Green Options

Earlier this week, the China Huaneng Group started building China’s largest ever solar power plant, a massive 166 Megawatt (MW) facility in the southern province of Yunnan.

The project, costing a total of 9.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion), is scheduled to commence operations in 2010. According to the China Electricity Council, the company intends to expand its capacity for solar, wind and other clean energy projects to an impressive 10,000 MW by the end of the same year.

The UK government announced today that Britain has overtaken Denmark to become the world’s biggest producer of offshore wind power.

The rise to the top of the global league table follows the construction of a new wind farm off the coast of Skegness, Lincolnshire, which increases the UK’s total electricity generation from offshore wind sources to 590 megawatts (MW), enough to power 300,000 homes.

Again highlighting the lack of political willpower at the top of the US Federal tree, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has announced that his state is hoping to become a world leader in wind-generated energy.

Governor of New Jersey since January 17, 2006, Corzine wants the Garden State to triple the total amount of wind generated power that it plans to use by 2020. This would bring its total up to 3,000 megawatts, measuring out to be 13% of New Jersey’s total energy, and enough energy to power anywhere between 800,000 and just under a million homes.

This comes just days after the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced that it had chosen Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE) as the preferred developer for a 350-megawatt wind farm off the NJ coast.

With so much of our planet covered in the stuff, it is a surprise that water does not receive the attention that renewable technologies like wind and solar do. Nevertheless, with renewable energy being the catchphrase of many countries at the moment, advancements are being made towards a future where our oceans will provide us with electricity.

After two years, an oversized yellow buoy floating five miles off the southern tip of Long Beach Island has definitely proved its technology feasible. With the rise and fall of each wave, pistons slide up and down inside a cylinder within the buoy, generating electricity.

The South African government has announced plans to increase spending into the research of hydrogen and fuel cell technology over the next three years. They believe that, with the country’s metal rich resources, an increase in research could create more manufacturing and more income for the country.

The government announced to spend ZAR 400 million, which equates to roughly $49 million USD.

The United Kingdom is definitely ahead of the game when it comes to wind power, despite America’s claims to the contrary. The entire UK wind sector equated to 2.389 gigawatts in 2007 up from 1.962 gigawatts in 2006, and is expected to continue to grow.

However these statistics only take into account the large scale wind farms that are sprouting across the country. What they fail to take into account, are the individual wind turbines that are being installed on homes, businesses and farms.

According to a new report by the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), 7,844 private wind systems were set to be installed this year, 4385 more than in 2007.

Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced the introduction of “a national energy plan” on Saturday, including a return to nuclear power.

With my complete lack of faith in the US federal government, it warms my heart aplenty to see so much initiative by local governments and businesses in going green. On Friday of last week, the 19^th, two announcements were made that saw plans revealed for two new renewable energy sources.

The first announcement saw Oglethorpe Power Corporation (OPC) announce plans to buld as many as three 100-megawatt biomass electric generating facilities in the state of Georgia. The second, was an announcement by SBD International promising the future construction of a small solar farm in Florida, capable of generating up to 20 megawatts.

And these sorts of announcements come across our desks almost every day. But there are only so many articles we can write that would be as long as this introduction.

One of the biggest roadblocks to a future of renewable energy production is the ability to store such generated electricity. The current networks of power supply and storage simply have no chance of being able to provide necessary storage capacities for renewable sources such as solar and wind, given the propensity for spikes in generated electricity.

However engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have made a breakthrough in the development of a new carbon-based material that they believe might allow for at least a doubling of current electricity storage capabilities. The new structure is called grapheme, and measures in at one atom thick.

In an attempt to continue using the large coal deposits bespeckling our planet, while still keeping greenhouse gas emission down, one of Europe’s biggest power companies has turned to Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS for short.

Vattenfall, a Swedish owned firm, will be using CCS at the site of the new “Schwarze Pumpe”, Black Pump, located in the Lausitz region in the State of Brandenburg. The pilot unit, which has a thermal capacity of 30 megawatts, has cost approximately Euro 70 million over the past 15 months.

The US generation of wind powered electricity has finally pushed past the 20,000-megawatt mark, reaching a milestone that took only 2 years. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) made the announcement on Wednesday, pointing to the 20,152 MW of electricity generating capacity currently up and running in the US.

“However, the looming expiration of the federal renewable energy production tax credit (PTC) less than four months from now threatens this spectacular progress,” said Randall Swisher, AWEA’s executive director.

Subsequently, wind energy is well on track to providing the 20% of US electricity by 2030, as envisioned by the US Department of Energy (DOE).