2 December 2016, The Guardian, After 60 years, is nuclear fusion finally poised to deliver? “We are standing on the ground that could change the future of energy,” says engineer Laurent Pattison, deep in the reactor pit of the world’s biggest nuclear fusion project. Around him is a vast construction site, all aimed at creating temperatures of 150mC on this spot and finally bringing the power of the sun down to Earth. The €18bn (£14.3bn) Iter project, now rising fast from the ground under the bright blue skies of Provence, France, is the first capable of achieving a critical breakthrough: getting more energy out of the intense fusion reactions than is put in. “It is a bet that is very important for humanity,” says Johannes Schwemmer, the director of Fusion for Energy, the EU partner in the international Iter collaboration. “We need to get this energy once and for all.” The long allure of nuclear fusion is simple: clean, safe, limitless energy for a world that will soon house 10bn energy-hungry citizens. But despite 60 years of research and billions of dollars, the results to date are also simple: it has not delivered. Read More here
Tag Archives: New Technology
21 November 2016, Yale Climate Connections, Fuel Cells: Promising, but struggling to catch on. Fuel cells are efficient, generate clean electricity, and they run around the clock. So why aren’t we using them on a mass scale? Fuel cells have been the next best clean-energy thing for, well, a long time. The byproducts of that reaction are heat and water. The heat can be recycled into the fuel cell itself and/or used for external heating and cooling – generally referred to as combined heat and power. That makes stationary fuel cells – the kind used for electricity, as opposed to ones used in vehicles – extremely efficient and as clean an energy source as solar and wind.A technology with roots in the 1800s and modern-day use in every NASA-manned space flight from Apollo through the end of the space shuttle program, fuel cells just kind of look like a big box. Inside, they electrochemically combine hydrogen and the oxygen from ambient air to create electricity. But because the hydrogen source for most fuel cells comes from natural gas, they are generally not considered renewable, leaving them in an environmental limbo. Read More here
13 June 2016, The Conversation, The hidden energy cost of smart homes. Light globes that change colour with the tap of an app, coffee machines you can talk to, and ovens that know exactly how long to cook your food: our homes are getting smart. These devices, just a few examples of what is known as “the internet of things” (or IOT), have been called the “next great disruptor” and “the second digital revolution”. One of the great hopes of this revolution is that it will help households save energy. Sensors can turn off lights and appliances when not in use, or turn the heating down when people go to bed. Smartphone apps can provide households with more insight into the energy use of their appliances. While estimates vary widely, industry proponents suggest that emerging connected home technologies could help households reduce their energy bills by 10-25%. Such claims are largely speculative given the absence of robust “before and after” research. Social research from Australia and the UK is revealing ways in which IOT might also increase energy demand. We have identified three “hidden” energy impacts which are rarely considered in IOT research or energy-saving predictions. New updates and hardware Read More here
24 February 2016, Energy Post, What comes after solar PV? BIPV. The time of ugly solar panels is over. Make way for building-integrated photovoltaics. Fereidoon Sioshansi, president of Menlo Energy Economics and publisher of the newsletter EEnergy Informer, notes that BIPV not only look stunningly better, they also reduce costs. They can even lead to energy-producing buildings. Regardless of whether and how they are subsidized, solar photovoltaics (PVs) panels are gaining in popularity around the world, found on increasing number of roofs in sunny and even not so sunny countries. They continue to be installed in significant numbers even in places where they get little credit for any net generation into the network, as in Queensland, Australia. In such cases, customers adjust the size of the installations mostly for self-consumption. Traditionally, a customer with an existing roof would call a contractor to install them, paying out of pocket, or increasingly leasing them with little or no upfront investment. The result is generally an ugly, incongruous after thought, and an expensive one at that. Many roofs have protruding chimneys and other obstacles resulting in panels distributed in odd and unpleasant patterns. Other roofs are in wrong angles to the sun or shaded by neighbours‘ houses or trees, making them unsuitable for solar PVs. Today, an increasing number of architects and engineers are designing individual houses and entire subdivisions with solar panels in mind. The same goes for many commercial buildings, especially warehouses, parking garages, office buildings, shopping malls, airports, train stations – anything with large flat roofs. Including solar panels at the time the roof is being built reduces installation costs substantially, by some estimates as much as 20%. Read More here