5 November 2015, Climate News Network, ‘Dragon water’ could power the planet. The quest is on to develop new technology that can tap the intense heat deep below the Earth’s surface and supply the whole world with electricity. An ambitious project is being launched to drill deep into the Earth’s crust to harness super-heated “dragon water” that would generate massive quantities of renewable energy. Unlike traditional geo-thermal heat, which exploits hot rocks to produce steam for turbines, this project goes far deeper − to where the pressure and temperature are huge but the potential benefits are 10 times as great. There is an infinite amount of energy beneath the Earth’s crust. The problem is the technology to harness it. The European Union (EU) believes that deep drilling techniques developed by the oil industry can be adapted to extract the energy. It has earmarked €15.6 million for a project in which potentially the world’s most energy-rich geothermal well will be drilled at Larderello in Tuscany, Italy. Formidable challenge The technical challenges are formidable because of the intense heat and pressure that will turn steel brittle and wreck electrical equipment, so the plan is to develop engineering tools that can withstand the conditions. Iceland, which already exploits traditional geo-thermal energy successfully, has tried and failed to harness super-heated rock. But it has not given up, and a second attempt is being planned. The EU believes using oil company expertise in drilling deep wells will be the key to success. Read More here
Tag Archives: Renewables
4 November 2015, Renew Economy, Graph of the Day: Watch US electricity grid evolve before your eyes. We talk a lot about the changing shape of the electricity grid, but what does it look like? We first came across this rather hypnotic GIF via the Union of Concerned Scientists blog, The Equation, who borrowed it from Pat Knight at Synapse Energy Economics. It shows, in animated graph form, how the electricity mix has changed in each state of America over the past 15 years. And as UCS senior energy analyst John Rogers notes, the only constant in the “mesmerising” GIF is change.
The really interesting changes come from about 2009 onwards. But Rogers sees five trends in the graph’s “undulating bars” and outlines what’s behind them:
- Coal waning – The most visible change in recent years, says Rogers, is shown in the shrinkage of the dark section on the left of the GIF. “Coal provided fully half of (the US’s) electricity as recently as 2006. Now it’s down to below 40 percent, as the eroding economics of coal have asserted themselves,” he writes.
- Natural gas growing – For the US, a big part of the decline of coal (and the rise of concerns about natural gas overreliance).
- Renewables surging – Another reason King Coal is falling, says Rogers: “the result of smart policies in a lot of forward-thinking states, and great cost reductions. Synapse’s Knight offers this great statistic: ‘In 2014, 11 states produced 10 percent or more generation from renewables (compared to zero states in 2005)’.”
- Renewables surging (wind) – Wind, the technology to beat in many US locations, now accounts for more than 10 per cent of generation in nine states, says Rogers, and more than 25 percent in two (Iowa and South Dakota).
- Renewables surging (solar) – At the end of the GIF’s journey, solar starts to make its presence felt, says Rogers – and it’s only just beginning to claim its share of the spotlight, with rapidly increasing scale and rapidly dropping costs. See Hawaii. Read More here
28 October 2015, One Step Off the Grid, How Garnaut & Co plan to help communities take power back from the grid. Eleven years ago, Richard Turner was trying to nut out how to fit his kids’ cubby house with a solar panel and battery, to run a light and a television at night, when the sun wasn’t shining. Long story short, it was no easy DIY task. “Back then, there was no industry at all,” says Turner. The only suitable solar hardware he could find was from a local hobby shop. And then he needed to find a battery to match, and wiring, and make it all safe…“I worked it out, because I did physics and maths at school, and I enjoyed it. But I also did commerce and marketing, and I saw an enormous opportunity here to provide people with a fully branded and integrated (solar and storage) system. …There were no barriers to how big you could go.” Back in 2004, Turner took up that opportunity and the result was ZEN Technologies, now a highly successful Australian solar and storage company based in Adelaide. But since then another opportunity has presented itself to Turner, and that is to provide Australian consumers with an option to use 100 per cent renewable energy to power their homes, businesses or entire communities, at a cost cheaper than electricity from the grid. Read More here
19 October 2015,ENOVA, Australia’s First Community-Owned Energy Retailer Awarded Licence. Enova Community Energy has moved one step closer to becoming Australia’s first community-owned energy retailer. On Friday 16 October, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) approved Enova’s application for a retail licence, subject to completion of Enova’s current capital raising by late November. The approval means that when Enova succeeds in raising the necessary capital, it can get down to business in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, with its groundbreaking business plan that could change the way energy is marketed. Read more here