Tuesday.

Pacific Gas & Electric, owned by PG&E Corp. (PCG) of San Francisco, entered into a long-term, two-megawatt commercial wave-energy power deal expected to deliver electricity by 2012. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Although relatively small, the pact joins a handful of pilot wave projects on the books for the U.S., which is moving to tap into emission-free energy as a way to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from conventional electricity sources such as fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Finavera, a small-cap stock traded on Toronto's venture exchange, said the permitting process to float buoys in waters off the coast of Humboldt County near Eureka, Calif., is likely to take two or three years.

"Energy transfer takes place by converting the vertical component of wave kinetic energy into pressurized seawater by means of two-stroke hose pumps," Finavera said. "The pressurized seawater is directed into an energy conversion system consisting of a turbine driving an electrical generator."

Electricity is conducted to shore via an undersea transmission line.

Plans call for placing about 40 of Finavera's AquaBuoys floating in a star- shaped configuration.

The power purchase agreement calls for 3,854 megawatt hours of electricity a year, which will offset about 245 tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to Pacific Gas & Electric.

"It is our intent to build wave-energy power plants globally that deliver clean, renewable electricity to homes and deliver value to our shareholders," said Jason Bak, chief executive of Finavera Renewables, in a statement. "This power purchase agreement is a significant step in reaching both of those milestones."

PG&E said it independently filed permit applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop generation projects that could convert wave energy off the coast of California's Mendocino and Humboldt counties into electricity.

The company had said earlier this year it would weigh products from Finavera Renewables as well as Ocean Power Technologies and Ocean Power Delivery of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The wave deal comes on the heels of PG&E pacts calling for the delivery of 177 megawatts of solar thermal power and 150 megawatts of wind power.

PG&E currently supplies 12% of its energy from qualifying renewable sources under California's Renewable Portfolio Standard program, with the aim of exceeding 20% under contract or delivered by 2010.

Finavera Renewables is also developing other wave-energy projects in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.

One other wave-power firm is Pennington, N.J.-based Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (OPTT), which went public at $20 a share last April. The company's stock is down nearly 40% from that level.

On Monday, Ocean Power Technologies reported a net loss of $1.9 million on revenue of $1.7 million for the second quarter ended Oct. 31, compared with a net loss of $2.3 million on revenue of $600,000 in the year-ago period.

The company said it inked a deal with PNGC Power for an Oregon wave-energy project and was awarded additional funding for a contract with the U.S. Navy in Hawaii. The company reported a backlog of $7.9 million as of Oct. 31, up from $ 5.2 million in April.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of auroras borealis, the spectacular color displays seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

The Aurora Borealis lights up the sky over Greenland.

New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun.

The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights, said principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California at Los Angeles.

Results were presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting.

In March, the satellites detected a burst of Northern Lights over Alaska and Canada. During the two-hour light show, the satellites measured particle flow and magnetic fields from space.

To scientists' surprise, the geomagnetic storm powering the auroras raced 400 miles in a minute across the sky. Angelopoulos estimated the storm's power was equal to the energy released by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.

"Nature was very kind to us," Angelopoulos said.

Although researchers have suspected the existence of wound-up bundles of magnetic fields that provide energy for the auroras, the phenomenon was not confirmed until May, when the satellites became the first to map their structure some 40,000 miles above the Earth's surface.

Scientists hope the satellites will record a geomagnetic storm next year and end the debate about when the storms are triggered.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

All this will help the US. The United States Is dependent on expensive foreign fuel that when burned hurts the environment and when bought, hurts the economy. With green power, the US can fix or at least help some of our problems.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Nah, they better find a solution to fossile fuels. Green energy is not always as green as promoted. (constructing of windmills is quite environment-unfriendly). It is more durable than fossile fuel, that's true. 

Those large windmills parks are also kind of ugly, especially if they are placed along mountain/hill ridges and stuff.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

I like what Google did where they put the solar panels on the roof. They make rooftop solar panels for homes that look like normal shingles.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Yeah, but it turns out you need like 20 - 30 years to have your investment back... And that is with Dutch energy prices, i don't know how they are in the US, but likely significantly lower than in Europe, so the payback time can be much longer with solar panels. 

The idea is good, but i think many people think it's a too expensive investment.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Google's solar panels will pay for themselves in 7 years.  Right now, isn't gas 5 euros a liter in Europe while it is floating between $2 and $3 a gallon in the USA. I am not sure about the conversions, but I think it is much more expensive in Europe.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Maybe solar panels are just more expensive than in Europe, also, the money wouldn't goo to countries like Iran that are causing a ton of problems and all of their money is coming from oil.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Mr. Met said:


> Google's solar panels will pay for themselves in 7 years. Right now, isn't gas 5 euros a liter in Europe while it is floating between $2 and $3 a gallon in the USA. I am not sure about the conversions, but I think it is much more expensive in Europe.


No, its about $ 8,30 per gallon in Europe to 3 dollars a gallon in the US.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

That sucks, I guess you drive a small car.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected a massive solar power plant to be built in California and Tesla Motors' planned electric car factory in New Mexico as two of 16 projects eligible for up to $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. Such guarantees can prove critical in securing financing for untested technologies like the distributed power tower design planned for a 400-megawatt solar energy plant to be built by BrightSource Energy of Oakland, California, in Southern California's Mojave Desert. Silicon Valley's Tesla Motors intends to produce its WhiteStar electric sports sedan at the New Mexico factory. (The company's first vehicle, the Roadster sports car, is being built in the U.K.)

Img00288 "DOE's action today will pave the way for federal support of clean energy projects using innovative technologies and will spur further investment in these advanced energy technologies," the Energy Department said in a statement. Other projects invited to submit final applications for the loan guarantees range from so-called clean coal power plants to fuel cell factories to biofuel production facilities.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies has inked an agreement with a major toymaker to develop a line of hydrogen-powered toys. Horizon makes industrial-strength fuel cells but the Singapore-based company is probably best known for its solar-and-hydrogen-powered toy car called the H-Racer. (The company also has developed a very cool hydrogen-powered jet.) Horizon and Hong Kong's Wah Shing Toys, which describes itself as one of the world's largest toy companies, will develop energy storage systems designed to replace some 500 million alkaline batteries used annually in toys. "Building on its fuel cell technology, Horizon is developing a new generation of non-toxic energy storage devices that would feed small fuel cell power systems designed into next-generation toys and that could be re-used hundreds of times," the company said in a statement. Horizon already makes a hydrogen fuel cell conversion kit designed to replace standard batteries in remote-controlled toy cars.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

For my Business 2.0 story on the "Interactive, Renewable Smart Power Grid," I had the chance to sit down with Hal LaFlash, director of renewable energy policy and planning for California utility PG&E (PCG). Once the scourge of environmentalists, PG&E has transformed itself into one of the greenest and most forward-looking big utilities in the nation. Which makes perfect sense: During California's disastrous experiment in deregulation, PG&E largely got out of power production business and now focuses on power transmission. The utility's revenues are set by regulators so it has no incentive to increase consumers' consumption of electricity. That means LaFlash spends his time thinking about where PG&E is going to buy its electricity in a carbon constrained world, especially now that California's global warming law bans utilities from buying power from out-of-state coal-fired plants, currently the source of 20 percent of the Golden State's electricity. While natural gas-fueled plants will continue to play a big role in providing power - PG&E just broke ground on a 530-megawatt plant, it's first new power plant in two decades - alternative energy from wind, solar and biomass will be a growing part of the company's power portfolio as it faces a deadline to source 20 percent of the electricity it sells from renewable energy sources by 2010. But LaFlash is thinking decades down the line, when the power grid looks more like the Internet - distributed, interactive, open-source - than the dumb, one-way network of today that pushes dinosaur molecules from a carbon-spewing power plant to your home.

Take cow power, for instance. California is home to some 1.7 million cows and more than 2,000 dairies, concentrated in the state's smoggy Central Valley. PG&E has agreed to buy biogas from dairies that have installed methane digesters. The digesters extract methane - a potent greenhouse gas - from cow manure and use it to power electricity-generating turbines to run the dairy or send it via pipelines to power stations. That in turn will improve the Central Valley's air quality. "We're also looking at using orchard trimmings to supply smaller, decentralized biomass plants," LaFlash says. "We're also doing a lot with marine technologies and wave energy up the coast." He envisions the day when cities themselves become power generators as skyscrapers are built or retrofitted with solar cells integrated into walls, windows and roofs.

One of the more intriguing PG&E initiatives is a program to develop technology to tap plug-in hybrid cars to power the grid during peak demand. (The utility has been talking to Toyota (TM) about building such a car.) Here's how it would work: if you participate in the program, PG&E's technology would know when you plugged in your car for recharging - whether at home, work or at grandma's house. When electricity demand surges, the grid would tap the car's battery to avoid having to bring power from non-renewable sources online. "It'll take millions of them to have an effect," LaFlash says of plug-in hybrid cars. "But the size of the California auto market makes this the place to start." Such technology would be part of the coming smart grid, which will communicate with sensors embedded in washing machines, air conditioners and other household appliances to allow power to be distributed where it is needed most.

One renewable energy source you probably won't see grow in California anytime soon is nuclear power. State law prohibits the construction of new nuke plants until there's a place to put radioactive waste.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Big Solar has been about Big Dreams - fields of mirrors carpeting the desert to produce clean, greenhouse-gas free electricity. In another step toward making that vision a concrete-and-glass reality, Schott Solar announced Monday that it is building a factory in Albuquerque, N.M., to manufacture components for large-scale solar thermal power plants as well as photovoltaic modules for commercial rooftop arrays.

The German company’s news follows Silicon Valley solar startup Ausra’s announcement last month that it’s building a solar thermal factory in Nevada — the first in North America.

That solar companies are now investing capital to break ground on manufacturing plants represents the creation of a Big Solar infrastructure and, of course, a move to get on the ground floor of what is expected to be a solar building boom in the sun-drenched Southwest of the United States. Utilities throughout the region are facing mandates to dramatically increase their use of renewable energy. In California, for instance, PG&E (PCG), Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) are all negotiating big megawatt contracts for utility-scale solar power thermal power plants. A consortium of Southwest utilities meanwhile has put out to bid a 250-megawatt solar station.

“We certainly see the opportunity for growth in the solar thermal market,” Mark Finocchario, CEO of Shott’s North American operations, told Green Wombat. “The concentration of solar thermal plants will be in the Southwest and we see that’s where the rest of the supply market will develop as well. But we would have the ability to ship product to anywhere in the world.”

The $100 million Albuquerque factory will manufacture solar thermal receivers — long tubes that hang over curved mirrors called solar troughs. The mirrors focus the sun’s rays on the receivers and liquid inside becomes superheated to produce steam that drives electricity-generating turbines.

Finocchario says the the plant, which will employ 350 people, is set to go online by the end of the first quarter of 2009. Future plans call for another $400 million investment to expand the factory’s workforce to 1,500.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

California would become the Saudi Arabia of solar energy if a slew of large-scale solar power plants proposed for the sun-drenched Mojave Desert are built. The federal Bureau of Land Management has received right-of-way requests on 300,000 acres for 34 Big Solar power stations that would generate more than 24 gigawatts of green energy. That disclosure was made in a development application that BrightSource Energy has filed with the California Energy Commission to build a 400-megawatt solar power station complex in the Mojave just across from the Nevada. It's unlikely, though, that anywhere close to that number of solar power plants will be built in the near future. Still, it's an indication of the land rush that's on as solar entrepreneurs start to lock up the best sites. So far, Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) have contracted for up to 1.75 gigawatts with Stirling Energy Systems of Phoenix. PG&E (PCG), meanwhile, is negotiating with BrightSource to provide 500 megawatts of solar electricity and has signed a contract for 553 megawatts more with Israeli solar power company Solel. All the projects would be built in or near the Mojave.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

In another big boost for the economic viability of large-scale solar power plants, California utility PG&E said today it will buy an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal power over the next five years. That’s on top of the gigawatt the utility already has committed to purchase.

"PG&E (PCG) has identified solar thermal technology as a reliable energy source that can provide millions of American electric customers with some of the cleanest and most cost-effective renewable energy," said PG&E CEO Peter Darbee in a statement. A 1,000 megawatts of solar electricity would power about 750,000 homes, according to PG&E.

One likely beneficiary PG&E's pledge is Silicon Valley solar startup Ausra. The company, backed by green investor Vinod Khosla and venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, has been negotiating with PG&E to build solar power plants for the utility. Ausra executive vice president John O’Donnell declined to comment on the status of those negotiations.

So far PG&E has signed a deal for a 553-megawatt plant with Israeli solar company Solel and is continuing to negotiate a 500-megawatt deal with BrightSource Energy, the Oakland, California-based company founded by solar pioneer Arnold Goldman. Today’s commitment, made at the Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York City, would make PG&E the nation’s largest solar utility, putting it ahead of California utilities Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE). The announcement comes as Florida utility FPL (FPL) said it will spend $1.5 billion over the next seven years to build solar thermal power plants, including a 300-megawatt power station using Ausra’s technology.


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## jchernin (Jul 21, 2005)

whoa, slow down there

as u can see, cali is leading the way for the usa. we still have a long way to go tho.

a lot of good info sprinkled around in there: u should include ur sources


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## jchernin (Jul 21, 2005)

*enough reading for a day*



> *Big Solar's day in the sun*
> 
> This is not the same old pipe dream. The economics -- and the technology -- of turning light into electricity have changed. Business 2.0 has the inside look at the industrial-strength power plants coming soon to a grid near you.
> 
> ...


source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050990/index.htm


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Mr. Met said:


> That sucks, I guess you drive a small car.


Yes i am driving a small car. I am living alone, so i don't need a large car anyway. Though i don't have one of thoose cookie cans-cars, because i use my car for long distances too, and i like some convenience. 

I am interested in hybrid cars, but the technology is not very developed right now, in my opinion. Some diesel cars still consume less fuel than a hybrid one.


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## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

Floor generation
The second experiment


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

^^ What is that?


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## Tri-ring (Apr 29, 2007)

Chriszwolle said:


> ^^ What is that?


It harnesses the walking motion of humans to generates electricity. I think it was originally proposed by a viewer of Discovery channel Japan.

I think the basic principle is the usage of Piezoelectricity.
For more information follow link.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite the astronomical jump in clean-energy stocks in 2007, investors say 2008 will also be be a good year for most stocks in emerging energy technology.

Driven by record oil prices that lifted the broader energy sector in general - and perhaps investor enthusiasm stoked by global warming fears - 2007 was a fantastic year to own renewable energy stocks.

The WilderHill clean energy index - an index of 48 large U.S. stocks in the renewable energy sector - rose over 58 percent for the year. That compared to an 8 percent gain in 2006 and an anemic 5 percent rise in 2005.

Solar was the big winner in 2007. Most solar stocks in the index rose over 100 percent. First Solar, a maker of thin-film solar panels that is half-owned by the estate of Wal-Mart heir John Walton, surged a staggering 795 percent last year alone. (See correction at end of story.) Its stock hit nearly $300 a share.

But after a big runup in solar stocks, experts suggest looking at wind and energy efficiency specialists for market-leading performance in 2008, and perhaps a rebound for biofuels, which took a beating last year.

Here's what the experts say, sector by sector:
Solar

The leader in 2007 is already seeing a pullback. Solar stocks in the WilderHill Index - which include SunPower (SPWR), Evergreen Solar (ESLR), Suntech (STP), and First Solar (FSLR) - have fallen an average of around 10 percent since the start of the year.

The decline seems to be a simple case of investors bailing out of what they see as an overvalued sector.

"When I see valuations that are out of control, it just kinda scares me," said Paul Ferreri, a renewable energy portfolio manager at McClurg Capital, a San Rafael, Calif.-based capital management company.

That said, almost all renewable energy investors still think the sector is a good bet for the long term.
Wind

Experts say the wind sector, which boasts the technology of choice for utilities looking to buy green power, is now undervalued compared to solar.

"Wind is a steady grower, and it will continue to be supported by legislation and production targets," said Jens Peers, head of Eco Funds at Dublin-based KBC Asset Management.

The problem is, there are very few U.S. wind companies to invest in. Most big makers of wind turbines - like Spain's Gamesa, India's Sulzon, or Denmark's Vestas - do not have U.S. stock listings.

General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) is the big U.S. player, although making wind turbines is obviously a small part of its business. But it is a growing part, accounting for over $1 billion in sales in the last quarter and boasting a backlog of over $7 billion in orders, according to Ferreri.

Another way for U.S. investors to play wind is to get in on the parts companies. Zoltek (ZOLTEK), which makes carbon fiber that's used in turbine blades, is an investor favorite. Its stock rose over 100 percent last year, and a mind-blowing 1,849 percent over the last 5 years. But with earnings growth of over 100 percent over the last 12 months, the runup may be justified - although the company has yet to turn a profit.

And American Superconductor (AMSC), among its many products, makes devices used in transferring energy from wind turbines. That company's stock rose 178 percent last year.
Biofuels

This sector got killed in 2007 as corn prices rose, ethanol prices fell, and the media churned out stories highlighting corn-based ethanol's inefficiency and the problems with using food-based crops for fuel.

Verasun's (VSE) stock lost 26 percent and Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) sank over 50 percent.

But that may mean it's a good time to buy.

"[These stocks] are extremely cheap, and legislation could push [them] back up," said Peers.

For corn-based biofuels stocks, experts said to be careful of the smaller companies and stick to names like Verasun or Pacific Ethanol. Ferreri likes the diversity offered by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM, Fortune 500), the agriculture giant with a big stake in the sector.

Experts also like the biofuel companies working outside the corn area.

Cosan (CZZ) is a big Brazilian company specializing in sugar-based ethanol, which is more efficient that corn. Its stock has risen about 10 percent since debuting on the New York Stock Exchange this past summer. And Nova Biosource Fuels (NBF) a maker of biodiesel, was named by WilderHill index founder Robert Wilder as a stock to watch.
Efficiency

Companies that specialize in helping other outfits boost their energy efficiency haven't gotten nearly as much press as their sexier cousins in wind and solar, but experts say cutting demand is just as important as generating new, clean power when it comes to meeting future energy needs.

Companies like Orion (OESX), which manages power demand, Itron (ITRI), which makes so-called "smart" electric meters, or Cree (CREE), which makes super-efficient light emitting diodes, are all on investors' radar screens.

"I think you'll see a lot more of these plays come to market," said Les Satlow, a portfolio manager with Cabot Money Management, a Salem, Mass.-based capital management company.

Satlow also said good plays in renewable energy could include companies that make equipment used to make solar panels, like Applied Materials (AMAT, Fortune 500), or Vecco (VECO), which makes precision equipment used to manufacture microelectronic products.

With all the different types of renewable technologies out there, he likened the race to find the dominant few to a war.

"We don't really know who's going to be the winner, so we prefer to go with the arms dealer," he said.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

japanese001 said:


> Floor generation
> The second experiment


and how much energy does this currently generate?


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## Tri-ring (Apr 29, 2007)

Mr. Met said:


> and how much energy does this currently generate?


I don't know how much the first picture generates but according to the figure shown within the second picture, (if I am reading it right) it states 129.9KWs at the point the picture was taken of that day.


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

Tri-ring said:


> It harnesses the walking motion of humans to generates electricity. I think it was originally proposed by a viewer of Discovery channel Japan.
> 
> I think the basic principle is the usage of Piezoelectricity.
> For more information follow link.


that's awesome, i want some in my apartment.


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## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

highway Generation
A vibrational energy experiment








Goshiki Sakura bridge


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

When President Bush signed the energy bill into law last month, much was made of the legislation’s mandate that automakers dramatically boost the fuel efficiency of their fleets. Less noticed was that the bill dropped a provision that would have extended the solar investment tax credit — a measure viewed as essential to transforming solar energy from a niche business into a multi billion-dollar industry that can generate gigawatts of greenhouse gas-free electricity.

The timing couldn’t be worse. With the current solar credit set to sunset, as it were, at the end of 2008, Big Solar is at at a tipping point: Utilities and renewable energy companies are in the midst of negotiating massive megawatt power purchase deals whose financing depends on the 30 percent investment tax credit, or ITC.

“I think there is a major concern that this will stall all the beneficiaries of the ITC,” said Joshua Bar-Lev, vice president for regulatory affairs for solar power plant developer BrightSource Energy. The Oakland, Calif.-based startup is negotiating a 500-megawatt agreement with California utility PG&E and is proceeding with plans to build a 400-megawatt solar thermal power station on the Nevada border (artist rendering above).

Solar energy companies, utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Edison International (EIX) as well as financiers such as Morgan Stanley (MS) and GE Energy Financial Services (GE), had pushed for an eight-year extension of the investment tax credit to give Big Solar projects enough time to get off the ground and start to achieve economies of scale. The provision also would have allowed utilities to claim the credit for solar projects they build. The measure drew support from both sides of the aisle in Congress but died — by one vote in the Senate — when Bush threatened to veto the energy bill because the solar tax credit would be financed by repealing previous tax breaks given to Big Oil.

“The Congressional leadership is very strong in their support of the ITC; they will put this on the table In 2008,” said Chris O’Brien, a Sharp Solar executive and chairman of the Solar Energy Industries Association, in an e-mail. “The solar industry will continue to contact legislators in key states.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in the Senate have pledged to re-introduce renewable energy tax credit legislation this session. “Speaker Pelosi has said repeatedly that she hopes to address that this year,” Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, told Green Wombat. “We’re just getting started but there’s bipartisan support for the tax credit.”

Publicly, at least, no one in the solar industry will say that the uncertainty over the tax credit is affecting planned projects. “Our expectation is that there will be another tax bill that will address this issue,” said Kevin Walsh, managing director of the renewable energy group at GE Energy Financial Services. “We’re working on a number of [solar thermal] deals but it’s too early to disclose them.”

In recent months, PG&E has signed deals for more than a gigawatt of electricity — enough to light more than 750,000 homes — with solar power plant developers. Such power purchase agreements can take more than a year to hammer out and the permitting and construction of a solar power station can take another three to five years.

We’re continuing to move forward with negotiations and with contracts that have already been signed, but certainly the absence of the ITC could potentially impact future projects,” said PG&E spokesman Keely Wachs. “Without the credit, it does increase the cost of that energy and of course it also sends a very clear market signal as to our country’s energy priorities.”

Silicon Valley solar startup Ausra is building a 177-megawatt solar power planton the Central California coast to supply electricity to PG&E and is pursuing deals with Florida’s FPL (FPL) and other utilities.

“Just like any business, the solar industry prefers a predictable system for the future,” wrote Holly Gordon, Ausra’s director of regulatory and legislative affairs, in an e-mail. “It will be more difficult to plan for our projects while the situation remains uncertain. While we are currently seeing excellent demand for solar energy at market prices, we need a long term extension of the renewable energy tax credits to ensure market stability and investor confidence as the market continues to grow.”


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

japanese001 said:


> highway Generation
> A vibrational energy experiment
> 
> 
> ...


how does this work?


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Google, is very involved in this field, one thing that google.org (charity branch of Google) works with is developing renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels and a plug in hybrid that gets 100 miles per gallon


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

a very good article. read it, you'll be glad you did! 

lol


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

good article


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## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

*Eco-friendly "ecocute"*

Good evening Mr.Met










After hitting the first 1 million sales in 2007, momentum is growing for EcoCute Water Heaters in Japan, with constant innovations entering the market every year. Leading manufacturers chose the ENEX (Energy and Environment Exhibition) in Tokyo this week to showcase their latest models featuring increased efficiency in different conditions, therefore contributing to reduce overall greenhouse gases emissions.

Awards to Sanyo & Daikin

Sanyo presented its innovative new Heat Pump able to operate efficiently under extremely low ambient temperature conditions (-20 degrees Celsius), being thus suitable for cold areas such as the Hokkaido region in north Japan. The unit, developed in co-operation with the Hokkaido Electric Power company, won the Chairman Prize of the Energy Conservation Centre of Japan (ECCJ), under the category of Low Ambient Multifunction EcoCute. 


Sanyo new CO2 Heat Pump uses a plit cycle system�Eallowing to increase by 50% the heating capacity and by 20% the Coefficient of Performance (COP) at -20�‹ C ambient temperature, when compared to a onventional cycle�Eof a Sanyo model.

Daikin, on the other hand, also won the Chairman Prize of ECCJ for its CO2 Heat Pump. With a COP of 5.1, its latest EcoCute unit uses a special ater/CO2 Heat Exchanger�E

Trend towards increasing efficiency

The exhibition showed a trend towards high efficient Heat Pumps, with the majority of new models presenting a COP of over 5.0. This means a significant increase since the launch of EcoCute in 2001, where best models offered a maximum COP of 3.5. Sizes of EcoCute units have also decreased to fit smaller spaces, and new models have been developed to suit various needs (i.e. large integrated systems, industrial installations, extreme weather conditions, etc.). 


Companies showcasing new models included:


Chofu: its new Ecocute Heat Pump reaches a COP of 5.1, combined with a silent operation, with maximum operating noise of only 38dB.


Corona: with similar efficiency, it offers an attractive slim design to fit in residential dwellings.


Panasonic (National): last year winner of the ECCJ award showcased a new model using a acuum insulation panel�E with overall improved efficiency.


Hitachi (see picture in image gallery)
Other exhibitors included TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), offering information about its �eswitch�Ecampaign to promote the transition to all electric houses, or Yodobashi, the Japanese consumer electronics store. Its booth integrated an interactive game to raise awareness about CO2 emissions to the atmosphere related to the use of electronic equipment.
http://www.e8.org/index.jsp?numPage=142


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=531420
from it:

A biogas power plant worth 1billion HUF will be inaugurated in a few weeks at Bánhalma. It will have 1 MWh output. It will use 42000 tonnes of "fuel",out of which 28000 tonnes will be the biological waste(liquid excrement) of the nearby pig farm. It will produce 7GWh electricity annually,while 30% of the produced heat will be used by the facility itself. The remaining could be used by the future developments nearby. Directly it means 3-4 new workplaces. The fertilizer remaining in the power plant will be used by same company that supplies that 28 thousand tonnes of biological waste.

A biogas factory at Klárafalva soon will enter testing phase. The factory will use corn waste,liquid excrement and sugarmilo,producing 2000-2500 m3 of biogas.

Construction has started on a new biomass power plant at Szerencs. It will use mostly hay,and will provide 133 new jobs in the area. Because of the much debate over its environmental approval,it has been redesigned 3 times. Part of the facility will be submerged into the ground,and an earth barrier will be constructed around it,which will be heavily forested.
While the city backs the project(because of the industrial tax and the jobs),the owners of the region's wineries object it,saying it will destroy the feeling of the area. The constructors say the power plant wont do anything the factories already in the area havent done.
It plant will be an 50MW one,using ~280000tonnes of hay annually,from an 50km area around it.

The spanish Iberdrola announced this monday that they will build 4 wind power farms in western-Hungary,with a total of 108MW output. They said the constructions will take place in 2008 and 9 in Vas and Komárom-Esztergom counties,costing 155million EUR.

Békési Szélerőmű Park Kft got the final approval for the first 8 wind power plants out of 32,which will be built at Békés. Constructions will begin next spring.

Dunapack starts its biggest investment in Hungary,a 70 billion HUF factory with its power plant. the factory will consume 400000tonnes of waste paper,producing 105 million EUR worth packaging material,of which 75% will be export.
The power plant,with 200MW output,will use the waste of the factory.
This whole project will create 600 jobs directly,and 300 indirectly.

A biogas power plant has been inaugurated at Kaposvár,in the local sugar factory. It costed 1,7 billion HUF,and provides 6 jobs.
The plant generates ~50% of the electricity the factory needs,and uses the biological waste of the factory. This means the factory will have to use 40% less natural gas.

The dane Vestas company will inaugurate its new wind power plants at Sopronkövesd in january. The plants will have a total of 23MW output,which will be provided by 7 3MW and 1 2MW turbines.

A new biodiesel factory will be built at Hódmezővásárhely by an australian company. in the 1st phase of the construction a pressing facility will be built which will use 500000 tonnes of sunflower and soy.
Part of deal is that the local government has to build a road and a rail track to the factory,because the resources will arrive via trucks and trains. By 2010, a 20-25MW power plant will be built too.

There are 3 plans for power plants at Medgyesegyháza. All of them are "green",since one is a wind,an other is a hay and the 3rd is a biological waste power plant. Locals are planning a referendum on the issue(s),because they dont want them.

Hese-Biogas GmbH started production in its new biogas plant at Pálhalma yesterday. The project worth 2,5 billion HUF. The plant has an output of 1,7MW.

The first biogas power plant of Baranya county is being planned in Somberek. It will be completed by the october of 2008. It costs 850million HUF(3,33million EUR). The fuel of the plant will be collected from the nearby settlements. The locals are afraid about the transportation method(excrement falling onto the road from trucks),and the local agricultural company has some questions about the hygiene of the plant. The director of the company building the plant said nobody has to be afraid,there wont be any problems.

Bátortrade Kft issued a project for the expansion of its biogas power plant. There are 2 fermentation plants in the project.

Dreher made its factory greener,by building a biogas power plant and a water treatment plant. They costed the company 500million HUF(1,87million EUR). With this project,the company can reduce the factory's energy usage by 10%. The power plant has an output of 1,4 MW. The project will pay back in 5 years.

United BioFuels got every approval,and now can start the construction of an enormous biodiesel factory at Mohács. The factory will cost 20 billion HUF(78 million EUR),and will produce 200000 tonnes of biodiesel annually. The factory will mean 85-100 jobs in the vicinity. The reason for the location is one of the suppliers-Bóly Zrt built a riverport for barges with a logistics centre in the adjacent area in the previous years. The suppliers will be Bóly Zrt and IKR,both growing corn on 50000 hectares-which will be used by the factory,annually 300000 tonnes.

A new,20MW biomass power plant is to be built at Szakoly for 12billion HUF(47,3million EUR),which includes 400million HUF governmental aid(1,57 million EUR). The plant will use 170-180000 tonnes of biomass,which will be wooden and agricultural waste from the area. The power plant will be ready by the spring of 2009. It will provide 50 jobs directly,while about 200 other jobs in the production and logistics field.

Plambeck GM New Energy Hungary Szélenergia Fejlesztő és Üzemeltető Kft wants to build a wind power plant park in Tolna county for 12,5 billion HUF(50 million EUR) until 2011. There will be 14 towers,each 105m high with an output of 2MW.
The company wants to build numerous other parks in Hungary,with a total of 260MW output.


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## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

Experiments in space solar power.
February 20
jaxa http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html








Target 2030


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

*America's 50 Greenest Cities*
Want to see a model for successful and rapid environmental action? Don't look to the federal government—check out your own town. Here, our list of the 50 communities that are leading the way. Does yours make the cut?

In the international alliance to fight climate change, the United States is considered the sullen loner. But in the seven years since we rejected Kyoto, changes have begun. Not at the federal level, however. It’s the locals who are making it happen.

In everything from emissions control to environmental stewardship, cities across the country are far ahead of the federal government, and they’re achieving their successes with ready-made technology. Austin has pledged to meet 30 percent of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2020, aided by planned wind-power installations that will surpass their predecessors in efficiency. Seattle has retrofitted its municipal heavy-duty diesel vehicles with devices that will reduce particulate pollution by 50 percent. Boulder has enacted the country’s first electricity tax to pay for greenhouse-gas emission reductions. Something about the comparative speed of city government—a city-council member can greenlight a project and be cutting the ribbon a year later—leads to bold action, and as cities trade ideas, a very positive sort of mimicry is spreading.

The 10 trailblazing civic projects profiled in our list of the top green cities in America are among the most impressive success stories to date—examples of what’s possible when elected officials and local business leaders back up their green visions with scientific know-how, clout and creative funding.

*How the Rankings Work:*

We used raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geographic Society’s Green Guide, which collected survey data and government statistics for American cities of over 100,000 people in more than 30 categories, including air quality, electricity use and transportation habits. We then compiled these statistics into four broad categories, each scored out of either 5 or 10 possible points. The sum of these four scores determines a city’s place in the rankings. Our categories are:

* Electricity (E; 10 points): Cities score points for drawing their energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power, as well as for offering incentives for residents to invest in their own power sources, like roof-mounted solar panels.
* Transportation (T; 10 points): High scores go to cities whose commuters take public transportation or carpool. Air quality also plays a role.
* Green living (G; 5 points): Cities earn points for the number of buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, as well as for devoting area to green space, such as public parks and nature preserves.
* Recycling and green perspective (R; 5 points): This measures how comprehensive a city’s recycling program is (if the city collects old electronics, for example) and how important its citizens consider environmental issues.


1. Portland, Ore. 23.1

* Electricity: 7.1 Transportation: 6.4 Green Living: 4.8 Recycling/Perspective: 4.8

America’s top green city has it all: Half its power comes from renewable sources, a quarter of the workforce commutes by bike, carpool or public transportation, and it has 35 buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.
2. San Francisco, Calif. 23.0

* Electricity: 6.8 Transportation: 8.8 Green Living: 3.5 Recycling/Perspective: 3.9
* See how San Francisco turns wasted roof space into power, here.

3. Boston, Mass. 22.7

* Electricity: 5.7 Transportation: 8.7 Green Living: 3.4 Recycling/Perspective: 4.9
* CASE STUDY: Grass Power
Boston has preliminary plans for a plant that would turn 50,000 tons of fall color into power and fertilizer. The facility would first separate yard clippings into grass and leaves. Anaerobic bacteria feeding on the grass would make enough methane to power at least 1.5 megawatts’ worth of generators, while heat and agitation would hasten the breakdown of leaves and twigs into compost.

4. Oakland, Calif. 22.5

* Electricity: 7.0 Transportation: 7.5 Green Living: 3.1 Recycling/Perspective: 4.9
* See how Oakland's hydrogen-powered transit helps the city cut pollution, here.

5. Eugene, Ore. 22.4

* Electricity: 10.0 Transportation: 4.7 Green Living: 2.9 Recycling/Perspective: 4.8
* CATEGORY LEADER: Electricity
Much of the wet Pacific Northwest draws its energy from hydroelectric dams. But Eugene draws an additional 9 percent of its municipal electricity from wind farms. It also buys back excess power from residents who install solar panel

6. Cambridge, Mass. 22.2

* Electricity: 6.1 Transportation: 7.5 Green Living: 3.9 Recycling/Perspective: 4.7

7. Berkeley, Calif. 22.2

* Electricity: 6.2 Transportation: 8.4 Green Living: 2.9 Recycling/Perspective: 4.7

8. Seattle, Wash. 22.1

* Electricity: 6.2 Transportation: 7.3 Green Living: 4.7 Recycling/Perspective: 3.9

9. Chicago, Ill. 21.3

* Electricity: 5.4 Transportation: 7.3 Green Living: 5.0 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6
* CATEGORY LEADER: Green Space
In addition to the 12,000 acres Chicago has devoted to public parks and waterfront space, the U.S. Green Building Council has awarded four city projects with a “Platinum” rating, its highest award.
See how Chicago's power plants produce twice the energy with a third the carbon, here.

10. Austin, Tex. 21.0

* Electricity: 6.9 Transportation: 5.9 Green Living: 3.3 Recycling/Perspective: 4.9

11. Minneapolis, Minn. 20.3

* Electricity: 7.8 Transportation: 7.4 Green Living: 2.8 Recycling/Perspective: 2.3
* CASE STUDY: Citizen Enviro-Grants
If you’ve got a world-saving idea, the City of Lakes will give you, your church or your community group the money to get it done. Twenty $1,000 mini-grants and five $10,000 awards were distributed last year to programs ranging from household power-consumption monitors to “block club talks” about global warming. A similar initiative has sprung up in Seattle.

12. St. Paul, Minn. 20.2

* Electricity: 8.0 Transportation: 4.0 Green Living: 3.5 Recycling/Perspective: 4.7

13. Sunnyvale, Calif. 19.9

* Electricity: 7.3 Transportation: 6.8 Green Living: 2.2 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6

14. Honolulu, Hawaii 19.9

* Electricity: 6.0 Transportation: 7.8 Green Living: 2.6 Recycling/Perspective: 3.5

15. Fort Worth, Tex. 19.7

* Electricity: 8.3 Transportation: 4.6 Green Living: 2.4 Recycling/Perspective: 4.4

16. Albuquerque, N.M. 19.1

* Electricity: 7.6 Transportation: 5.5 Green Living: 2.4 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6

17. Syracuse, N.Y. 18.9

* Electricity: 7.0 Transportation: 4.9 Green Living: 2.6 Recycling/Perspective: 4.4

18. Huntsville, Ala. 18.4

* Electricity: 6.2 Transportation: 4.1 Green Living: 3.6 Recycling/Perspective: 4.5

19. Denver, Colo. 18.2

* Electricity: 5.9 Transportation: 5.2 Green Living: 3.0 Recycling/Perspective: 4.1
* CASE STUDY: Green Concrete
Fly ash, a by-product of coal-burning power plants, usually ends up in landfills. Researchers at the University of Colorado Denver found a way to reuse this industrial by-product. They add it at concentrations of about 20 percent to a new green concrete mix. The addition of fly ash also reduces the amount of sulfur- and carbon-spewing concrete production needed to finish a job. The mayor has signed an executive order requiring the use of green concrete in new city projects, and a $550-million infrastructure bond makes demand for the mix likely to grow.

20. New York, N.Y. 18.2

* Electricity: 2.8 Transportation: 10.0 Green Living: 3.4 Recycling/Perspective: 2.0
* CATEGORY LEADER: Transportation
More than 54 percent of New Yorkers take public transportation to work, beating the next-best metropolis, Washington, D.C., by 17 percent.
 See how New York City turns its tides into electricity, here.

21. Irvine, Calif. 18.1

* Electricity: 4.2 Transportation: 6.8 Green Living: 2.9 Recycling/Perspective: 4.2

22. Milwaukee, Wis. 17.3

* Electricity: 5.0 Transportation: 4.9 Green Living: 3.1 Recycling/Perspective: 4.3

23. Santa Rosa, Calif. 17.2

* Electricity: 7.0 Transportation: 3.4 Green Living: 2.4 Recycling/Perspective: 4.4
 * See how Santa Rosa taps geysers for watts, here.

24. Ann Arbor, Mich. 17.2

* Electricity: 4.6 Transportation: 4.8 Green Living: 2.9 Recycling/Perspective: 4.9

25. Lexington, Ky. 16.8

* Electricity: 5.9 Transportation: 3.6 Green Living: 2.3 Recycling/Perspective: 5.0
* CATEGORY LEADER: Recycling and green perspective
Lexingtonians recycle everything from surplus electronics to scrap metal, and they listed the environment as their third most important concern (behind only employment and public safety)—the highest ranking in our survey.

26. Tulsa, Okla. 16.7

* Electricity: 5.0 Transportation: 3.9 Green Living: 3.4 Recycling/Perspective: 4.4

27. Rochester, N.Y. 16.1

* Electricity: 4.5 Transportation: 4.4 Green Living: 3.1 Recycling/Perspective: 4.1

28. Riverside, Calif. 16.0

* Electricity: 7.5 Transportation: 3.1 Green Living: 2.1 Recycling/Perspective: 3.3

29. Springfield, Ill. 15.7

* Electricity: 5.3 Transportation: 3.0 Green Living: 3.2 Recycling/Perspective: 4.2

30. Alexandria, Va. 15.7

* Electricity: 2.7 Transportation: 6.3 Green Living: 3.1 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6

31. St. Louis, Mo. 15.0

* Electricity: 2.7 Transportation: 5.0 Green Living: 3.7 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6

32. Anchorage, Alaska 14.4

* Electricity: 2.7 Transportation: 4.7 Green Living: 2.1 Recycling/Perspective: 4.9
* CASE STUDY: Power-Saving Streetlights
Since Anchorage spends a good part of the year buried under highly reflective snow, it doesn’t make sense to keep the street lamps at full bore when moonlight can do the job. The fix? Install citywide dimmers. On top of that, the city is planning to upgrade its 16,000 streetlamps to either LED or induction bulbs, depending on the results of computer simulations designed to find the type of light that helps humans see best and disturbs wildlife the least. The swap should be complete by year’s end, and the initial $5-million investment is expected to save up to $3 million in energy costs annually.

33. Athens-Clarke, Ga. 14.1

* Electricity: 2.4 Transportation: 4.7 Green Living: 3.2 Recycling/Perspective: 3.8

34. Amarillo, Tex. 14.0

* Electricity: 5.2 Transportation: 2.9 Green Living: 2.3 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6

35. Kansas City, Mo. 13.8

* Electricity: 2.7 Transportation: 3.7 Green Living: 2.7 Recycling/Perspective: 4.7

36. Salt Lake City, Utah 13.5

* Electricity: 3.6 Transportation: 4.1 Green Living: 2.3 Recycling/Perspective: 3.5
* See how Salt Lake City heats homes from waste, here.

37. Pasadena, Calif. 13.2

* Electricity: 5.8 Transportation: 3.1 Green Living: 1.8 Recycling/Perspective: 2.5

38. Norwalk, Calif. 13.0

* Electricity: 3.5 Transportation: 3.1 Green Living: 2.5 Recycling/Perspective: 3.9

39. Laredo, Tex. 12.9

* Electricity: 4.4 Transportation: 2.5 Green Living: 1.7 Recycling/Perspective: 4.3

40. Joliet, Ill. 12.0

* Electricity: 1.3 Transportation: 4.3 Green Living: 2.6 Recycling/Perspective: 3.8

41. Newport News, Va. 11.9

* Electricity: 2.7 Transportation: 2.7 Green Living: 2.7 Recycling/Perspective: 3.8

42. Louisville, Ky. 11.9

* Electricity: 1.3 Transportation: 4.0 Green Living: 2.5 Recycling/Perspective: 4.1

43. Concord, Calif. 11.9

* Electricity: 3.0 Transportation: 3.2 Green Living: 2.2 Recycling/Perspective: 3.5

44. Fremont, Calif. 11.3

* Electricity: 3.0 Transportation: 3.0 Green Living: 1.5 Recycling/Perspective: 3.8

45. Elizabeth, N.J. 10.5

* Electricity: 2.6 Transportation: 2.8 Green Living: 1.8 Recycling/Perspective: 3.3

46. Livonia, Mich. 10.2

* Electricity: 2.7 Transportation: 2.1 Green Living: 1.8 Recycling/Perspective: 3.6

47. San Bernardino, Calif. 10.2

* Electricity: 2.8 Transportation: 2.3 Green Living: 1.6 Recycling/Perspective: 3.5

48. Thousand Oaks, Calif. 10.2

* Electricity: 2.9 Transportation: 2.9 Green Living: 1.6 Recycling/Perspective: 2.8

49. Stockton, Calif. 10.1

* Electricity: 2.8 Transportation: 2.5 Green Living: 1.0 Recycling/Perspective: 3.8

50. Greensboro, N.C. 10.0

* Electricity: 2.0 Transportation: 2.0 Green Living: 2.1 Recycling/Perspective: 3.9


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

*Dongtan City*
Images of China's proposed eco-city, Dongtan

http://www.popsci.com/environment/gallery/2007-07/dongtan-city


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## hcrosskey (Sep 5, 2006)

The UAE is in on the game too!

From the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7237672.stm


Work starts on Gulf 'green city' 

Green city planned for the desert


Enlarge Image

Abu Dhabi has started to build what it says is the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste car-free city. 
Masdar City will cost $22bn (£11.3bn), take eight years to build and be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. 

The city will be mostly powered by solar energy and residents will move in travel pods running on magnetic tracks. 

Abu Dhabi has one of the world's biggest per capita carbon footprints and sceptics fear Masdar may be just a fig leaf for the oil-rich Gulf emirate. 

Others fear Masdar City - on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi City - may become a luxury development for the rich. 

The project is supported by global conservation charity, the WWF. 

Less power, less water 

The city will make use of traditional Gulf architecture to create low-energy buildings, with natural air conditioning from wind towers. 

Water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant, Masdar says. The city will need a quarter of the power required for a similar sized community, while its water needs will be 60% lower. 


An artist's impression of a Masdar City transport pod 

The city forms part of an ambitious plan to develop clean energy technologies. 

In January, the government of Abu Dhabi announced a $15bn five-year initiative to develop clean energy technologies, calling it "the most ambitious sustainability project ever launched by a government". 

As part of the plan, Abu Dhabi will become home to the world's largest hydrogen power plant. 

The money is being channelled through the Masdar Initiative, a company established to develop and commercialise clean energy technologies, and Abu Dhabi hopes it will lead to international joint ventures involving much more money. 

Abu Dhabi will invest $4bn of equity in the project and borrow some of the rest, Masdar said. 

"We are creating an array of financial vehicles to finance the $22bn development," Masdar chief executive officer Sultan al-Jaber told Reuters news agency. 

"We will monetise all carbon emission reductions... Such innovative financing has never been applied to the scale of an entire city."


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## phubben (Aug 5, 2005)

What about biogas fueling?
In Lille, France, a growing number of buses are powered with gas produced using the domestic food wastes. Each household has a food waste receptable (that smells really bad by the way).
I think it's a good way to reduce both wastes (it's terrible to see the quantity of food we throw away) and pollution.

I suppose several cities in the world use it too.


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## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

*New wind-generated electricity*

It is quantity of generation of 4 times of a common propeller.
The noise is low, too.
http://www.mecaro.jp/eng/


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

*Research report: Nanopants that might power an iPod*

“Remarkable New Clothing May Someday Power Your iPod®,” reads the headline of today’s National Science Foundation press release, complete with the dutiful ® symbol that nobody outside Apple (AAPL) ever bothers to use.

The release describes nanotech clothing being designed at the Georgia Institute of Technology that converts the wearer’s motion into electricity that can be used to power small electrical devices.

A report in the Feb. 14 issue of Nature explains how pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires generate electricity in response to applied mechanical stress.

“The two fibers scrub together just like two bottle brushes with their bristles touching, and the piezoelectric-semiconductor process converts the mechanical motion into electrical energy,” says Georgia Tech professor Zhong Lin Wang.

Wang and his collaborators have made more than 200 fiber nanogenerators so far and have measured as much as 4 nanoamperes and output voltage of about 4 millivolts from two 1-cm fibers. Wang estimates that a square meter of this fabric could generate as much as 80 milliwatts.

The one wrinkle in the technology (NSF’s pun, not mine) is that zinc oxide is sensitive to moisture. You wouldn’t throw your iPod in the washing machine, and your nanopants shouldn’t go in there either.

The research was funded by NSF’s Division of Materials Research and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, of all people.

For more information, see the NSF release here.

The scanning electron microscope image is reposted courtesy of Z.L. Wang and X.D. Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology.


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## wigo (Jan 23, 2006)

China's amazing efficiency in promoting solar energy.


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

* Arizona to become 'Persian Gulf' of solar energy*

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- A Spanish company is planning to take 3 square miles of desert southwest of Phoenix and turn them into one of the largest solar power plants in the world.

Abengoa Solar, which has plants in Spain, northern Africa and other parts of the U.S., could begin construction as early as next year on the 280-megawatt plant in Gila Bend -- a small, dusty town 50 miles southeast of Phoenix.

The company said Thursday it could be producing solar energy by 2011.

Abengoa would build, own and operate the $1 billion plant, named the Solana Generating Station.

Solana will be enough to supply up to 70,000 homes at full capacity.

APS filed for approval of the plant with Arizona's public utilities regulator Thursday. The plant also hinges on an extension of the federal solar investment tax credit, which APS and Abengoa said they're confident will happen.

If approved, the plant will triple the amount of renewable energy APS produces. Now, about 1½ percent of the utility's energy comes from renewable sources.

Arizona regulators are requiring utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, with annual increases of roughly 1 percent.

The Solana plant will bring APS to around 5 percent in 2011, said Don Robinson, the utility's senior vice president of planning and administration.

Unlike most solar energy, Solana will use the sun's heat, not its light, to produce power. Gila Bend can get as hot as 120 degrees in the summer.

Abengoa CEO Santiago Seage said the plant will use thousands of giant mirrors to harness the sun's heat. That will heat up liquids, which will spin turbines -- just like coal or other power plants but without the pollution.

He said using heat will allow the plant to produce power even after the sun has gone down.

"We receive the heat from the sun, and we use a fluid that becomes very hot. And we can keep it hot for a long time and release that heat for a long time," he said. "It's like coffee. You can make it hot, keep it hot for a few hours and drink it anytime you want."

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said she envisioned the state as a solar powerhouse.

"There is no reason that Arizona should not be the Persian Gulf of solar energy," she said.


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## ChicagoFan (May 25, 2006)

> *Mexico sets 25 percent renewable goal by 2012*
> 
> MEXICO CITY, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Within four years, *Mexico wants to produce 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, the country's energy secretary said.
> *
> ...


:banana::banana::banana:


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

*Hybrid car batteries*



> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080301...d_batteries;_ylt=Apmzn3gs4yxR6FzxQms6slGs0NUE
> *
> Daimler plans new battery for hybrid *
> 
> ...


..


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Clean energy investment near $150 bln in 07 -study *

LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Global investment in clean energy technologies soared 60 percent last year to $148.4 billion, London-based researchers New Energy Finance said on Thursday. 

The research company was updating its previous, preliminary 2007 estimate of $117 billion, after taking into account deals which closed towards the end of the year. 

Europe, Middle East and Africa topped the league regionally at $76.2 billion, helped partly by the $6.6 billion public listing of Spain's Iberdrola Renovables, compared to the Americas which followed at $42.9 billion, the report found. 

Investment in clean energy in 2007 represented 19 percent of global funding of energy industry infrastructure, it said, but uncertainty clouded the next steps. 

"There's enormous uncertainty about the trajectory of the sector," said Michael Liebreich, New Energy Finance chief executive, citing the dependence of the sector on public support to finance a switch away from fossil fuels. 

In addition, a global credit squeeze is restricting the flow of capital to markets generally. 

Another worry for the clean energy sector was accelerated funding especially of publicly quoted companies, and the risk of over-valuation reminiscent of the dotcom bubble. 

Most clean energy alternatives are more expensive than conventional fuels like coal and gas, and governments support them to help fund the fight against climate change and energy dependency. 

Within the clean energy sector solar power has seen by far the strongest investment growth over the past four years, the report said, at 254 percent per year since 2004. 

But some solar stocks have seen severe falls in the past month, underlining bubble concerns, while biofuel investment actually fell in 2007 after a period of plunging margins. 

Wind power topped investment among clean energy technologies in 2007, at $50.2 billion invested and some 20.6 gigawatts (GW) installed, while solar came second with $28.6 billion invested and 2.6 GW installed, the report estimated. 

The report defined new investment as the capital which companies raised from private equity and venture capital funds, as they grow, or from selling shares when they list on publicly quoted markets. It also included money raised to finance assets such as wind farms.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

April 18, 2008 Dubai has well earned its reputation for architectural extravagance and excess. Not a cent has been spared as various developers vie to produce the biggest, the most stunning, the most luxurious and the most outrageous projects ever undertaken. And while this next project is right up there in terms of luxury, exclusivity and head-spinning architectural genius, it adds a fascinating extra dimension - the ability to generate ten times as much power as it will use. Each floor of Dynamic Architecture's wind-powered rotating skyscraper is a single apartment with the ability to rotate independently, giving residents the ability to choose a new view at the touch of a button - quite a party trick. Wind turbines between each floor will generate a vast surplus of electricity capable of powering the whole surrounding neighborhood. The method of construction is also fascinating; each floor will be pre-fabricated in segments in a quality-controlled factory before being lifted and secured into place on a concrete spine, bringing costs and construction times down significantly. Construction is set to begin soon in Dubai, with a second tower to follow in Moscow and numerous other sites around the world being considered.

The genius in Dr. David Fisher's design of the Dynamic Architecture wind-powered rotating skyscraper is its powerful and unique appeal to so many stakeholders. With luxury and jaw-dropping architecture becoming so common in Dubai, and so many wealthy and impressionable people wishing for their homes to stand out from the crowd, the tower's unique ability for each floor to rotate independently will surely place it in high demand. It will also be a stunning landmark for the city, catching the sun as it quietly twists like a monolithic Rubik's cube.

The wind turbines between each floor make the tower an environmentally positive construction, generating a large excess of power to put back into the energy grid. Each turbine has the peak ability to produce around 0.2 megawatt hours of electricity. Given Dubai has an average of 4000 hours of wind annually, with an average wind speed of 16 km/h, the turbines are estimated to produce around 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year. Four of the 48 turbines in the building will be enough to power the entire tower, leaving the other 44 to provide surplus energy back into Dubai's power grid.

The tower's unique properties allow for an equally innovative construction process. Instead of building the tower from the ground up, floor by floor as most skyscrapers are built, the rotating tower will be built in parallel stages. As a team on site builds the enormous concrete core, or spine of the building, complete with the elevators, a separate team will be working in a dedicated factory, prefabricating each floor in segments. Once the core is complete, the segments will be lifted up the side of the building and each floor will be assembled and attached, from the top floor down, around the central spine.

This method holds a number of advantages over traditional construction schedules. Firstly, since the core and floor segments are being built in parallel, the construction can be much quicker, resulting in a time saving of around 30% for a similarly sized regular tower. Secondly, vastly fewer workers need to be on site at the tower, meaning only around 90 specialist workers will need to work in difficult and dangerous conditions at the tower itself, the remainder being in an optimal, safe and comfortable factory setting.

Thirdly, each modular apartment can be easily customized to the buyer's desires, and every small component can be finished and quality assessed much more easily than an on-site construction, leading to higher standards of quality control. Architect David Fisher sees the construction method as the equivalent of an industrial revolution in construction, bringing large-scale building practices into line with industrial practices in other areas. The first industrial prefabrication factory will be located in Italy.

The rotating tower is slated to begin construction soon in Dubai according to Dynamic Architecture - and the 420-meter, 80-floor Dubai tower will be followed by a 70-floor, 400-meter tower in Moscow which is currently in advanced design phase. The company is in preliminary talks with the cities of Milan, London, New York, Hamburg and Sao Paolo for further implementations.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

December 20, 2006 Gulf city state Dubai’s growth and far-reaching vision continues to astound us – we’ve already written about the World's tallest building and largest mall and the monumentally-large real estate synthesis projects such as the Palm and world island groups and then there’s the world’s largest airport which is currently under construction and dozens of other projects which would make any city proud. Then earlier this year Dubai-based High Rise Real estate announced a Rotating Tower with four rotating penthouses and a rotating villa. Now the Rotating Tower has been seriously gazumped with the news of the Time Residences tower which will become one of the most unique engineering feats of the modern world - a solar-powered rotating skyscraper. The 30-floor Time Residences will provide 200 one- and two-bedroom apartments as well as duplexes and penthouses with continuously-changing views of one of the most exciting skylines on Planet Earth. Just so you know they’re serious, the company has announced plans to build a further 23 such rotating towers around the world.

The tower was designed by Glenn Howells Architects in the UK and City of Arabia developers Palmer and Turner.

As the 80,000 tonne building will rotate precisely once every week, markings within each apartment will enable it to function as the world’s largest clock.

December 20, 2006 Gulf city state Dubai’s growth and far-reaching vision continues to astound us – we’ve already written about the World's tallest building and largest mall and the monumentally-large real estate synthesis projects such as the Palm and world island groups and then there’s the world’s largest airport which is currently under construction and dozens of other projects which would make any city proud.

Now the Rotating Tower has been seriously gazumped with the news of the Time Residences tower which will become one of the most unique engineering feats of the modern world - a solar-powered rotating skyscraper. The 30-floor Time Residences will provide 200 one- and two-bedroom apartments as well as duplexes and penthouses with continuously-changing views of one of the most exciting skylines on Planet Earth. Just so you know they’re serious, the company has announced plans to build a further 23 such rotating towers around the world.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

bump


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## mememe (Jun 18, 2007)

darn !

nice work dubai.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Waiting for a problem from getting info from CNN Money. It is ridiculous that the United States Government is stopping California, they wanted to make a stricter gas-mileage requirement than the rest of the country ad were shot down.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Hope it is built, and not just in Dubai, but all of the major cities listed above.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

japanese001 said:


> highway Generation
> A vibrational energy experiment
> 
> 
> ...


I hope this and the floor generation one are implemented EVERYWHERE! I love this idea.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Jyoti is the Hindi word for light. It's something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without. And he is lucky. Near where he lives in Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states in India, thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best.









Massive solar satellites would beam power back to ground-based receivers on Earth.

"We need to empower these villages, and for empowerment, energy is a must," Mehta said. "Rural India is suffering a lot because of a lack of energy."

By 2030, India's Planning Commission estimates that the country will have to generate at least 700,000 megawatts of additional power to meet the demands of its expanding economy and growing population.

Much of that electricity will come from coal-fired power plants, like the $4 billion so-called ultra mega complex scheduled to be built south of Tunda Wand, a tiny village near the Gulf of Kutch, an inlet of the Arabian Sea on India's west coast. Dozens of other such projects are already or soon will be under way.

Yet Mehta has another solution for India's chronic electricity shortage, one that does not involve power plants on the ground but instead massive sun-gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbits 22,000 miles in the sky.

The satellites would electromagnetically beam gigawatts of solar energy back to ground-based receivers, where it would then be converted to electricity and transferred to power grids. And because in high Earth orbit, satellites are unaffected by the earth's shadow virtually 365 days a year, the floating power plants could provide round-the-clock clean, renewable electricity.

"This will be kind of a leap frog action instead of just crawling," said Mehta, who is the director of India operations for Space Island Group, a California-based company working to develop solar satellites. "It is a win-win situation."

American scientist Peter Glaser introduced the idea of space solar power in 1968.

NASA and the United States Department of Energy studied the concept throughout the 1970s, concluding that although the technology was feasible, the price of putting it all together and sending it to outer space was not.

"The estimated cost of all of the infrastructure to build them in space was about $1 trillion," said John Mankins, a former NASA technologist and president of the Space Power Association. "It was an unimaginable amount of money."

NASA revisited space solar power with a so-called "Fresh Look" study in the mid-90s but the research lost momentum when the space agency decided it did not want to further pursue the technology, Mankins told CNN. By around 2002 the project was indefinitely shelved -- or so it seemed.

"The conditions are ripe for something to happen on space solar power," said Charles Miller, a director of the Space Frontier Foundation, a group promoting public access to space. "The environment is perfect for a new start."

Skyrocketing oil prices, a heightened awareness of climate change and worries about natural resource depletion have recently prompted a renewed interest in beaming extraterrestrial energy back to Earth, Miller explained.

And so has a 2007 report released by the Pentagon's National Security Space Office, encouraging the U.S. government to spearhead the development of space power systems.

"A single kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous Earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today," the report said.

The study also concluded that solar energy from satellites could provide power for global U.S. military operations and deliver energy to disaster areas and developing nations.

"The country that takes the lead on space solar power will be the energy-exporting country for the entire planet for the next few hundred years," Miller said.

Russia, China, the European Union and India, according to the Pentagon report, are interested in the concept. And Japan, which has been pouring millions of dollars into space power studies for decades, is working toward testing a small-scale demonstration in the near future.

But a number of obstacles still remain before solar satellites actually get off the ground, said Jeff Keuter, president of the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington-based research organization. "Like any activity in space, there are enormous engineering challenges," he said.

One major barrier is a lack of cheap and reliable access to space, a necessity for launching hundreds of components to build what will be miles-long platforms. Developing robotic technology to piece the structures together high above Earth will also be a challenge. Then there is the issue of finding someone to foot what will be at least a billion-dollar bill.

"It will take a great deal of effort, a great deal of thought and unfortunately a great deal of money," Keutersaid. "But it is certainly possible."

And Miller, of the Space Frontier Foundation, said he thinks it will be possible in the next 10 years.

"We could see the first operational power satellite in about the 2020 time frame if we act now," he said.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/just.imagine/energy/


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- An influential coalition of Fortune 500 companies and environmental groups that was formed to support climate-change legislation has splintered over the Lieberman-Warner bill that is headed next week to the Senate floor.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership formed last year won't take a position on the bill, although nine of its members - including General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500) and four utility companies - signed a letter to senators backing the legislation.

The letter, also signed by big environmental groups and obtained by Fortune, says: "Prompt action on climate change is essential to protect America's economy, security, quality of life and natural environment."

But other members of the coalition known as U.S. Cap, most visibly Duke Energy (DUK, Fortune 500), a coal-burning utility, are strongly opposed. "It's going to translate into significant electricity price increases," says Jim Rogers, Duke's CEO.

Without widespread corporate support, passage of the bill - already a long shot at best - becomes even more unlikely this year. President Bush remains opposed. House Democrats have been slow to act.

Besides that, a backdrop of rising gasoline prices and the sluggish economy makes it difficult to win votes for a regulatory scheme that will raise the prices of electricity and gasoline. In fact, a key purpose of the bill is to put a price on the emissions of greenhouse gases, as a way to speed the transition to a clean-energy economy and slow down global warming.

With the Senate scheduled to begin debate Monday, lobbying and advertising around the bill are intensifying. (Here's a new TV commercial supporting the bill from Environmental Defense Fund, and a radio ad opposing the bill from the Club for Growth.) But even supporters concede that the debate will set the scene for action in 2009.

"This will put us in a position to have action next year," says David Doniger, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a supporter of the bill. "We expect in the Senate that the 60-vote rule will be applied. That's a hard one to get over."

"It's a teachable moment," agreed Scott Segal, an advocate for coal-burning utilities that oppose Lieberman-Warner.

The Lieberman-Warner bill sets a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that would reduce them by 70% by 2050. Companies would need permits to emit pollutants that cause global warming. The government would allocate some permits to utilities and industrial companies, and auction others to generate revenues. The question of how to distribute permits and what to do with the money divides even supporters of greenhouse gas regulation.

As currently written, Lieberman-Warner might fall short of a 50-vote majority in the Senate, let alone the 60 votes required to close debate, insiders say. Presidential candidates (and Senators) Clinton, McCain and Obama all support climate-change legislation.

Businesses supporting Lieberman-Warner stand to profit from clean-energy or energy-efficiency iniatitives. GE, for instance, sells wind turbines, compact fluorescent lightbulbs, and energy-efficient locomotives and aircraft engines. Just this week, GE and the oil-field services firm Schlumberger announced plans to work together on clean-coal technology.

Utility companies Exelon, FPL Group, NRG Energy and PG&E Corp., which signed a letter supporting the bill, are developing nuclear energy, wind or solar power, or so-called clean-coal plants. They would gain as the costs of burning coal in conventional plans goes up. About 50% of electricity in the United States comes from burning coal.

"In the long run, you want people who burn carbon to pay more," says John Rowe, the CEO of Exelon, the nation's biggest generator of nuclear power. Still, even Rowe worries that the economy could be shocked if the cost of emitting carbon dioxide rises too quickly. "We don't think the economy can stand $30 to $40 carbon in the early years," he says. Political support for climate action could also erode if consumers revolt. In Europe, where permits to emit carbon have been trading since 2005, it now costs nearly $40 to emit a ton of carbon.

The Environmental Defense Fund circulated the letter supporting the bill, which was also signed by U.S. Cap members NRDC and the National Wildlife Federation. The letter was put together in a hurry, a backer said, and not all of the 30 or so companies in U.S. Cap were asked to sign it. The climate action coalition was announced with great fanfare in January of last year.

Rogers, Duke Energy's CEO, says he supports climate action but warns that Lieberman-Warner would have a "draconian effect" on his customers and others in the 25 states that now burn 80% of the coal in the United States. It's unfair, he argues, to place the burden of solving the climate-change problem on coal-burning states, which were urged by regulators to build coal plants in the 1970s and 1980s to achieve energy independence.

"I believe in cap and trade. I believe we ought to put a price on carbon," Rogers says. But senators who want to auction permits, and then use the money for a variety of projects - ranging from deficit reduction to water projects to job training - threaten to turn the climate-change bill into the "ultimate in earmarking."

Billions of dollars are at stake in this argument over how to auction or allocate the pollution permits. The outcome is "almost surely going to be a product of a lot of horse-trading," says Exelon's Rowe, once a final bill is written.

But the fact that businesses and senators are arguing about the details suggests that agreement is growing over the broader idea that Congress ought to regulate greenhouse gases.

"There is absolutely a majority of support for a cap-and-trade bill in the U.S. Senate," says Manik Roy, director of congressional affairs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. But, as Duke's Rogers likes to say, "both God and the devil are in the details."


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

(Fortune Magazine) -- If all goes according to plan, the business of buying and selling rights to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - carbon trading, as it is known - will curb global warming and save the world. That is its only purpose. Along the way, a lot of people will get rich.

Last year traders bought and sold about $60 billion worth of emissions allowances, mostly in Europe and Japan, where governments regulate greenhouse gases. If, as expected, regulation comes to the U.S., this country's carbon-trading market is expected to be worth $1 trillion annually by 2020. That's why investment banks, utilities, industrials, and hedge funds - among them GE (GE, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), J.P. Morgan Chase (JPNV.L), and AES (AES) - are rushing into the business of carbon finance. To succeed they will have to master what is surely the most bizarre, complicated, and controversial new industry of the 21st century. We'll try to break it down, beginning with a couple of things any Fortune reader can understand: a pile of pig manure and a private jet.

Daniel Co and his family raise about 10,000 pigs on a farm called Uni-Rich Agro Industrial in the province of Tarlac in the Philippines. Until recently pig manure was shoveled into concrete ponds, where it decomposed, emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and a putrid smell. Daniel Co knew that he could install biogas technology to seal the ponds, trap the gas, and produce electricity, but he didn't want to spend the $200,000 or so it would cost until he heard that pig farms could collect money from Europe for capturing methane: He would be paid not to pollute.

The Uni-Rich farm is a very small player in a very big global experiment that was set in motion when the Kyoto Protocol was ratified in 2005. Thirty-six industrial countries (but not the U.S.) have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time; they can do so, in part, by financing "clean development" projects in the developing world. This has led to a global scramble for cheap ways to reduce emissions, like Daniel Co's biogas project; the invention of a new tradable commodity, called a Certified Emissions Reduction, or CER; the development of competing markets to buy and sell CERs; and the rise of an army of regulators to oversee the entire business.

Daniel Co got involved when he was approached by EcoSecurities, an Irish company that has developed more carbon-mitigation projects than any other firm. Its experts calculated that trapping his farm's methane would generate 2,929 CERs a year. A CER is created when the equivalent of one ton of carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere. (Because methane creates more global warming than carbon dioxide, trapping one ton of methane generates 21 CERs.) CERs are sometimes called carbon credits.

EcoSecurities offered to pay Uni-Rich $4 per credit, or $12,000 a year, every year, until Kyoto expires in 2012, and to handle all the paperwork at the UN, which registered the project late in 2006. Uni-Rich then installed the methane digesters.

Now, thanks to the magic of carbon finance, Daniel Co and his family treasure their pig waste. They use it to produce electricity, which has reduced their utility bills by about $48,000 a year. They collect their $12,000 a year in carbon revenues. EcoSecurities, in turn, will sell the credits for about $18 each, or $54,000 a year, to a big French bank called Caisse des Dépôts. Caisse des Dépôts can hold onto the CERs as an investment, betting that their value will rise, or sell them to a client, most probably a European power generator or industrial firm that needs credits to meet its regulatory obligations.

Pig farmers are not alone in bringing home the bacon. Methane can be captured from chicken farms in India, landfills in Mexico, and coal mines in Thailand. Industrial gases can be destroyed at refrigerant and fertilizer plants in China. Carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided by building dams in Guatemala and wind farms in Mongolia. These are among the 4,000 clean development projects in the UN pipeline, and together they add up to real money.

What's more, everyone in the business thinks this is just a beginning. Virtually every new clean energy project in China is seeking carbon credits. As carbon finance evolves, it's possible that big emitters in the U.S. and Europe will pay landowners in Brazil and Indonesia to refrain from cutting down trees (nice work if you can get it). There's even talk of generating carbon credits from the use of energy-saving light bulbs in China, or efficient wood-burning stoves in Africa, or pills to influence the digestive systems of cattle so they emit fewer methane-producing burps or farts. Seriously.

And the jet planes? While carbon emissions by airlines aren't yet regulated, the European division of NetJets, a company owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), decided last year to become carbon neutral. It turned to EcoSecurities and now buys carbon credits from pig-farming neighbors of Daniel Co.

Yes, you've got pigs, private jets, and investment bankers, all tied together by the oddest of commodities - the certified absence of a colorless, odorless gas.
The traders

For two centuries rum, molasses, and sugar were bought and sold at London's West India shipping docks. Today the gleaming office complex that towers over the docks, Canary Wharf, is the global nerve center of carbon finance. Barclays, Citibank, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley all have trading desks here, and so here is where you find a pair of investment bankers - both 35, both alumni of Enron, both brainy and self-assured - who have emerged as two of the world's top carbon traders.

Louis Redshaw of Barclays Capital and Imtiaz Ahmad of Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) have risen above the crowd for several reasons. First, they were early movers: Redshaw started the desk at Barclays in 2004, before EU trading began, and Ahmad traded emissions credits for BHP Billiton, the giant mining company, before joining Morgan Stanley in 2005. Second, their banks have relationships with utilities and industrials whose emissions are regulated by the EU. Third, they can navigate a market that is opaque and highly regulated, and offer insight into where prices are going.

Redshaw and Ahmad say that the price of carbon credits, like that of other commodities, is driven by supply and demand. Here are just a few of the things that come into play: Economic growth in the EU and Japan - because more demand for energy means more demand for credits. The rain in Spain - because more water power means less demand for coal. Then there's so-called hot air in Russia and the Ukraine, which refers to what some experts believe to be a huge over allocation of credits to those countries that will flood the market and depress the carbon price. The countervailing view is that the Russians will not dump their hot air into the market because they want to keep carbon prices high to drive demand for natural gas, which emits less carbon than coal (Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, sells lots of natural gas to Europe). "The geopolitics of this market are fascinating," says Ahmad.

Some people describe the first phase of the EU trading scheme, which ran from 2005 to 2007, as a learning experience. Others call it a flop. National governments issued too many allocations to regulated companies; when traders realized that the market was oversupplied, prices crashed. Partly as a result, EU greenhouse gas emissions rose by about 1% a year during the period.

The next phase of the EU market began in January and runs through 2012. Redshaw and Ahmad believe that the market will be short of emissions credits during this phase, causing carbon prices to rise and giving companies an incentive to curb their pollution. The market is now attracting financial players like RNK Capital and Jane Street Capital, hedge funds based in New York, that are betting on short-term and long-term price fluctuations.

Paul Ezekiel, head of global carbon trading for Credit Suisse, is inventing new structured products to serve them. In December, Credit Suisse bundled a group of about 20 projects and then sliced the credits into a series of tranches according to their risk profile. Buyers pay more for a collection of low-risk credits, less for those that are chancier. If this sounds familiar, it should - it's the carbon finance version of those collateralized debt obligations that investment banks used to sell mortgages.

That's one risk of relying on global financial markets to curb climate change. We're counting on the people who brought us the subprime mortgage meltdown to get it right this time around.
The carbon cowboys

But don't despair. There's evidence to suggest that this business of swapping pollution permits may save us from an overheating orb. It comes from, of all places, the Bush administration (father, not son), which in the early 1990s established what's called a cap-and-trade program to control sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that causes acid rain and fouls lakes. The EPA-run program is still going strong. Coal-burning power plants are allocated emissions permits, albeit fewer each year. (That's the cap.) Utilities that cut their emissions by installing new equipment or burning cleaner fuels wind up with permits to sell. Others opt to buy them rather than adopt new practices. (That's the trade.) The goal is to harness market forces to figure out the most efficient ways to cut pollution, and it has worked very well. Which is why you don't hear about acid rain anymore.

So it's no wonder the U.S. insisted that a cap-and-trade approach be built into the Kyoto agreement. "The Europeans are implementing the American plans," says David Doniger, policy director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. The U.S., however, rejected Kyoto because the treaty does not require rapidly developing countries such as China and India to curb their emissions. Poor nations argue that they didn't cause the global warming problem - their emissions are much lower, on a per capita basis, than those of Europe or the U.S. - and they need to grow, so they shouldn't be burdened by caps.

Instead, they are getting paid to clean up their act. That is just as it should be, says Pedro Moura Costa, a 44-year-old forester who has been working on carbon mitigation since the early 1990s. Moura Costa is the co-founder of EcoSecurities, the company that bought credits from Daniel Co and has contracts to buy credits from another 500 clean development projects around the world. These projects, he argues, give poor countries access to technology they could not otherwise afford. Industrial economies save money because the market finds them low-cost ways to reduce emissions. What's more, because carbon dioxide is a global pollutant, it doesn't matter whether emissions are cut in Bonn, Bombay, or Baltimore.

EcoSecurities' first UN-registered project captures methane from a landfill in Brazil, Moura Costa's home country. "That never would have happened in my lifetime," he says. "It's a splendid manifestation of the benefits of carbon trading."

EcoSecurities went public on London's AIM market in 2005, and its stock has gyrated ever since. The company, which has about 300 employees in 30 offices, says its projects will produce a portfolio of about 171 million tons of credits between now and 2012; at today's prices for CERs, they would generate more than $3 billion in revenues. But because of regulatory and other uncertainties, EcoSecurities has a market capitalization of just $170 million. The company recorded revenues of $11.3 million and losses of $70.6 million last year.

The posse of carbon cowboys continues to grow. London-based Climate Change Capital has raised more than $1 billion to invest in carbon reductions; it's got 19 people hunting for pollution in China alone. Natsource, an asset manager based in New York, raised an investment pool of about $800 million from European and Japanese industrial companies that need credits to offset their emissions. Miami-based MGM International, a leader in the Latin American market, is 38%-owned by Morgan Stanley; its first project married a Japanese utility that needed credits with a Nestlé plant in Chile that makes ice cream and dulce de leche, and switched its fuel from coal to natural gas.

There has never been a better time to own a polluting factory, landfill, coal mine, or chicken or pig farm in the developing world. Best of all is to own a plant that emits industrial gases like nitrous oxide, PFCs, or HFCs that are the most potent - and therefore the most valuable - of the regulated greenhouse gases. Consider HFC23, a refrigerant gas that traps heat effectively, whether in a vending machine or the earth's atmosphere. Because emitting one ton of HFC23 is the atmospheric equivalent of emitting 11,700 tons of carbon dioxide, trapping a single ton of HFC23 generates 11,700 CERs. The result is that factories in China that install equipment to destroy HFCs, which is standard in much of the West, generate millions of credits and windfall profits - as much as $6 billion of credits for making about $150 million in pollution-control investments, according to Michael Wara, a lecturer at Stanford Law School who exposed the problem last year. Chinese refrigerant companies, he says, have become carbon-credit factories that only incidentally sell refrigerants. "That's a major distortion of the market," Wara says. Moura Costa disagrees: "A market is supposed to be driven by profit." The Chinese government, he notes, has imposed a 65% tax on the payments for industrial-gas credits, money that is steered into renewable energy projects - which are also eligible for credits.

You'll never guess who else covets carbon revenues: Petro China, the world's biggest oil company, and the oil sheiks of the Persian Gulf. The Chinese oil giant plans to install about $46 million worth of pollution control equipment to destroy nitrous oxide at a petrochemical factory. It will generate the equivalent of about 10 million carbon credits worth roughly $150 million a year at today's prices. Natsource and Goldman Sachs are underwriting that deal. As for the Gulf states, Moura Costa says Dubai is "very interested" in carbon credits. So is Masdar, the clean energy city being built in Abu Dhabi, which is developing solar and wind energy. "They have a whole division dedicated to creating carbon credits," he says.

The problem with this is not so much that the rich are getting richer. The worry is that a flood of cheap credits into the market will reduce or eliminate incentives to invest in clean energy projects - renewables, nuclear power, or coal-gasification technology - in the West. Beyond that, there is the vexing problem known as "additionality," about which carbon geeks can argue for hours. The UN is supposed to analyze every project and judge whether it is "additional," meaning that it would not have happened without the stream of carbon revenues. Might Daniel Co, for example, who was getting complaints from neighbors about the smell of his pig manure, have installed biogas equipment on his own? On a larger scale, China's central government has declared its intention to invest in solar and wind power. Still, it expects Western subsidies in the form of carbon credits. "How do you tell the dam that China was going to build anyway from the dam that would not have been built were it not for this extra cash from carbon offsets?" asks Wara. The UN can't administer truth serum to the Chinese.
The eco-capitalists

It's easy to get bogged down in the details of carbon finance and lose sight of its overarching goal - to get the world's big economies to stop using fossil fuels or, barring that, figure out ways to clean them up. The leading bill in Congress to regulate greenhouse gases, which is sponsored by Sens. John Warner (R-Virginia) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut), calls for a 70% reduction of emissions from 2005 levels by 2050. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain all favor caps in that ballpark. So does the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad coalition of big companies like GE, GM, and DuPont, and advocacy groups like Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council. California and a group of Northeastern states have also passed laws to regulate carbon. If enacted, a federal cap would set off a radical disruption of the economy.

That will create opportunities for investors like MissionPoint Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in South Norwalk, Conn. "Our focus is the transition to a low-carbon economy," says Jesse Fink, who co-founded MissionPoint. "That's all we do." Using their own funds, Fink and his co-founders, Mark Schwartz and Mark Cirilli, were the first outside investors in EcoSecurities, owning 20% of the company before the IPO. Before that they invested in half-a-dozen clean development projects, including a landfill-gas deal in Brazil and an industrial-gas project in China. "There was very little capital comfortable taking those risks, at that time," Cirilli says. All the investments made money.

Once persuaded that they could do well for investors too, they formed MissionPoint in 2006. Schwartz, 53, had been a longtime partner at Goldman Sachs, chairman of Goldman Asia, and CEO of Soros Fund Management. Fink, 51, was the former chief operating officer of Priceline and an environmentalist. (Fink and Schwartz have more in common than investing: Their wives both manage organic farms.) Cirilli, 36, had been managing the Fink family's money, devising an investment strategy that is both profit-driven and green. Says Schwartz: "We want to use our skills in a really purposeful, meaningful way."

MissionPoint Capital raised about $335 million, most from institutional investors. Its investments include Sun Edison, a solar energy services company, and a wind power business called Upwind Solutions. Like other suppliers of low-carbon energy, they are poised to thrive if the U.S. regulates greenhouse-gas emissions. MissionPoint is one of more than 50 private equity and hedge funds specializing in carbon finance and clean energy, according to consulting firm ICF International.

This spring MissionPoint announced its biggest deal to date: The company became partners with GE and AES in a new venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which intends to develop large volumes of emissions credits. These will initially be sold to U.S. companies like Yahoo and News Corp. that want to voluntarily offset their emissions today - firms that have promised to become carbon neutral. Later they can be traded in a compliance market, which is not expected to arrive in the U.S. until, at the earliest, 2012. The company has not announced any deals yet, but the partners say they expect to produce ten million tons of emissions credits by 2010. "We think this is going to be an enormous market," says Kevin Walsh, managing director of GE Energy Financial Services.

Recently Point Carbon, an Oslo-based provider of carbon finance news and analysis, forecast that passage of the Warner-Lieberman bill would create the world's largest carbon emissions market in the U.S., with a market value of $150 billion. As the debate unfolds about just how the U.S. should regulate greenhouse gases, business will have an influential voice. The stakes could not be higher.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

There are so many ways to get electricity, the sun, wind, water, driving/walking, clothes, magnetics, geothermal, there are so many ways to get energy from things that we do everyday.


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## pilotos (Jan 24, 2007)

*Hydrosol project, collaboration between Greece, Germany, Denmark and the UK*


> The Hydrosol project has developed a method of producing hydrogen from water-splitting, using the energy of the sun, which could lead to environmentally friendly production of hydrogen for energy purposes. The Hydrosol project is composed of academics and businesses from Greece, Germany, Denmark and the UK, and was awarded an International Global 100 Eco-tech award in 2005 and a Technical Achievement award from the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy in 2006. The research project financed by the European Commission was today awarded a share of the €1m Descartes prize for Research at a ceremony in Brussels. Launched in 2000, the EU Descartes Prize for Research rewards teams of scientists for outstanding scientific or technological results achieved through trans-national research in any field of science, including the social sciences, humanities and economics.
> 
> The Hydrosol team has developed an innovative solar thermo-chemical reactor for the production of hydrogen from water splitting, resembling the familiar catalytic converter of automobiles. The reactor contains no moving parts and is constructed from special ceramic multi-channelled monoliths that absorb solar radiation. The monolith channels are coated with active water-splitting nanomaterials capable of splitting water vapour passing through the reactor by trapping its oxygen and leaving as product pure hydrogen in the effluent gas stream. In a next step, the oxygen trapping material is solar-aided regenerated (i.e. releases the oxygen absorbed) and a cyclic operation is established on a single, closed reactor/receiver system. The integration of solar energy concentration systems with systems capable to split water will have an immense impact on energy economics worldwide, as it is a promising route to provide affordable, renewable solar hydrogen with virtually zero CO2 emissions.
> 
> ...


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

japanese001 said:


> It is quantity of generation of 4 times of a common propeller.
> The noise is low, too.
> http://www.mecaro.jp/eng/


The quantity of generation of 4 times of common propeller is impressive but what is the cost compared to common propeller?

There is alot of positive, anything negative?

Also, do they have any plans to develop a big wind farm in Japan?


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## hcrosskey (Sep 5, 2006)

UK plans big wind power expansion 

Gordon Brown hails a 'green revolution' 

Thousands of new wind turbines could be built across the UK over the coming decade as part of a £100bn plan to boost renewable energy. 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the UK should be a leader in renewable energy. 

But he warned it would not come from "business as usual" and he called for a national debate on achieving the UK's target of 15% renewable energy by 2020. 

The Tories said that Labour was coming round to "our vision". The Lib Dems said Mr Brown "doesn't do green". 

In a speech earlier, Mr Brown said the government's plans represented the "most dramatic change in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power". 


Increasing our renewable energy sources in these ways, on this scale, will require national purpose and a shared national endeavour 
Prime Minister Gordon Brown 

"The North Sea has now passed its peak of oil and gas supply - but it will now embark on a new transformation into the global centre of the offshore wind industry. 

"And yes, there will have to be more windfarms onshore too." 

'Inevitable' changes 

Under the government's plans an extra 4,000 onshore and 3,000 offshore turbines will be needed, impacting on communities, business and the government. 

Ministers say visible changes to landscapes, towns and cities are "inevitable" but in his speech Mr Brown promised local communities wind turbines would be sited in the "right" locations. 


When the government has failed so lamentably to take a political lead in the last 11 years, why should we believe the coming years will be any different? 
Steve Webb 
Lib Dem environment 

"Increasing our renewable energy sources in these ways, on this scale, will require national purpose and a shared national endeavour. 

"So today I want to launch a serious national debate about how we are to achieve our targets." 

He promised up to 160,000 new jobs through promoting more renewable energy, including making components for wind turbines and electric cabling. 

'New social organisation' 

But he said a low carbon economy - which met EU reduction targets - "will not emerge from 'business as usual'." 

"It will require real leadership from government - being prepared to make hard decisions on planning or on tax for example, rather tacking and changing according to the polls. 

"It will involve new forms of economic activity and social organisation." 

Experts discuss whether wind power is the answer 

Up to half of the government's carbon reduction target will have to come from electricity, meaning a third will have to be generated from renewables by 2020. 

Moves to speed up the connection of renewable energy projects to the national grid are also expected to be announced to help clear a huge backlog of proposed developments. 

The UK could cut its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20% and reduce its dependency on oil by 7% within 12 years, the government says. 

'Fundamental problem' 

Household bills are expected to increase as a result of the measures, but any impact is unlikely to be felt until later in the next decade. 

The average bill for gas and electricity for the average household is currently £1,055, but this is estimated to rise to £1,346 as a result of the implementation of greener technology. 

BBC environment and science correspondent David Shukman said that savings from improved insulation and energy efficiency should bring that figure down. 


Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. 

The construction of wind turbines in Kent 

Greenpeace hailed the new strategy as "visionary", but the environment group warned that ministers had promised much before and had so far failed to deliver. 

The Liberal Democrats poured scorn on Mr Brown's talk of a "green revolution". 

The party's environment spokesman Steve Webb said: "The fundamental problem is that Brown doesn't do 'green'. 


HOW DO WIND TURBINES WORK? 


"He would rather urge oil producers to extract more oil than invest in technologies that will actually save CO2 emissions now. 
"When the government has failed so lamentably to take a political lead in the last 11 years, why should we believe the coming years will be any different?" 

For the Conservatives, shadow business secretary Alan Duncan said: "After a series of painful and reluctant u-turns, it seems like the government is at last coming round to our vision of a greener Britain. 

"Yet it's astonishing that what is billed as a 'strategy' is just another consultation - more delays after a decade of dithering. 

"Gordon Brown must now translate these words into action. If we don't grasp this opportunity now, we'll still be playing catch-up in 20 years." 

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/7474592.stm

Published: 2008/06/26 17:29:24 GMT

© BBC MMVIII


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

*Freakiest Form of Alternative Energy: Tornadoes*

One of the most terrifying, destructive forces in nature may help keep your lights on. Louis Michaud, a retired engineer living in Ontario, Canada thinks he's created a tornado-powered generator. First, he'll create a raging tornado inside a massive cylindrical arena 100 meters high by pumping hot air into it at the base. Using intake tunnels lining the bottom of the arena, he calculates one of his Atmospheric Vortex Engines (AVE) could generate 200 megawatts of energy, or enough to power a small city.

As hot air rises from the base of the AVE it forms a vacuum, sucking in yet more air (which also has to be hot). The rising air also begins to rotate into that familiar and deadly funnel shape. Once up to speed, an AVE building would have a tornado extending miles into the sky, perhaps even altering local weather patterns and causing some extra precipitation.

The main issue is getting a reliable supply of hot air. Michaud says one of the best ways is to build an AVE next to an existing power plant and using the hot exhaust stream to power it. A solar thermal plant could work, too.

But new, innovative ways to renewably generate electricity are always going to have problems getting off the ground (pun, sorry). Especially when one of the world's largest consumers of energy, the United States won't even fund research into a clean-burning coal-fired power plant, or let solar energy companies build on public land.

http://io9.com/5020271/freakiest-form-of-alternative-energy-tornadoes


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## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

*The nuclear power generation is dangerous.*

Residents in the Vaucluse, a popular southern French tourist destination, were banned yesterday from drinking well-water or swimming or fishing in two rivers after a uranium leak from one of France's nuclear power plants. 

Nuclear officials yesterday revised down the amount of untreated liquid uranium that spilled from the Tricastin nuclear power centre in Bollene, saying it was limited to 75kg and ranked grade one on the one-to-seven scale of nuclear accidents. But the spillage of waste material containing uranium in the picturesque area of Provence, 30 miles from Avignon, which is currently hosting an arts festival, embarrassed the government. 

Nicolas Sarkozy has prioritised exporting nuclear expertise worldwide, including to Britain. Nuclear power comprises 87% of France's electricity production, but yesterday anti-nuclear groups renewed their criticisms of the nuclear power policy. 

The leak occurred when a tank was being cleaned between Monday night and Tuesday morning but was not detected until yesterday. Around 30 cubic metres of liquid containing uranium, which was not enriched, leaked out of a tank. Of this, 18 cubic metres poured on to the ground and into the nearby Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers, which flow into the Rhone. The plant has been operational since 1975. 

Vaucluse authorities banned drinking well-water, fishing and eating fish from the rivers as well as swimming and water sports and irrigating crops with potentially contaminated water. One swimmer among 100 bathers asked to immediately vacate a local lake said it was as if there had been sharks in it. 

Officials from the Socatri safety agency, a subsidiary of nuclear giant Areva, said groundwater, wells and rivers had shown no effects yesterday. The nuclear safety authority said radioactive levels detected in rivers and lakes in the region were decreasing. 

The prefecture of Vaucluse said the leaked uranium should only be found in very small quantities and the risk was low but the ban on drinking, fishing and swimming would continue.

Germany's Social Democrat environment minister, Michael Müller, whose party is opposed to nuclear energy, said yesterday that the incident should not be taken lightly. "It's no trifle when active uranium penetrates the soil," he told Agence France Presse. 

The French environmental group, the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity, said that the radioactivity released into the environment was at least 100 times higher than the fixed limit for that site for the entire year. 

Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner, Aslihan Tumer, said: "Given the restrictions on the consumption and use of water in the area, it is clear that the leak poses a risk to the local population and to the environment."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/10/nuclearpower.pollution


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## Moveax (May 18, 2006)

Its so strange seeing countries with goals of 15,20 or even 25% renewable electricity by 2025. In New Zealand we have a goal of 90% renewable by 2020 and already about 65% renewable as well as a 10 year ban on building new fossil fueled base load power stations. I really really hope the opposition doesn't get voted in at the next election or we might see this great idea go down the drain.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Moveax said:


> Its so strange seeing countries with goals of 15,20 or even 25% renewable electricity by 2025. In New Zealand we have a goal of 90% renewable by 2020 and already about 65% renewable as well as a 10 year ban on building new fossil fueled base load power stations. I really really hope the opposition doesn't get voted in at the next election or we might see this great idea go down the drain.


New Zealand has the advantage of mainly using hydroelectric power, however, with the state of our power infrastructure at the moment we have no reason to gloat.

Not only this, but power generation makes up very little our our emissions. New Zealand is still one of the most polluting countries in the world per capita. We have some of the highest rates of car ownership in the world and we love driving them too. Our average vehicle fleet age is poor and our engine sizes are quite large on an international scale. Considering we also have very little heavy industry, our per capita emissions are even more scary in my opinion.


I agree that our power generation policies are excellent, however, there is far more to emissions and pollution than simply power generation so don't knock other countries that actually pollute far less than us per capita.

Link for those interested in the international rankings. They take into account emissions by forestry and land change as well as readings without taking into account these big emitters.


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## god (Apr 8, 2004)

Moveax said:


> Its so strange seeing countries with goals of 15,20 or even 25% renewable electricity by 2025. In New Zealand we have a goal of 90% renewable by 2020 and already about 65% renewable as well as a 10 year ban on building new fossil fueled base load power stations. I really really hope the opposition doesn't get voted in at the next election or we might see this great idea go down the drain.


And what will you get by that? More expensive electricity and nothing more.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

god said:


> And what will you get by that? More expensive electricity and nothing more.


Not necessarily, the problem with renewable energy is the huge upfront cost, but after that there is mainly maintenance, fossil fuel plants require maintenance plus purchasing fuel which is now getting expensive, over time, renewable energy will go down in price once industries like Big Solar companies grow, plus, less market volatility because you don't have to worry about fuel prices.


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

www.pickensplan.com


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

Cleaner energy China needs to upgrade its coal-fired power plants.

An 11-story building in Beijing is one of the few places in China where you'll hear people speak fondly of Japan. Inside are the offices of the Sino-Japan Friendship Center for Environmental Protection, where experts study how Japan became one of the world's greenest countries, with the aim of applying those lessons and methods to China. "Japan, on an international level, is a responsible country," says the center's vice director, Xia Guang. "We recognize that Japan's work promoting environmental protection in China has real seriousness, and we thank the government and people of Japan."

It's hard to fathom China's thanking Japan for anything. The relationship between the two Asian giants has been strained for decades and occasionally erupts into open hostility. Japan perceives China as a rising economic competitor and a rival for political influence in Asia. Many Chinese still believe Japan never properly repented for its brutal invasion of China during the 1930s and '40s. Only three years ago, that resentment exploded into anti-Japan demonstrations in several Chinese cities.

Yet on the issue of the environment, the two nations have strong reasons to heal past wounds. So do lots of others. Pick a pair of developed and developing nations--the U.S. and Russia, Germany and Poland, Britain and India--and there is history, but at the same time beckoning opportunity. At next week's G-8 summit, to be held in Japan, the leaders of the world's most advanced economies hope to make headway on one of the biggest opportunities: an agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that would succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The U.S. never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but last year President Bush embraced the idea of a long-term reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. G-8 representatives are trying to craft an agreement to cut emissions 50% from 1990 levels by 2050. The U.S. may push for even deeper cuts in the future. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has called for a 60% reduction over the same period; the Democratic contender, Barack Obama, would like to see an 80% cut. Bush and the GOP, reflecting U.S. auto-industry concern about changing public opinion on global warming, accepted tighter auto-emission standards this spring after years of resisting them.

As the world's biggest energy user, the U.S. is part of the problem. The opportunity is that reducing greenhouse gas offers environmental as well as economic benefits. Green tech is leapfrog tech: it will allow emerging economies to jump to the leading edge.

That's certainly true of China and Japan, which, despite their animosity, need each other desperately. China's costly and wasteful use of energy and escalating environmental degradation threaten the sustainability of its economic boom. Japan, one of the greenest, most energy-efficient countries in the industrialized world, is brimming with the know-how that could help China alleviate these problems. China could benefit from Japanese technology in everything from advanced nuclear reactors to clean steel mills to hybrid cars. And Japan has every incentive to sell that technology to generate new business for its otherwise sluggish economy. That's why the environment was a prominent topic of discussion when China's President Hu Jintao and Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda met in Tokyo in May.

The more China roars, the more pollution pours out of all its new Buicks, coal-fired power plants and cement factories. Last year China surpassed the U.S. as the world's top producer of greenhouse gases. Major upgrades are needed to its power stations, steel mills and chemical factories. Not only does Japan have the technology and money to help China, India and the rest of emerging Asia reduce emissions, it also has the will to share them. The Japanese government sees environmental assistance as a way to bolster its waning influence in the region, a phenomenon its people lament as "Japan passing."

Japan certainly knows how to transform developing economies from energy wasters to energy savers after surviving its own era of environmental destruction. Much like China today, Japan in the 1950s and '60s placed modernizing industry and elevating incomes above improving the environment and public health. The air in Japanese cities was so filthy that residents walked around in masks. In the 1970s, the nation was also alarmed by the two oil shocks, which exposed its vulnerability to the global oil market. A consensus formed that Japan needed to balance growth with greater conservation, and a nationwide effort was launched to reduce energy use and clean up the environment. The result: for every dollar of GDP generated, Japan uses only one-eighth as much energy as China. "Japan was a front runner in economic development in Asia and suffered some bitter experiences," says Ichiro Kamoshita, the nation's Minister of Environment. "Japan wants the countries that are now trying to develop to become prosperous without going through such bad experiences."

Japan has shared much of its top technology with China. Since the 1990s, Japan has sponsored 18 "model projects" in China, through which the government finances the installation of the latest Japanese emissions-reducing and energy-saving systems--for example, facilities that capture the heat and pressurized-gas by-products of cement and steel manufacturing, and garbage-incineration plants to generate electricity.

Environmental protection isn't just a good-neighbor policy; it's an industry, and a new way for Japan to turn a profit from China's economic boom. Selling eco-friendly technology is potentially big business, and one in which Japanese firms still have a tremendous competitive advantage. Toshiba's Westinghouse unit, for example, (yes, once part of a famous U.S. company) is building four advanced nuclear reactors in China at about $3 billion to $4 billion each. Nippon Steel, Japan's largest steelmaker, introduced a type of eco-friendly coke-making technology called dry-quenching in China that has become widely used throughout the industry. It produces the coke, a form of carbon essential for making steel, by cooling it with nitrogen rather than water, which significantly reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released. The resulting steam is captured and used to produce electricity. Nippon has supplied about 30 of these systems at an estimated $20 million to $40 million each. In 2003, Nippon Steel set up a joint venture with Shougang, a Beijing-based steelmaker, to develop energy-efficient technologies in China.

Serious problems remain, however. Some Japanese firms are wary of selling their best technology to China out of a justified fear that it could be stolen. Beijing's lax protection of intellectual-property rights "is the biggie that is hampering technology transfer into China," says Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center. In other cases, such as solar-power generation, the technology is simply too expensive for China.

Another hurdle is popular distrust in aiding China at all. The Japanese public questions why Japan should expend its resources assisting a nation that is rapidly becoming its chief competitor. The short answer is that if Japan doesn't, someone else will--and will reap the rewards. Yet Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs discontinued new loan projects to China this year, although existing loans will be honored, and other types of aid, like technical assistance, will continue.

The potential benefits of cooperation on the environment, however, are compelling. "The environment is a mutual problem," says Environment Minister Kamoshita. "So, concretely, we benefit by working together." If so, a repaired relationship between Japan and China could make the war against global warming a lot easier to fight.


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

*Printing process cuts down on the cost of silicon, a key material*

Here's one way to bring down the price of solar energy: make churning out solar panels as easy as printing a newspaper.

That's precisely what start-up Nanosolar has done. The company says it's poised to be the first among dozens of manufacturers to make solar competitive in price with conventional electricity.

While solar-system costs have fallen, they're still about 20 cents to 30 cents per kilowatt hour, or more than twice the price of electricity from your local utility.

That's largely because traditional solar-system makers use expensive silicon as a semiconductor to generate electricity from sunlight.

Thin-filmmakers have pushed down costs by using a tiny fraction of the semiconductor. But most still employ a slow and expensive condensation method to attach the semiconductor onto a base. Yet with production volumes rising, solar energy generally is expected to be competitive with grid electricity in 2010 or after.

Nanosolar, a Northern California company, says it can achieve that next year because of its printing process.

It embeds tiny semiconductor particles in ink, then coats a layer of it onto mile-long rolls of aluminum foil, which is later cut into solar panels. The company says it can turn out panels at a rate of 100 feet a minute, 20 times faster than typical thin-filmmakers at a tenth of the cost.

"It's all about higher throughput," to more cost-efficiently leverage fixed labor and equipment costs, Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen says.

In December, Nanosolar opened a factory in San Jose that's capable of pumping out 430 megawatts of solar capacity a year, nearly the size of an average coal-fired power plant. It plans to produce huge solar panels for cities and other utility-scale users this year and target businesses and homes next year.

Consultant Paul Maycock of Photovoltaic Energy Systems says Nanosolar's systems "could be one of the more exciting products" in solar energy's history.

But he says the company has not delivered the production volumes it promised a few years ago. Roscheisen would not discuss its output, noting Nanosolar is private.

*E-Coal:*

*No greenhouse gas in coal substitute*

Imagine an electricity source that kind of looks like coal and packs all of coal's energy punch but is cheaper and produces no greenhouse gas emissions.

That's what Seattle-based NewEarth Renewable Energy says it developed with E-Coal. It's biomass made from plants or other organic waste and heated to boost its energy content.

"We can produce (clean) fuels that are pound-for-pound replacements for coal," NewEarth CEO Ahava Amen says.

In 2004, after making a small fortune in cosmetics, Amen and some former associates reunited to tackle global warming.

They hunted for a substitute for coal, the biggest greenhouse gas producer. Biomass emits carbon dioxide when burned but absorbs the same amount in its lifetime. Yet it yields a third to half of coal's energy, raising fuel costs and limiting the size of current biomass power plants. NewEarth boosts its energy content by placing the biomass in an oxygen-deprived chamber and heating it to 250 degrees.

The resulting solid is condensed, and unwanted gases and moisture are removed. The heating process was invented decades ago, but Amen says NewEarth has made it cost-efficient. It's using as its feedstock a fast-growing plant, Nile reed.

Because the energy value equals coal's, he says, there's no need to spend millions to upgrade plant boilers. Plus, he says, E-Coal costs 5% to 40% less than regular coal. Initially, a utility likely would blend a small amount of E-Coal with its coal. But Amen says a plant's entire fuel stock can be replaced. He says he's negotiating with dozens of utilities.

Larry Joseph, former U.S. Energy Department official and investor in the company, says utilities are very cautious and want clear evidence they're not going to harm their equipment.

*Algenol:*

*Company uses algae to make ethanol more eco-friendly*

Corn-based ethanol is getting slammed for straining the world's food supply and contributing to global warming by encouraging the plowing of grasslands.

Cellulosic ethanol, a more eco-friendly version derived from switch grass or wood chips, is several years away. Maryland-based Algenol says it can solve the problems by making ethanol from algae, starting next year.

The start-up recently agreed to license its technology to BioFields, which plans to build an $850 million saltwater algae farm in Mexico's Sonoran Desert and churn out 100 million gallons of ethanol the first year. It will sell the gasoline substitute to Mexico's state-run oil monopoly.

A handful of companies are working on turning the abundant marine organism into biodiesel. That requires growing algae and killing them to extract their oil, a time-consuming and expensive process.

Algenol adds enzymes to the organisms to enhance their normally limited ability to convert sugar into ethanol, a waste product. To maximize ethanol production, the algae are placed in regions with abundant sunlight and grown in 50-foot long tubes filled with seawater. Ethanol is captured as a gas in the bottle and condensed to a liquid. Since algae aren't destroyed, the same ones keep yielding ethanol, holding down costs.

Algenol CEO Paul Woods says production costs are half those of corn-based ethanol, and the fuel will wholesale for $1 less than gasoline. His goal: Woods wants to build 20 plants in sunny areas such as Texas and Florida to generate 20 billion gallons of ethanol by 2020. "We don't have any limitations, because we're not competing with the food supply," Woods says.

Philip Pienkos, of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, says Algenol's goal is "definitely doable." But he says there will still be a need for fuels with higher energy content than ethanol.

*Compressed air:*

*Facilities put stored air to work when wind dies*

Wind farms are sprouting across the country as wind energy costs become competitive with those of coal-fired power plants. But there's a rub: no wind, no electricity.

Batteries can store electricity generated by wind for use on a day when the wind doesn't blow. But they're expensive.

PSEG Global, a sister company of a New Jersey utility, says it has the answer. It recently teamed with energy storage pioneer Michael Nakhamkin to market compressed-air technology.

Here's how it works: During off-peak hours, wind turbines compress air that's stored in underground caverns or in more expensive above-ground tanks. The air is released at peak periods to run turbines and generate power when gusts flag.

The nation's only compressed-air generator was built in Alabama in 1991. PSEG says it has improved on the technology and hopes to deploy it with power providers.

PSEG says its advanced system can transform the industry. It's about half the price of batteries, partly because it uses off-the-shelf power-industry parts rather than customized compressed-air gear.

The technology is more than 25% cheaper than current systems, says Stephen Byrd, president of PSEG Energy Holdings.

Also, it can generate electricity in five minutes, vs. current systems that take 20 minutes. That's vital if the wind suddenly stops blowing. "It really is likely to further enable the growth of renewable" energy, Byrd says.

While the system is largely designed to supplement intermittent wind or solar power, it can be used to stockpile cheap electricity at night and use it midday when the grid is strained.

Energy consultant Stow Walker says it sounds promising, but finding suitable underground storage can be challenging. 

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2008-09-08-energy-innovations-environment_N.htm


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

Hydrogen bacteria to fill gas tanks?

A Russian-born scientist living in the U.S. state of Tennessee believes he may have found a solution to rising petrol costs – a cheap way to produce hydrogen.

Biology Professor Sergey Markov from Austin Peay State University has discovered a way to produce hydrogen fuel for vehicles by using photosynthetic bacteria.

“This is very attractive for industrial application because photosynthetic bacteria can produce hydrogen using solar light and water and we have plenty of solar light and water around,” he said.

The specific purple bacteria Dr. Markov is referring to, grows in mud, ponds and lakes. The prototype bioreactor he built mixes the bacteria with carbon monoxide and water - and makes hydrogen.

Hydrogen is an attractive alternative fuel for the future. It’s is reusable, efficient and eco-friendly since when it burns it produces ordinary water and no greenhouse gases. However it’s explosive and requires special engines – problems yet to be solved.

Dr. Markov is now building a pilot scale bio-reactor – the prototype he has now is just too small for mass hydrogen production.

He's received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy - but says more finance and support is needed.

http://www.russiatoday.com/scitech/news/27769


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## Mr. Met (Jan 9, 2008)

what do you guys think of geothermal energy?


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## Johannes867 (Oct 29, 2007)

great!


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## davsot (Dec 27, 2008)

^^^^ Geothermal rocks :tongue2:

Maybe some of you have hard of OTEC? (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

Geothermal is a great energy source but it's expensive to drill and energy cost is more expensive to produce then coal or nuclear energy.


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## gramercy (Dec 25, 2008)

heres a video about hydrothermal vents
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2191497/marshall_hydrothermal_recovery_system/


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSMzKg6fwJ8&feature=channel


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

gramercy said:


> heres a video about hydrothermal vents
> http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2191497/marshall_hydrothermal_recovery_system/


Looks great but it seems it would be 20 years till any company attempts to harness this type of energy source.


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## davsot (Dec 27, 2008)

Whiteeclipse said:


> Geothermal is a great energy source but it's expensive to drill and energy cost is more expensive to produce then coal or nuclear energy.


I doubt it would be that expensive if it were as heavily subsidized as the oil industry...


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## davsot (Dec 27, 2008)

Here is OTEC, technology ideal for Puerto Rico and Hawaii!


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

*New project to make 11 islands waste-free*

Eleven North Sea islands have signed up to become living laboratories for a waste-free environment.

The islands from six countries will follow a "cradle-to-cradle" philosophy, which calls for using renewable energy and products made from materials that can be endlessly reused or organically decomposed.

Innovations will include electric vehicles, a desalination system for drinking water that removes salt in a usable form, and purification of household water — including human waste.

"The islands will be a catalyst for innovation for the whole region," German chemist Michael Braungart said at the unveiling of the project late Wednesday.

Technical universities from around northern Europe will try out new solutions for small-scale energy production, transportation and water management, with the aim of making the islands nearly self-sustaining by 2030, project managers said.

The EU is donating euro3.5 million ($4.5 million) for the first four-year phase. Islands from Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Britain will take part. The Cradle to Cradle Island project will be overseen by officials of the northern Dutch province of Friesland.

The islands have a total of nearly 50,000 residents, but most of them swell with visitors during the summer. Some of the islands see the project as a way of attracting more tourists.

The concept originated in the 1970s, but was popularized with a 2002 book by Braungart and American architect William McDonough, "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things."

It calls for revamping industries to use non-harmful materials that can be reused for other products when their original life span reaches an end. An office chair, for example, can be regenerated in 200 ways, said Braungart, of the Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency.

"If you don't change the whole industrial sector within the next 10 to 15 years, the system will destroy itself. It's already starting," Braungart told The Associated Press.

Among other proposed ideas, new buildings will use paint on the internal walls containing micro-organisms that clean the air, and cement on the external walls that removes particulates from the atmosphere, he said.

Different islands will experiment with various elements of sustainability. Several islands of Britain's Shetlands, a group of 100 islands north of Scotland, will tap the energy from waves off its west coast and tidal streams between the islands.

The Dutch islands of Texel and Ameland, largely comprised of dunes and bicycle paths, will get a network of electric motor scooters and recharging posts. A Dutch water research company, Wetsus, will experiment with a system to produce electricity by mixing salt water and fresh water.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090212...ree_islands;_ylt=AnbcLpTo52V0FwcmS.QC4Px0bBAF


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

* Is the ocean Florida's untapped energy source?*
The answer to easing the energy crunch in one of the nation's most populous states could lie underwater. 

Imagine if your utility company could harness the ocean's current to power your house, cool your office, even charge your car.

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University are in the early stages of turning that idea into reality in the powerful Gulf Stream off the state's eastern shore.

"If you can take an engine and put it on the back of a boat or propel a ship through water, why not take a look at the strength of the Gulf Stream and determine if that can actually turn a device and create energy?" asked Sue Skemp, executive director at Florida Atlantic University's Center for Ocean Energy Technology.

The demand for energy in Florida -- the fourth most populous state, with an estimated 19 million residents -- is quickly outpacing the capacity to create it, according to experts. 

"Right now in Florida, we are at the cusp of an energy crisis. Our energy demand keeps growing," said Frederick Driscoll, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology.

Beginning in the Caribbean and ending in the upper-North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream lies on the eastern shore of Florida.

Its powerful currents have been used by many fishermen, sailors and explorers to expedite their passage in the Atlantic north and east to Europe, but scientists say the energy within its currents could propel Florida out of its potential energy crisis, powering 3 million to 7 million Florida homes -- or supplying the state with one-third of its electricity.

"The predictions at this point estimate that the strength of the Gulf Stream could generate anywhere between four to 10 gigawatts of power, the equivalent of four to 10 nuclear power plants," said Skemp.

"The Gulf Stream is the strongest current in the world, so we want to harness our greatest resource. It's renewable, emission free and reliable," said Jeremy Susac, executive director of the Florida Energy and Climate Commission.

At the university's Center for Ocean Energy Technology in Boca Raton, Florida, ocean engineers are working with marine, environmental and material scientists to develop cost-competitive technologies to commercialize the energy within the Gulf Stream.

Though it has been considered for more than a century, harnessing the energy of the Gulf Stream is no easy task, and no sustainable system has been implemented.

"First we have to do a resource assessment and understand how much energy is in the Gulf Stream current on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day, hour-to-hour and yearly basis," said Driscoll.

In April, researchers at the center deployed four acoustic Doppler current profilers in the Atlantic off the east coast of Florida.

Using high frequency, low-power sonar, these large orange ball-shaped objects measure the speed of the ocean currents.

"We are looking at how much energy we can safely extract -- what is the sensitivity of extraction versus the environmental effects?" said Driscoll.

The vision for the pilot program is to develop and test a 20-kilowatt underwater turbine by spring 2010.

Sound familiar?

The concept behind underwater turbines is similar to that of wind turbines on land.

As water flows by the turbine, it turns a rotor blade. As the rotor blade turns, energy is generated.

That energy can be transmitted from a generator inside the turbine to electrical conducting cables, where it's captured, harnessed and distributed for future use.

Researchers also are looking at ways to use the electricity that is generated underwater to generate and store hydrogen in the ocean. The hydrogen could be used to fuel clean-running cars and trucks.

"Because it's such a new endeavor, there's a lot of knowledge gaps not only in terms of the technology side but also on the ecological side of things," said Driscoll.

Completely reliant

Florida is completely reliant on out-of-state fuel sources (coal and natural gas), but generates more than 90 percent of its own electricity, according to the Florida Energy and Climate Commission. It ranks third nationally in total energy consumption.

So how much will this endeavor cost? And what kind of impacts will it have on the local marine environment?

"Those are the questions we don't have answers to," said Skemp.

There are some hurdles that need to be cleared before the technology can get approval and become commercially available.

"This area is so new, we're still finding out what needs to be done," said Skemp.

"It's not like an established industry, like the aerospace industry or the automotive industry or others, where you have models which you could base cost on," added Skemp.

So far, the state of Florida has allocated $13.75 million in grants toward research and development of the pilot project, but the cost to implement the project on a large scale could be much higher.

Before a project like this can go forward, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will have to look at a whole range of factors, from the effects it will have on wild and marine life to recreation activities and shipping, said an environmental specialist with the commission.

If the pilot program is successful, it could take another five to 10 years before the technology can be implemented. 

The Gulf Stream is something that has been taken for granted, said Skemp.

"The Gulf Stream is on 24/7. It's flowing 365 days a year, so it's a continuous source of energy."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/27/ocean.turbines/


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## DanteXavier (Jan 6, 2007)

davsot said:


> I doubt it would be that expensive if it were as heavily subsidized as the oil industry...


The thing about oil and coal is that they really aren't all that expensive. O)il prices, even where they are today, are kept at artificially high prices thanks to low intensity conflicts in many oil producing nations(particularly a handful in Africa) and OPEC supply control. Coal is among the cheapest forms of fuel in existence, which is why it has traditionally been used commonly in many industrialised nations. 

The greatest problems with renewable energy sources today are availability/capacity and cost. Technology will make this issues moot in a few decades when renewable energy sources we talk about now are more advanced and therefore more cost efficient. For now, however, many of these renewable forms of energy are only practical in for a few parts of the world where geography cooperates(example: Geothermal in Iceland, Hydropower in Norway and New Zealand). 

Like I said, technology will likely advance and change that, but for now it is what it is.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Harnessing power from ocean currents sounds very interesting. 

Could be very beneficial in shorelines with stronger currents. I suppose comparative advantage plays a significant role in renewable energy.


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

*Bloom Box*

I found this real amazing. 



> *http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.6*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Haric (May 25, 2010)

Green energy is energy that is produced in a manner that has less of a negative impact to the environment than energy sources like fossil fuels,which are often produced with harmful side effects.:lol:


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

> *http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/earth/10portugal.html?ref=science*
> 
> *Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover*
> 
> ...


*More in Story*
..


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

> *http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fi-crazy-green-20101014,0,7430791.story*
> 
> *Green energy field is fertile ground for wild concepts**Clean-tech ideas that have received government funding include using bacteria to make a gasoline-type fuel. Solar proposals seeking funding include sending collectors into space and beaming the sun power back to Earth*.
> 
> ...








..


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

> http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/28/technology/audi-diesel-air-water/
> 
> *What a gas: Using water and air to run a car*
> 
> ...


..


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## Ittraining (Oct 13, 2015)

Latest NewsRead the latest blog posts from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave ... You are here ... That is why at Senator Reid's National Clean Energy Summit later today, he is ... That means any state or state-affiliated entity that satisfies all other ... state green banks, may participate in Distributed Energy Projects as ...


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## you477 (Dec 29, 2015)

Post any Green Energy projects here.


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