Energy

ET Solar Group Corp. of China has announced completion of two ground-mounted PV power plants in Germany, with total installed capacity of over 9.6MW. The plants are ground-mounted and are 4MW and 5.6MW by size and are located in Oberröblingen, 100 kilometers west of Leipzig, and Rätzlingen, 100 kilometers from Hamburg respectively. ET Solutions AG, ET Solar's wholly owned subsidiary, performed full engineering, procurement and construction tasks with all PV modules sourced from ET Solar's China plant. Dennis She, President and Chief Executive Officer of ET Solar, commented, "We are very…

Al Armendariz, the top Environmental Protection Agency official in the oil-rich Southwest region, resigned from his post, effective today. It's the latest twist in the never-ending and increasingly ugly fracking fracas. A two-year old video had surfaced last week (and since pulled) featuring Armendariz comparing his “philosophy of enforcement” to Roman conquerors, who would find “the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.” Certainly, it’s incumbent upon regulators to apply the best standards of science in…

While cold fusion remains a pipe dream, fusion as an energy source for the future continues to be funded and improved.  In nuclear fission, current nuclear energy, the nucleus of an atom is split, but in fusion two lightweight atoms join together.  The biggest benefit is no explosion. The ITER project is seeking to turn nuclear fusion into reality and is making use of the Tokamak reactor for this purpose. Reactors of this type and the plasma used in them to carry out fusion have a number of control problems, and to solve them, electronics engineer Goretti Sevillano has come up…

Take a look at the photos from your last sun-soaked vacation: the morning light is warm and reddish while the midday sun is much hotter and blue. Now compare that happy spectrum with the monochrome lights in your home or office, which are the same all day. No wonder you felt glum after you flew home. “Our biology is dependent on the variability of light through the day and through the seasons,” says Gary Allen, a lighting physicist at GE. “Artificial lighting is the same all day long.” But, in the coming years, physicists expect to unlock the killer app for lighting – a bulb that could…

When people talk about an “all of the above” approach to energy they’re usually referring to the sources we know – gas, hydro, nuclear, solar and wind. But a steady stream of emerging alternatives promises to take advantage of natural processes to produce zero-carbon electricity for untold millions. The latest entrant in this sounds-too-good-to-be-true energy sweepstakes: pressure-retarded osmosis, a kind of reverse water desalination that kicks off energy instead of consuming it. Scientists at Yale University  recently published an analysis of the process in Environmental Science and…

In a development that would be bad for the U.S. Department of Energy but good for solar power worldwide, a new process developed by scientists at the University of Cambridge has the potential to drive down the cost of manufacturing solar-grade silicon and boost use of photovoltaic devices. Despite 50 years of hype, research and development, solar power represents a small fraction of our current capacity to generate power. Blame the high cost of the solar-grade silicon on which popular solar technology depends. Now, scientists from the University of Cambridge are developing and…

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) are easier to manufacture than silicon-based solid-state photovoltaic cells but not as efficient. Some new research may make carbon nanotubes a more efficient alternative for platinum electrodes in dye-sensitized solar cells, making them more viable overall. Dyes absorb photons from sunlight and generate a charge in the form of electrons, which are captured first by a semiconducting titanium oxide layer deposited on a current collector before flowing back to the counter electrode through another current collector. Progress has been made in the manufacture…

Global spending on cleaner energy grew to a record $263 billion in 2011, a 6.5 percent increase over the previous year, according to new research by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The United States reclaimed the top spot among all G-20 nations, thanks to $48 billion primarily in government subsidies, but with $45.5 billion in private investments, China is the real hub of clean energy activity - leading the world in wind energy investment and deployment, as well as wind and solar manufacturing.  Germany spent $30.6 billion, ranking third among G-20 nations. The combination of falling prices (…

Mitigation, rationing, taxes. Environmental policy claims have historically been driven by negative thinking - a demand-side mindset that seeks to limit consumption of fossil fuels through pollution permits, greater expenses for consumers and multi-national climate change treaties.  New research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University suggests that encouraging the purchase of coal, oil and other dirty fossil fuel deposits could be a much better way to fight climate change. The new paper suggests that the single best policy for a multi-national climate coalition…

A device the size of a home washing machine uses bacteria growing in municipal sewage to make electricity - and also clean up the sewage at the same time.  Current wastewater treatment technology involves a number of steps designed to separate the solid and liquid components of sewage and clean the wastewater before it is released into a waterway. This often involves settling tanks, macerators that break down larger objects, membranes to filter particles, biological digestion steps and chemicals that kill harmful microbes. One estimate puts their energy use at 2 percent of overall…