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All Eyes On German Renewable Energy Efforts

December 29, 2012 By

This tiny village of 37 gray homes and farm buildings clustered along the main road in a wind-swept corner of rural eastern Germany seems an unlikely place for a revolution.

Yet environmentalists, experts and politicians from El Salvador to Japan to South Africa have flocked here in the past year to learn how Feldheim, a village of just 145 people, is already putting into practice Germany’s vision of a future powered entirely by renewable energy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government passed legislation in June setting the country on course to generate a third of its power through renewable sources – such as wind, solar, geothermal and bioenergy – within a decade, reaching 80 percent by 2050, while creating jobs, increasing energy security and reducing harmful emissions. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Industry, Technologies

Geologists Study Energy Source Underground

August 29, 2011 By

Geologists and energy experts say that using heat from the earth as a power source, and to heat and cool houses and businesses, might prove to be a clean-energy alternative for Ohio and other states.

To determine whether it will work, state geologists are using a $21.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to look for geothermal prospects throughout the country. Exploration efforts include studying underground temperatures, heat flow and thermal conductivity of rocks to determine whether geothermal energy is the right answer.

“Every state has potential,” said Lee Allison of the Arizona Geological Survey, who is principal investigator for the three-year study. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecology, Energy, Environment, Research & Study

Natural Gas Cars Get A Push

August 15, 2011 By

The state’s natural gas industry is pushing ahead with a strategy to promote cars powered by compressed natural gas.

PSNC Energy, the Triangle’s natural gas utility, this week asked regulators to approve a rate PSNC would charge to motorists filling up at PSNC-owned filling stations. The Gastonia company is planning to open three stations in the state this year.

PSNC would compete with electric utilities promoting electric vehicles that recharge from public charging stations and home-charging stations.

The cost of compressed natural gas fuel fluctuates with market conditions but is generally less than half the cost of gasoline. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business, Economy, Energy

BP Disaster One Year Later

August 4, 2011 By

When news of the disastrous BP oil well explosion reached the residents of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana last April, Mayor Tim Kerner did the only thing he could think of to stop the oil from destroying his community. He encouraged everyone in his town to join him on the water, working day and night throughout the disaster to clean-up the spill.

Now, one year after BP managed to cap the runaway well that fouled the Gulf of Mexico with an estimated five million barrels of oil, most of those people are ill.

“I’m afraid my neighbors will come to me and say, I wouldn’t have listened to you and kept my job if I knew it would kill me,” Kerner said. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Environment, Oil Spill

Crude Prices Rise On Investor Concerns About US Dollar

July 17, 2011 By

Crude oil prices were higher Friday as investors looked to commodities as an alternate investment on concerns that debt problems in the US will drive the value of the dollar lower.

August contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude were up $1.04 to $96.73 per barrel in afternoon trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while recent reports showed Brent crude adding 97 cents to $117.23 per barrel.

Gains were even higher earlier, but data on manufacturing in the New York region showed that factory activity there remained in contraction for a second month in a row.

Investors were buying oil on concerns that the US dollar will weaken if US legislators cannot come to an agreement in regard to raising the debt ceiling, which could result from a default for the US, with worries amplified after Standard & Poor’s put the chances at default at 50-50 and said that it could lower the US credit rating. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business, Economy, Energy, Industry

Julia Gillard’s Clean Energy Crusade

July 11, 2011 By

JULIA Gillard has committed Australia to emissions cuts of 80 per cent within 40 years, moving to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy in the most dramatic economic transformation since the lowering of the nation’s tariff barriers in the 1990s.

Declaring an “avalanche of science” dictated that the nation act to combat climate change, the Prime Minister said her carbon tax package announced yesterday would cut 159 million tonnes from Australia’s emissions by 2020 and allow the nation to “seize its clean energy future”.

“My message to Australians today is we are now moving from the days of words to deeds,” Ms Gillard said as she prepared to embark on a crucial two-week sales pitch for the package aimed at rescuing the government’s fortunes. “We are going to get this done. We are going to have a clean energy future.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Biotechnology, Energy, Environment, Solar Power

Global Investments In Green Energy Up Nearly A Third To $211 Billion

July 10, 2011 By

China, developing countries are now biggest investors in large-scale renewables while Germany surges ahead on rooftop solar

Wind farms in China and small-scale solar panels on rooftops in Europe were largely responsible for last year’s 32% rise in green energy investments worldwide according to the latest annual report on renewable energy investment trends issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Last year, investors pumped a record $211 billion into renewables — about one-third more than the $160 billion invested in 2009, and a 540% rise since 2004.

For the first time, developing economies overtook developed ones in terms of “financial new investment”–spending on utility-scale renewable energy projects and provision of equity capital for renewable energy companies. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Investments, Solar Power