Data Highlights on Solar Energy
Concerns about global warming, rising fossil fuel prices, and oil insecurity have prompted calls for a new energy economy, one that replaces fossil fuels with renewables. The sun is an enormous reservoir of energy; in fact, the sunlight reaching Earth in just one hour is enough to power the global economy for a whole year. [...]
On Rooftops Worldwide, a Solar Water Heating Revolution
By Lester R. Brown
The harnessing of solar energy is expanding on every front as concerns about climate change and energy security escalate, as government incentives for harnessing solar energy expand, and as these costs decline while those of fossil fuels rise. One solar technology that is really beginning to take off is the use of [...]
Coal-Fired Power On the Way Out?
By Lester R. Brown
The past two years have witnessed the emergence of a powerful movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States. Initially led by environmental groups, both national and local, it has since been joined by prominent national political leaders and many state governors. The principal reason for opposing [...]
Smarter Grids, Appliances, and Consumers
By Lester R. Brown
More and more utilities are beginning to realize that building large power plants just to handle peak daily and seasonal demand is a very costly way of managing an electricity system. Existing electricity grids are typically a patchwork of local grids that are simultaneously inefficient, wasteful, and dysfunctional in that they often [...]
El Niño and Wind Power Potential
Later this week I’m going to post a blog that goes over the basics of El Niño. In the meantime here is an interesting link about El Niño and how it affects wind speed.
3TIER has released maps indicating how wind speeds in the US have changed in the last three months due to the influence [...]
Technology, unsustainability, and the 99 cents burger.
Lynn White Jr., in “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” wrote, in 1967, “More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one.” Much of modern Christianity teaches that the earth was created for people to [...]
Stabilizing Climate: Beyond International Agreements
Lester R. Brown
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2009/pb4ch0_pref
Note: the following was written in July 2009, before the Copenhagen climate change conference.
From my pre-Copenhagen vantage point, internationally negotiated climate agreements are fast becoming obsolete for two reasons. First, since no government wants to concede too much compared with other governments, the negotiated goals for cutting carbon emissions will almost certainly [...]
Add salt to solar for light when the sun goes down
One of the toughest nuts to crack for renewable energy has been the inability of producing light from solar when the sun goes down. Solar Reserve, a Santa Monica, California company, may have solved this conundrum.
The key is salt.
Solar Reserve has filed an application with California regulators to build a 150-megawatt solar [...]
Suzlon completes Silver Sage windpower project
Press Release: 5 November 09
Chicago: Suzlon Wind Energy Corp., the North American subsidiary of Suzlon Energy Limited (SEL), announced the early completion of the Silver Sage Windpower Project, a Duke Energy wind farm in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that is comprised of 20 Suzlon S88-2.1 megawatt wind turbines.
The Silver Sage Wind Farm began operating in early October. [...]
Categories: Data Highlights
Tags: earth policy, lester brown, photovoltaic, Renewable Energy, renewable standard, Solar, solar energy, Solar Thermal, solar water heating