The vast expanse of the Sahara desert has since long been seen as an available source of solar energy that can be tapped. However, there isn’t much progress to show on the issue. Now the idea seems closer to reality with a German-led consortium of 12 companies that intends to harness the desert sun to power Europe.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) includes heavyweights like Siemens, E.ON, ABB, and Deutsche Bank. These, and the other organizations were brought together by an initiative of Munich Re. The plan is to supply 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050. Energy tapped from the sun in the desert will be transported to Europe through power lines laid across the Sahara and the Mediterranean sea.

It is a huge project, with nearly 400 billion dollars investment, and the DII hopes to put the plan into action quickly, with the possibility of beginning supply by 2015. These solar plants will use Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) to generate energy. CSP has been in use for a long time, but it is the scope of this project that makes it newsworthy. DII says the North African governments have displayed a positive response for the initiative.

Source: Guardian

The US President Barack Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to make important announcements that will provide stimulus for a greener future. An Obama administration official has said that the President will make announcement regarding Smart Grids during his visit to Florida. Obama’s announcement of a Smart Grid will be the government’s largest investment of economic stimulus funds in clean energy.

The Smart Grid will bolster the production of energy from clean domestic sources to consumers in 49 states. At the same time, this will also help create a more powerful, stable and robust grid with clean energy playing an important role.

In a separate visit to a closed General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware, the US Vice Presiden Joe Biden will announce that the plant will be reopened for production of plug-in hybrid electric cars. However, it isn’t GM that is opening the plant, it is California based Fisker Automotive that will take control of the plant. Fisker is well known for its first plug-in electric vehicle, the Fisker Karma.

Source: Reuters

Mariah Power, a small wind turbine manufacturing company, has created a wind speed measuring app for the iPhone. The basic idea of course, is to let interested users measure wind speed, and see if it would suit their need for a small wind turbine.

The app uses the phones microphone to capture the sound of the wind, and then uses an algorithm to cancel out ambient noise and find out the wind decibel speed. While the speed calculated may not be entirely accurate, potential customers can get a fair idea of the usability of a wind turbine.

The Reno, Nev. based company builds slim 30-foot-tall vertical-axis turbines that can turn wind into electricity. These turbines cost $4000 plus another $1000 for installation and offer 1.2kW of power, or 2000 kWh of power annually and a claimed cost of ownership of 12.4 cents per kilowatt-hour over 20 years. The company says its turbine moves slower, thus generating less noise.

In any case, the app is a great way for people to check feasibility of installing a wind turbine, giving those interested, an efficient and easy to use tool.

Source: earth2tech

If you remember in Part 1, I set the table and server up the hors d’oeuvres, appetizer plates, and salads of harnessing Herricanes (If you don’t remember, STOP!  Go back and read Part 1 before continuing).  Now I will serve up heaps of real meat and continue the anger management presentation.

Waves, which seemed as big as skyscrapers and actually several times the height of the boats crashing down on the vessels, threatened to squash them all like cockroaches underneath Mother Nature’s shoe. Such power is just begging to be harnessed.

In fact, many companies including Lockheed Martin Corp. are developing utility-scale power-generation plants.  I am not talking about a couple of buoys in the ocean generating a few watts of electricity to power a light bulb of fan, but plants capable of generating power for cities.

A company named Pelamis has prototypes of what I call “Ocean Snakes” that are jointed mechanical snakes that bend in seas and generate electric power by pushing hydraulic fluid past turbines when their joints flex.  Imagine developing larger snakes that can function in 50-foot seas!

I can already hear your next question, gentle readers.  “Fred, hurricanes do not happen often enough to rely on them for power, so how do you address this?”

I have a solution for this also.  I am stealing someone’s science fiction idea:  heat generating sakes (if you remember the book, please let me know).  These mechanical monsters would be much larger than Pelamis’ prototypes and would generate huge amounts of heat when the flexed.

You might ask, so I’ll ask it now “What do heat generating snakes have to do with hurricanes?”  The Global Warming activists used to say rising temperatures feed the hurricanes and rising sea temperatures do this.  Localized changes in the sea temperature happen all the time globally, rising and falling with seasonal and longer periodic rates.  El Nino and La Nina are examples of this climatic change that have been around longer than man’s SUVs.

But, let’s just pretend that more hurricanes will result from Global warming; more hurricanes mean more electricity to meet our needs!          

Now, we just exploit what we know about making lots of hurricanes and activate these heat-generating snakes during hurricane season and use them to localize the hurricanes to places far away from land where possible and also use them to increase their fierceness.  In other words, use these snakes to make the hurricanes MAD!

Now, here is the ingenious part.  Combine all three (windmills, power snakes and heat snakes) and have them reinforce each other and create a synergy that will produce huge amounts of power.

Who knows?  Maybe this article will provide the catalyst for a group of companies to turn some cowboys loose and lasso this energy.

Atomic Powered Cellphone

They have actually used this to power a touch screen hand-held video player/cell phone.

Now before you start protesting the use of atomic power (that will be a debate in future multi-part series), I am talking about using the protons (I know it still sounds like an atomic reactor) in the methanol molecule and removing the hydrogen to create power.

What you are left with is water and a little carbon dioxide.

The device is called a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) and uses a Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) to create power.

This is certainly better than grabbing power from a thermopile inside your wood-burning stove.  Yes, that works too, but is not as portable or environmentally friendly.  Even worse would be taking power from the public grid.

In its present form it is a bit bulky, but much less than carrying around one of those original 2-pound Motorola Flip Phones.  Plus, the thought of giving your cell phone a drink would be hard to explain.

“But officer, I was recharging my cell phone with this bottle of alcohol!”  Before long, there would be a law prohibiting your cell phone from drinking while driving.

Here is an idea: why not use this drinking battery at home where no one cares whether you take a nip or two (for the cell phone of course since methanol alcohol is poisonous to us mortals).  Just set it on your table and charge your cell phone instead.

This idea is also good for your eyes: no more of those ugly wall warts hanging from your wall outlets.

What is that?  You say carbon dioxide is not green?  Try this experiment at home:

Take a bottle of soda.  Remember those fizzy bubbles are carbon dioxide.

Connect a hose to the top of the bottle.

Gently shake or vibrate the bottle so the gas is expended from the soda.

Put a big plastic bag over your herb garden and allow the CO2 to build up inside.

You will see growth like no other fertilizer can give you and you will see a lot of green.  Be sure to let in some oxygen once in a while as plants need oxygen as well as carbon dioxide to grow.

After that try pumping CO2 into the soil and see what happens.

In fact, Chicago 2016 organizers even call their concept of the Olympics the “Blue-Green Games.”

Blue for clean air and water. And, green for parks and nature. Together, the blue and green combine to create the ideal conditions necessary for optimal athletic performance.

What’s more, Chicago 2016 organizers have developed a comprehensive plan that will deliver the most eco-friendly games in modern history.

Here are just a few of the green highlights from the Chicago 2016 bid:

• All electricity for Games operations will come from renewable energy sources.

• All generators supplied for the Games will run on biofuel.

• For the first time ever, athlete and spectator travel emissions will be offset in partnership with the Chicago Climate Exchange.

• Venues will reduce water consumption by 20% from baseline levels through design, technology and equipment, such as low-flow fixtures and smart irrigation.

• Waste will be minimized by reusing or recycling 85% of the materials used for the Games.

• Existing structures and parklands will be utilized whenever possible to minimize the carbon emissions associated with construction. Design and construction of all new and temporary venues will be conducted in accordance with best practices for sustainability.

“Blue and green reflect the natural landscape that all Chicagoans enjoy—the blue of Lake Michigan, and the green of our parks,” says Bob Accarino, the Director of Environment for Chicago 2016. “The name highlights these features and our Games plan further enforces it, with the majority of venues located along the lakeshore in our historic parks. From an environmental perspective, the concept of a Blue-Green Games emphasizes the importance of promoting clean water in addition to clean air.”

You can read the complete 31-page Blue-Green Games Commitment document here.

Photo of Chicago’s Grant Park from David Paul Ohmer.

National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC ) is one of the  largest organizations in the field of hydro power development in India.

NHPC has been conferred with ‘TERI Corporate Environmental Excellence Award 2009 instituted by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in recognition for its contribution towards the environment.

NHPC is reported to have raised Rs58 billion ($1.25 billion) from its forthcoming listing on Indian stock exchanges, The  company will use the money to partly finance the construction of new power plants in India.

The status of your NHPC IPO allotment can be checked at http://www.karvy.com/ipoStatus/

Market Experts expect that NHPC IPO is to be priced at the top end of its indicated range of Rs 30-36 per share.

If the larger and medium economies of the world have to be motivated to cut down immensely on the carbon footprints, it might be the smaller nations which have to set an example stating that it can be done in a manner easier than anticipated.

Tuvalu, the fourth smallest nation in the world with a population of 12,000 people intends to become the first zer0-carbon country in the world – an example which could surely influence others.

Tuvalu is wary of its future which is in jeopardy because of the global warming that has cause water levels to rise. Given the low-lying nature of the beautiful Island Nation (lies between Australia and Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific) and the rising waters, it might be off the World map in a century from now, if the measures to combat global warming are not put into place.

The highest point of the country is 15-feet above sea-level so you can image the plight of the people in the next few decades. As a beginning, a 40 kilowatt solar energy system has been installed on the roof of the country’s largest football stadium which succeeds in supplying 5% of the energy required by the Capital, Funafuti.  This move has reduced the consumption of generator fuel shipped from New Zealand by about 17,000 litres.

The next expansion plan in place will render 46Kw energy for a school and the estimated cost of the project is $20 million.  Tuvalu is surely on its way to be a country solely powered by wind and sun, but the rest of the world still lags behind. Cheerfully, this development will ensure that the astoundingly beautiful and bounteous island nation will stay on the world map.

[via Telegraph]

Images courtesy of mrlins & mr_j (1+2+3)

The Abu Dhabi-based Aabar, the third largest oil exporter in the world, has bought a 4% share of Tesla Motors from Daimler AG.  In a press release, Aabar said that that the Tesla stake was one of several more the company is planning to spend in a big way in the field of non-oil energy.

It may be noted that Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates, has strived to establish itself as a leader in renewable and clean technologies, which includes its $22-billion project to build the solar-powered, carbon-neutral Masdar City for 50,000 residents in the desert.

In June 2009, the United Arab Emirates was named headquarters of the 135-nation International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

While Tesla Motors is one of the biggest companies in the growing electric-car sector, Aabar is considered the leading investor for the emirate of Abu Dhabi for diversification in the energy sector.

Image courtesy of Ioan Barbulescu

It is in these circumstances that people look for those AA and AAA 1.5volts options that once used can be chucked into the bin. A rechargeable solution that needs no electric socket would also be a great option. But until now, it has been a far-fetched dream.

It is the Mint Energy rechargeable battery prototype that has given us some hope. Instead of connecting it to a socket, users just need to shake it vigorously for a while and it gets recharged.

The mechanism that goes into recharging the metal hydrate battery is the use of a magnet that moves between a coiled bobbin when shaken. The movement of the magnet between the coil produces electricity which charges the battery.

This solution can be energy saving and environmentally friendly at the same time.

[via EcoFriend]