Archive for the 'renewables' Category

The financial markets might be in trouble but renewables are seeing boom times!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on October 17, 2008
in renewables
. 1 Comment

renewable energy

Photo Credit pseudorlaya

A couple of interesting announcements were made in Ireland in the last week.

On the 8th of Oct., Eirgrid, the Irish grid operator launched their Grid25 strategy (pdf warning). In the strategy document they announced they are spending €4 billion reinforcing the Irish distribution grid in the expectation of a 60% rise in electricity usage.

The Irish Environment Minister, John Gormley in his Carbon Budget announced that the Irish government is going to target that 40% of electricity consumed in Ireland would be from renewable sources by 2020. This is an increase over the previously stated, already ambitious target, of 33% from renewables.

Ireland had an average electrical demand of 3.2GW in 2007. A 60% increase means an average consumption of 5GW by 2025 and an average of 4.5GW in 2020. This is the date the government has set as its target of 40% from renewables.

40% of 4.5GW means that Ireland will average 1.8GW from renewables in 2020. Assuming that this will come from wind (there is no other viable renewable energy source in Ireland), this will require 5.4GW of installed wind capacity.

Ireland currently has 1GW of installed wind capacity so to hit the target it needs 4.4GW of wind farms to be built.

That’s 366MW per annum or just over 1MW every day until 2020! A 1MW wind turbine would be a significant structure costing in excess of €1m.

So the Irish government has set as a target the sourcing of 1MW extra from wind energy every day for the next 12 years?

I also spotted today that StrategyEye in their new quarterly report are reporting that investment in the Cleantech sector is up 50% this quarter, compared to the first quarter of 2008.

The financial markets might be in trouble but renewables are definitely seeing boom times!

by-sa

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Large Hadron Collider? Our priorities are way off!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on September 10, 2008
in renewables
. 15 Comments

Leaks
Photo Credit Image Editor

While it is exciting to watch the stories breaking today about the successful startup of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, I have to wonder about the price tag.

The total cost of the LHC is estimated at between €3.2 to €6.4 billion and while that is a wide margin, even if it is closer to the €3.2 billion mark that is still a huge amount of money to spend trying to confirm “the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model of physics”. And that is just the financial cost - the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere by its build and operation must be staggering.

I would far prefer to see all this money and effort being channelled into renewable research. Imagine how much more advanced wind, solar and wave/tidal energies could be now if scientists had €4b of research grants to work with.

I’m a scientist by training and I don’t for a second underestimate the benefits to mankind of being able to explain how elementary particles acquire properties such as mass but I do think that with our polar ice caps melting and small island nations becoming submerged, our priorities on this one are a little mixed up.

by-sa

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

New, radically more efficient wind turbines

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on June 13, 2008
in renewables
. 1 Comment

Traditional wind farm
Photo Credit fieldsbh

The traditional look of windfarms, like the one above, could be changing if an article I read on News.com recently is anything to go by. The piece was about a new type of wind turbine from a company called FloDesign.

The devices have:

  • -shorter sturdier rotors so the turbines can be placed closer together. This also vastly eases the problems associated with transporting normal blades
  • -smaller blades which also means that the turbines can continue operating at higher wind speeds long after existing wind turbines would have to shut down
  • -a fin which points it into the wind, negating the need for a motor to turn it and thus making it easier to maintain and more efficient and
  • -a cowled prop, not unlike jet engines, which generates vortices. These vortices magnify the energy from the wind allowing them to capture 3-4 times more energy than traditional wind turbines.

Small wonder then that they have been winning prizes all over the place and, according to the News.com article, attracting the attention of pre-eminent VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

For more check out this fascinating video put together by the company:

by-sa

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Bring On The Renewables Bubble

Published
by
monkchips
on June 4, 2008
in renewables
. 0 Comments

Power Lines
Photo Credit chefranden

I was talking to Tom last night, and it struck me that a bubble won’t be all bad. There are a couple of reasons why. First off, unlike the last time a green bubble popped when oil prices collapsed in the 1980s, this time around we have China and India to sustain demand, and oil prices.

So why would a bubble be good? For one, we need the inward investment to create an infrastructure capable of serious lobbying, to be able to create favourable Green Tape (the rules, regulations and tax regimes surrounding renewable investments). At the moment energy lobbying is clearly in the hands of the oil and gas companies. This balance needs some redress, and massive capital injections are going to help.

Finally lets not also forget that bubbles can and do change the world. The first internet “bubble” popped, but you’re not about to tell me the transformation is over, and or has even started, yet…Innovation is discontinuous, and that’s why I am not afraid of some bubble tendencies. We just need to make sure some of the gum sticks when it bursts…

 

picture courtesy of chefranden on Flickr under creative commons Attribution 2.0 license.

 

by-sa

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!