The Environmental News Network shines a light on recent findings by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Asphalt, and all it’s heat-catching abilities, can be turned into a renewable energy source.
From the article:
“Through asphalt, the researchers are developing a solar collector that could turn roads and parking lots into ubiquitous—and inexpensive—sources of electricity and hot water.”
Photo source: Adam Williams, all rights reserved.
Last week, I wrote about a farm in China that will power itself entirely with chicken manure. Now poop power has made it to mainstream America with an announcement that the California State Fair will play host to the first known amusement ride powered by cow manure.
The Barnyard Animal Train will use excrement from California dairy cows to create renewable biogas. Kids taking a ride on the train will also have the opportunity to learn about renewable energy— and of course, will get to experience it firsthand.
At first glance, this may not seem like a big deal. But state fairs around the United States are joining the alternative energy wagon, albeit not always by using cow manure.
Jeju island in South Korea is said to have three things in abundance: wind, women, and rocks. But neither the rocks nor even the women are creating as much stir these days as the wind.As in other regions where wind farms are springing up around the globe, some locals on Jeju island find themselves divided into supporters and opponents of wind farm development.
Before visiting Jeju’s two existing 10 MW and 15 MW wind farms, I spoke with Kim Dong-joo, an activist at the center of the wind energy conflict, in his office at the Korea Federation for Environmental Movement of Jeju.
“It’s a really good thing to spread renewable energy. Jeju island has a very strong wind to use for power generation, so many companies have made plans to invest to make a wind farm to earn money,” says Mr. Kim. “But,” he says, “these companies have only one goal; that is to earn money. So they do not think of anything like citizen participation and democratic decision-making. They did not think of anything, just earning money. So I think the cause of this social conflict is that the companies don’t think about the people involved on Jeju.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the capacity the US has for generating wind power is expected to increase 45% in 2008. America’s currently installed capacity stands at 19,549MW, up a total of 2,726MW from the end of 2007. Thanks to this number, AWEA is announcing that America is now the US world leader in wind electricity generation.
However this is an announcement based on stats that AWEA is hoping the rest of the world won’t look at too hard.
Surrounded by water, with strong winds blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean, Great Britain is a blustery place. There’s nothing quite like an invigorating walk along the cliff-tops to blow away the cobwebs.
I was reminded of this on a recent Sunday afternoon visit to the Portland Bill lighthouse on the South coast of England (pictured), since despite the brilliant sunshine one needed a concerted effort to walk headlong into the howling wind. Talking above the constant noise of wind and sea was almost impossible, and local people tell me this is by no means unusual here.
Yet despite being a desolate place with enough wind energy blowing through every day to provide a significant portion of local energy needs, you won’t find a single wind turbine at Portland today. Nor anywhere else along the windy Dorset coast for that matter.
It’s early in the pre-dawn dark hours of the morning. A group of Northern California pseudohippies just finished a game of Zonk — or rather, the game just stopped because somebody quoted a line from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and everybody forgot what they were doing.
Yet, by a stroke of luck, the conversation about Harold and Kumar reminds the group of their real reason for staying up so late. They pack into a truck and head down to the local fast food joint looking to load up — but it’s not the food they’re loading up on, it’s the nasty, half-rotted, leftover fryer grease.
Dear Justin,
You make some very effective arguments! You are right to use my own posts in illustrating your thoughts. Granted, those posts, written toward the end of the Sust Enable project, demonstrate that my original concept of Sust Enable did not pan out because its original assumptions were flawed. Indeed, for other people to have success with living sustainably, they must be gentle, have fun, and go slow… three things that I failed to consider for myself when undertaking the “radical” experiment.
I think the strongest point you make with your last post is the importance of living in a way that honors your own health and wellbeing, not just the Earth’s. This is something that I’ve learned to consider the hard way, through the tribulations of the Sust Enable project (during which I ran up against my own physical limits of hunger, sleeplessness, and stress). I completely agree with that: respect for yourself, as a living being with needs, comes first in making a healthy approach toward respecting the Earth and other living systems.
However, I recognize that our level of comfort is learned–it is borrowed from the culture that surrounds us. It is by no means an “absolute” measure of comfort or happiness. Even our very venues for acquiring what you and I need to survive are hugely affected by the culture we were born into. People in Third World and sometimes Second World countries live sustainably every day–and in my experience when visiting Mexico, are considerably happier than the average American. Is this because they have struck a good balance between respecting the natural world and their own personal patterns, in ways that over-worked, over-stressed and over-consumptive Americans can only dream of? It’s a theory.
A few weeks ago, I visited Intersolar North America, an exhibition for photovoltaics, solar thermal technology, and solar thermal architecture. The exhibition, which was previously only held in Germany, had an understandably large German presence (including a large beer garden). During my time there, I stopped by the German Energy Agency booth, and was quite impressed with what I found. So, without further ado, here are 4 reasons why we should be paying a whole lot of attention to the Germany renewable energy market.
1. Germany has the world’s largest wind power sector— but had barely any notable wind power at all 16 years ago.
With over 20,600 MW of installed capacity, Germany is the world’s wind power leader. And they accomplished this feat pretty quickly, having had less than 100 MW in 1992. The second place wind leader, Spain, only has approximately 12,000 MW of capacity.
In what is purported to be the largest investment in clean, renewable energy in US history, Texas has been given preliminary approval for a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines to carry wind power from West Texas to urban areas such as Dallas.
Texas is already the national leader in wind power, but the new transmission lines will make sure wind energy is used to its fullest potential, since most of Texas’ wind power is produced in windy West Texas. The new plan won’t directly create new turbines, but it will add enough transmission lines to move 18,000 megawatts. That’s enough energy to power 4 million homes.
The superhighway won’t just help facilitate the spread of wind power; supporters think it will also create jobs, lower energy costs, and reduce pollution.
Over the past few months we’ve noticed quite a bit of interest in geothermal heating and cooling amongst our site visitors, and in particular in geothermal heat pumps. We’ve also had many questions from people about exactly what they are and how/if they should consider them as an eco-friendly heating/cooling option. If this describes you, then read on - these systems ARE incredibly promising technologies to heat and cool your home, but they’re also more complicated than your typical AC or furnace unit. We’ll try to help clear the air!
We get into quite a bit of detail below, but before you get into that here’s a very quick summary of geothermal heat pumps:
Converting the U.S.’s ample and renewable volumes of cow manure into biogas could provide as much as 3 percent of the nation’s electricity needs, say two researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
In a new study published in the online journal Environmental Research Letters, Amanda Cuéllar and Michael Webber conclude that harnessing the full potential of cow poop power could not only help generate as much — or more — electricity as wind and solar power do today, but could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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