nuclear-news

It’s becoming the ‘new normal’ across the globe – renewable energy

No2 NuclearPower January 2016 “……….Something incredible is happening right now across the globe. Achieving 100% clean energy is becoming “the new normal” in the fight to solve climate change. What’s driving this trend is a flowering of ambition. Cities across the globe are demonstrating what it means to lead with ambition. In Paris at the Climate Summit for Local Leaders, the largest-ever global gathering of local leaders focused on climate change, 1,000 mayors issued a declaration which states: “We—the undersigned mayors, governors, premiers, and other local government leaders—commit collectively to support ambitious long-term climate goals such as a transition to 100% renewable energy in our communities.” ………

January 13, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment

Potential for solar energy to rapidly develop innovative technologies

Solar power has lots of headroom to make it stronger, cheaper and global, Climate Wire, Umair Irfan, E&E reporter, December 17, 2015

First of a two-part series. Read part two here.

On paper, the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth in one hour could fulfill humanity’s energy needs for a year, an equation that’s hard to ignore.

However, harnessing more of this vast potential remains a major challenge, since the sun has to compete with coal, oil and natural gas — fuels that are abundant and cheap and retain substantial political support in many parts of the world, including the United States……

Though policy and market forces drive the spread of all forms of energy, for solar power, improving the technology remains an open frontier. To this end, researchers are looking at where they can improve the devices that turns the sun’s rays into electricity in hopes of staving off diminishing returns in performance……

Besides bringing efficiency up, the other main research thrust is drawing prices down. The biggest driver for solar energy deployment is cost, according to many analysts, and that’s what drove the sector’s blossoming over the past few years.

“The industry has achieved a hundredfold decrease in prices,” Kurtz said. “There is opportunity to bring those prices down even more.”

The race to lighter, thinner and more concentrated

Much of this price drop has come from economies of scale and a drop in prices of semiconductors. “In general, the semiconductor is the most expensive part of the module,” she said.

The majority of the world’s solar panels use polycrystalline silicon as their semiconductor. For a long time, solar panels using this material were costly, until Chinese manufacturers flooded the market around 2010…….

Earlier this year, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a 322-page study titled “The Future of Solar Energy.” Among its key findings, authors reported that silicon photovoltaics are a mature technology but they have intrinsic performance limits, so public research dollars should go toward breakthrough technologies instead of incremental gains…….

“Efficiency is helpful because any gain in efficiency helps reduce all area-related costs (glass, racking, roof/land space, installation labor, etc.) but it is not the only way of addressing costs,” said Justin Baca, senior director of research for the Solar Energy Industries Association, in an email. “The efficiency question is a science question, but most solutions to solar challenges right now are engineering and regulatory solutions.”

In the competition for the next generation of clean energy, Kurtz said it’s not a winner-take-all race. The market may still have room for all of these strategies. “These different photovoltaic products also have different characteristics,” she said. “I think it’s a mistake to focus on the winners and losers.”

Tomorrow: What the solar market wants.

Twitter: @umairfan Email: uirfan@eenews.net     http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060029627

December 23, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment

We can get all our electricity from the sun: dispelling the myths from the nuclear lobby

Goodbye fossil fuels, goodbye nuclear. We can ‘Get it from the Sun’ – all of it!, Ecologist Keith Barnham
30th November 2015 New research shows that wind and solar can meet 80% of Germany’s power demand, with biogas and hydropower providing the balance, writes Keith Barnham. And if Germany can do it, so can other countries, many of them even more easily – with no need for fossil fuels or nuclear power. COP21 should raise its ambitions and commit to a 100% renewable electricity future, everywhere.

December 2, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, renewable | 1 Comment

Only politics stands in the way of a renewable energy powered world – new report

The World Could Run Entirely On Wind, Solar, And Hydro Power By 2050 http://www.fastcoexist.com/3053676/the-world-could-run-entirely-on-wind-solar-and-hydro-power-by-2050

We can fully get rid of fossil fuels quickly, if countries can just find the political will.

In a few decades, the world could be powered by nothing but wind, water, and sunlight. That’s the conclusion of a new study released just before world leaders head to Paris to strike a climate deal. “These are basically plans showing it’s technically and economically feasible to change the energy infrastructure of all of these different countries,” says Mark Z. Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, who worked with University of California colleagues to analyze energy roadmaps for 139 countries [on original] 

The researchers crunched numbers to see how much energy each country would need by 2050—including electricity, transportation, heating and cooling, industry, and agriculture—and then calculated how renewable energy could cover those needs, where it could go, and how much it would cost.

“People who are trying to prevent this change would argue that it’s too expensive, or there’s just not enough power, or they try to say that it’s unreliable, that it will take too much land area or resources,” Jacobson says. “What this shows is that all these claims are mythical.”

Renewable energy is already cheap and will get cheaper. Even now, Jacobson says, wind is the cheapest electricity in the U.S., costing just 3.5 cents a kilowatt-hour (unsubsidized) compared to 6 to 8 cents for natural gas. That’s not including health and climate benefits: The study estimates that shifting infrastructure would save 4 to 7 million lives a year of people who would have died from air pollution—deaths that cost the world around 3% of the global GDP.

Shifting to renewables would create 20 million more jobs than those lost in the fossil fuel industry. Energy prices would stabilize, since renewables don’t use a commodity fuel. Decentralizing power would reduce the risk of both terrorism at power plants and outages from storms. Countries could become energy independent, eliminating a major cause of global conflict. Four billion people who don’t have reliable (or, in some cases, any) access to energy today would have power.

The study lays out a timeline of how the shift could happen. By 2020, countries would stop building new coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants (or biomass, which the researchers don’t consider a good alternative). New home appliances like stoves and heaters would be electric, not gas. By 2025, new cargo ships, trains, and buses would be electrified. Cars and trucks would get there by 2030. Eventually, by 2050, the transition would be complete.

It sounds simpler than we’ve led to believe. And that’s because the catch, of course, is political: Countries will have to decide to make the shift. If they do, though, it could actually work.

November 21, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment