Revolutionary solar rotating system tested in South Africa’s Kalahari desert.
Could this be the world’s most efficient solar electricity system?, Guardian, Jeffrey Barbee, 14 May 15
Using military technology and a zero-emission engine invented by a 19th-century Scot, Swedish firm seeks to revolutionise solar energy production. A new solar electricity generation system that developers claim is the most efficient in the world, is being tested in South Africa’s Kalahari desert.
The Swedish company behind the project – which combines military technology with an idea developed by a 19th-century Scottish engineer and clergyman – says it is on the verge of building its first commercial installation.
In the remote Northern Cape province, huge mirrors reflect the sun across the brown Kalahari sand. This is the test site for Swedish company Ripasso, which is using the intense South African sun and local manufacturing know-how to develop their cutting-edge kit.
“Our whole team in South Africa has been hired locally, and our new systems have all been built with local South African labour. It works great,” says CEO Gunnar Larsson.
This is the only working small-scale concentrated solar energy system of its kind in the world. 34% of the sun’s energy hitting the mirrors is converted directly to grid-available electric power, compared to roughly half that for standard solar panels. Traditional photovoltaic panels are able to turn about 23% of the solar energy that strikes them into electricity, but this is cut to around 15% before it is usable by the grid.
Jean-Pierre Fourie is Ripasso’s South African site manager. His crew has been testing the system in the Kalahari under harsh desert conditions for four years. “What we hope is to become one of the biggest competitors for renewable energy in the world.”
The massive 100 square metre dishes slowly rotate, following the sun. Light clicks and taps fill the still desert air as they constantly adjust to capture the maximum solar energy.
Independent tests by IT Power in the UK confirm that a single Ripasso dish can generate 75 to 85 megawatt hours of electricity a year – enough to power 24 typical UK homes. To make the same amount of electricity by burning coal would mean releasing roughly 81 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere………
The project has not been without its troubles. “Our major challenge over the last couple of years has been to get the technology accepted by the financing community, especially from the banks,” says Larsson.
Although banks have been unwilling to finance such novel technology, Ripasso has now secured private funding to begin their first large-scale installation. “We are very ready to head into the commercial phase,” says Larsson. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/13/could-this-be-the-worlds-most-efficient-solar-electricity-system
100 per cent renewable energy plan for Apple
Apple wants to run on 100 per cent renewable energy, improve supply chain’s greenness, Manufacturers Monthly 12 May, 2015 Apple has announced plans to run its entire business in China through renewable energy, and to make its supply chain more environmentally friendly.
In a statement released yesterday, CEO Tim Cook said greening manufacturing operations would take years, but would be worth the effort.
“We are excited to work with leaders in our supply chain who want to be on the cutting edge of China’s green transformation,” said Cook…….
According to Apple, 87 per cent of its US operations worldwide are powered through renewable energy, and wants this to reach 100 per cent.
According to the company, 100 per cent of its US operations and all of its data centers are run by renewable power.
It launched its first solar project in Sichuan Province three weeks ago.
Portable solar desalination – ideal for developing countries
Scientists are turning salt water into drinking water using solar power The world needs this. Science Alert BEC CREW 27 APR 2015 By inexpensively turning salt water into drinking water using sustainable solar power, a team from MIT in the US has not only come up with a portable desalination system for use anywhere in the world that needs it, but it’s just won the 2015 Desal Prize – a competition run by USAID to encourage better solutions to water shortages in developing countries.
In order to win the $140,000 prize, entries had to demonstrate how their invention not only works well, but is cost-effective, environmentally sustainable, and energy efficient. And the MIT researchers teamed up with US-based manufacturing company, Jain Irrigation Systems, to do just that.
The team’s invention works by using solar panels to charge a cache of batteries that power an electrodialysis machine that removes salt from the water and makes it perfectly drinkable. David L. Chandler explains for MIT News:………
They’re now hoping to expand their field tests to rural communities in developing countries, in the hopes that they can set them up as irrigation systems in small farms. “A solution with the potential to double recoverable water in an environment where water is becoming more precious by the day could have a huge impact,” environmental and civil engineer Susan Amrose from the University of California at Berkeley, who was not involved in the research, told MIT News. Sources: MIT News, Popular Science http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-turning-salt-water-into-drinking-water-using-solar-power?utm_content=buffer4a3b6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
An exciting solar energy idea – still at the dream stage?
THIS STUNNING HIGH-RISE HYDROPONIC FARM GENERATES RENEWABLE ENERGY AND REPRESENTS NEW HOPE FOR BIG CITIES ACROSS THE GLOBE [ good pics] by Rachel Oakley in Exhale on Friday 8 May 2015 To make Earth a greener place, Aprilli Design Studio got its designers together to create an incredible ecological system known as the Urban Skyfarm, for a site right in the heart of downtown Seoul.
This is not your average eco-friendly building. It’s so much more.
The Urban Skyfarm isn’t office space or apartments, but rather a complete ‘living machine’ that filters water and air, provides vegetables and herbs for the community, and produces renewable energy at the same time.
There are four major components to the Urban Skyfarm: the root, trunk, branch, and leaves.
The root section provides space for a market or public activities. The trunk can be used as a community garden space for residents. The trunk is also divided into eight individual branches (the leaf portions), which each support farming decks which are suspended from each branch by trusses and tension cables. These farming decks are spread out to receive maximum sunlight throughout the day.
Now, if that wasn’t enough, listen to this: the high rise farming system plans to operate on renewable solar and wind energy alone. Meaning, it operates completely on its own energy, and indeed provides energy to the grid…….http://www.techly.com.au/2015/05/08/this-stunning-high-rise-hydroponic-farm-generates-renewable-energy-and-represents-new-hope-for-big-cities-across-the-globe/
Germany becoming a super power, with the success of its renewable energy
Germany, the Green Superpower Thomas L. Friedman, NYT MAY 6, 2015 BERLIN — A week at the American Academy in Berlin leaves me with two contradictory feelings: one is that Germany today deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, and the other is that Germany tomorrow will have to overcome its deeply ingrained post-World War II pacifism and become a more serious, activist global power. And I say both as a compliment.
On the first point, what the Germans have done in converting almost 30 percent of their electric grid to solar and wind 
energy from near zero in about 15 years has been a great contribution to the stability of our planet and its climate. The centerpiece of the German Energiewende, or energy transformation, was an extremely generous “feed-in tariff” that made it a no-brainer for Germans to install solar power (or wind) at home and receive a predictable high price for the energy generated off their own rooftops.
There is no denying that the early days of the feed-in tariff were expensive. The subsidies cost billions of euros, paid for through a surcharge on everyone’s electric bill. But the goal was not simply to buy more renewable energy: It was to create demand that would drive down the cost of solar and wind to make them mainstream, affordable options. And, in that, the energiewende has been an undiluted success. With price drops of more than 80 percent for solar, and 55 percent for wind, zero-carbon energy is now competitive with fossil fuels here.
In my view the greatest success of the German energy transition was giving a boost to the Chinese solar panel industry,” said Ralf Fücks, the president of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, the German Green Party’s political foundation. “We created the mass market, and that led to the increased productivity and dramatic decrease in cost.” And all this in a country whose northern tip is the same latitude as the southern tip of Alaska!
This is a world-saving achievement. And, happily, as the price fell, the subsidies for new installations also dropped. The Germans who installed solar ended up making money, which is why the program remains popular, except in coal-producing regions. Today, more than 1.4 million German households and cooperatives are generating their own solar/wind electricity. “There are now a thousand energy cooperatives operated by private people,” said the energy economist Claudia Kemfert. Continue reading
in sum – cheaper, more easily available energy storage helps at the scale of the power grid, and also at the level of our homes, to further advantage cleaner, renewable energy. So if the economics of storage are finally starting to line up – and its business side to ramp up – that can only be good news for the planet.
Tesla’s battery announcement shows the coming revolution in energy storage, Sydney Morning Herald May 2, 2015 Chris Mooney “……Tesla announced that it is offering a home battery product, which people can use to store energy from their solar panels or to back-up their homes against blackouts, and also larger scale versions that could perform similar roles for companies or even parts of the grid.
For homeowners, the Tesla Powerwall will have a power capacity of either 10 kilowatt hours or 7 kilowatt hours, at a cost of either $US3500 or $US3000………
Tesla isn’t the only company in the battery game, and whatever happens with Tesla, this market is expected to grow. A study by GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association earlier this year found that while storage remains relatively niche – the market was sized at just $US128 million in 2014 – it also grew 40 per cent last year, and three times as many installations are expected this year.
By 2019, GTM Research forecasts, the overall market will have reached a size of $US1.5 billion.
“The trend is more and more players being interested in the storage market,” says GTM Research’s Ravi Manghani. Tesla, he says, has two unique advantages – it is building a massive battery-making “gigafactory” which should drive down prices, and it is partnered with solar installer Solar City (Musk is Solar City’s chairman), which “gives Tesla access to a bigger pool of customers, both residential and commercial, who are looking to deploy storage with or without solar.”
The major upshot of more and cheaper batteries and much more widespread energy storage could, in the long term, be a true energy revolution – as well as a much greener planet. Here are just a few ways that storage can dramatically change – and green – the way we get power: Continue reading
Tesla Powerwall batteries for home and business renewable energy storage
Tesla Motors, maker of the Model S supercar and soon to be launched Model X, announced its Powerwall home electricity storage solution under the Tesla Energy brand this week. There will be two available units of 7 kilowatt-hour and 10kwh capacity offered at $3,000 and $3,500 respectively. They can also be stacked for homeowners who wish to store more energy.
So as not to leave commercial customers out in the dark, Tesla Energy will also offer the Powerpack.
Tesla Moves to Make Renewable Energy More Viable http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-roth/tesla-moves-to-make-renew_b_7190196.html 05/01/2015 Imagine a world in which all our energy needs comes from clean, renewable sources. Every building could be covered and powered by solar panels. Transportation could be provided by electric vehicles. Clean and free electricity provided by sun and wind could be used in real time and stored in batteries for later use. Fossil fuels could be regulated to the fuel of last resort. It may not be the stuff of science fiction any longer. If Tesla CEO Elon Musk has his way, this is the future we are headed towards.
Solar and wind energy have long been attractive renewable energy sources. Once the photovoltaic panels and wind turbines are manufactured, they can create many years of electricity with zero harmful emissions and little if any maintenance. In recent years the cost of solar has plummeted, leaving it on par with fossil fuels. The problem however has been in the less than constant ability of renewables to create electricity. Solar cannot produce as much electricity in inclement weather or any at night. Wind is intermittent. Also, unlike more conventional fossil fuel burning power plants, capacity cannot always be increased during peak periods of need.
In order for solar and wind-generated power to be more than energy grid add-ons, they need to have a way to store their energy for use during off-peak or low production periods. Batteries are the best way to store energy during periods of peak production to be used later. However, no major company has offered an easily-scalable battery storage solution to meet these needs – until now. Continue reading
Despite the USA’s nuclear lobby – solar power is winning in Japan
I predict, because solar is rising so rapidly in the land of the rising sun, that Japan will never restart any of its nukes – even though the U.S. media is demanding Japan restart one of its nukes. Let us pray that the solar home owners in Japan win this race against nuclear power. Our lives too depend on solar winning
Four years after Fukushima, Japan is solar-powered Bay View by Theresa Coleman and Paul Kangas, 29 Apr 15 In the week before the March 11, 2011, earthquake at Fukushima, one person, Prime Minister Naoto Kan, did an extraordinary act that set Japan’s energy course in history for the next 100 years. He was able to convince the Japanese Parliament to pass a solar payment policy (SPP), that required big utilities in Japan to pay solar home owners $0.53 kwh for 20 years.
This is amazing. One, because the rate is very attractive to solar home owners and two, because he even made the effort.This one policy shift is now making Japan one of the leading solar powered nations on earth – far ahead of California or the U.S.
Number one in solar generation in 2014 was Germany. The same year they won the World Cup in soccer. They are on a roll.It is going to be interesting to see if China becomes No. 2 in 2015. It is a tight three-way race between Japan, Germany and China. Who will win?
The really big question is: “What inspired Prime Minister Naoto Kan to introduce this solar payment policy to the Japanese Parliament the day before Fukushima? Was it Chernobyl?
Apparently Kan had read the book “Solar Economy” by Hermann Scheer the year before. It got him to thinking about how solar policy could actually be drafted to shut down all the nuclear power plants in Japan over the next 50 years……….
This one policy shift is now making Japan one of the leading solar powered nations on earth – far ahead of California or the U.S. Number one in solar generation in 2014 was Germany.
One of world’s largest floating solar plants opened in Japan
JAPAN OPENS MEGA FLOATING SOLAR POWER PLANT, CLIMATE GROUP, 26 APR 15 LONDON: JAPAN HAS JUST OPENED ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST FLOATING SOLAR POWER PLANTS, SIGNALLING INCREASING ADOPTION OF THE EFFICIENT AND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY IN THE COUNTRY, WHICH IS DUE PARTLY TO LACK OF SPACE ON LAND.
As highlighted in a report released this week by The Climate Group, regions with more land space, specifically the UAE with its huge solar resources, are primed to benefit from the fast-growing low carbon economy.
The giant plant in Japan was inaugurated last March but has only just opened, as announced by Kyocera and Ciel et Terre International, two manufacturers that are heavily investing in this technology. The system is made up of two solar parks, at Nishihira Pond and Higashihira Pond in Kato City in Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture, with a capacity of 1.7 megawatts (MW) and 1.2 MW respectively.
CLEAN TECHNOLOGY
Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is becoming more wide-spread in Japan, driven in part by the closure of the country’s fleet of nuclear plants following the Fukushima disaster – even if there are some concerns about the possibility the country could soon reopen them.
… total solar PV capacity has moved from just 19 MW in 1992 to 13,532 MW in 2013 –more than double the previous year.
FLOATING SOLAR
However, with a landmass slightly smaller than California and a population density closer to India, this expansion in PV collides with the lack of space. Thankfully, Japan is surrounded by sea and has many water reservoirs to cater for its seasonal variation in rainfall levels, so is experimenting more frequently with floating PV systems.
Not only is floating solar more convenient, it is also more energy efficient. A study by Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water) claims the technology is more efficient because it has a lower temperature during the day when compared to overland PV modules. This should be achieved due to the reflection of light from the water surface, which keeps the PV modules cooler………http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/news-and-blogs/japan-opens-mega-floating-solar-power-plant/
Call for BP to disclose its archive on renewable energy research, as they promised
BP renewable energy archive still closed despite promise to open to public, Guardian, Terry Macalister, 24 Apr 15 Critics call for BP to provide immediate access to Warwick University archive containing billions of pounds worth of scientific research by the oil group from the 80s and 90s A BP archive containing scientific knowledge on renewable energy projects collected over decades as a result of a multi-billion-pound research programme is still closed to the public despite promises to the contrary.
Critics said BP’s integrity was at stake and the archive held next to the Modern Records Office at Warwick University must be opened immediately……
a spokesman at the company’s headquarters later confirmed what the Guardian had already reported: that no material for the last 40 years was available to the public.
“The National Records Office has a 30-year rule. We just have a longer one,” explained the company spokesman, while Peter Housego, the BP archive manager at Warwick, said the opening period was under regular review with (these) internal stakeholders.
Catherine Howarth, the CEO of Share Action, who challenged BP at the AGM to open the archive as part of a wider demand to be more transparent about the issue of climate change, said she was disturbed to hear the company was apparently not opening the archive.
“I’m truly disappointed if it turns out that BP’s archive of research is not in fact open, or due to be opened imminently. The chairman not only told us about BP’s general commitment to ‘sharing our knowledge’ but explicitly responded to my question by confirming that nothing would be ‘locked away’……..
Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace, said: “It looks as if burying decades’ worth of energy research is too embarrassing a policy for BP’s boss to defend, even in front of his own shareholders.
“Fossil fuel giants already have a humongous credibility gap to fill when it comes to climate and clean energy. Making a mockery of transparency in this way will only make it bigger.”
BP now spends almost all its $20bn (£13bn) per annum capital expenditure on oil and gas, but in the 1980s and early 1990s it spent large amounts of cash building wave power prototypes and researching energy efficiency products.
At one stage, under the then chief executive, John – now Lord – Browne, BP promised to go “beyond petroleum” but the strategy was ditched and the company reverted to focussing on fossil fuels.
Students at Warwick University, who have already seen 100 staff call for the academic authorities to withdraw their pension fund from all fossil fuel companies, said they were taking the issue up with the local BP archive staff.
“We are pressuring them to explain the contradictions apparent from the chairman’s statement and will continue to pressure them as much as possible to open up their files,” said Alex Clark from Fossil Free Warwick University……..
Senior researchers who used to be employed by the company have privately said the archive could document the huge amount of work done by BP on all sorts of issues, such as climate change and renewable energy technology including solar and wave power……..http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/24/bp-renewable-energy-archive-still-closed-despite-promise-to-open-to-public
Growing global movement for 100% renewable energy
The most optimistic predictions for the UN COP21 climate negotiations in Paris at the end of this year center on an “80 by 50” scenario — a reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% from 2005 levels by 2050. In my opinion, that scenario is less a call-to-action than a call-to-arms. Previous global negotiations have shown that as long as there is any percentage of fossil-fuel energy left on the table, countries will fight for access to it, and productive discussions will come to an end. So we need to change the narrative. Instead of a call-to-arms, we need a doctrine of “mutually assured survival” — a doctrine in which all commit to the goal of 100% renewable energy.
Since 2013, renewable energies have been winning the race against fossil resources: the world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than for coal, natural gas, and oil combined. The question is no longer if the world will transition to sustainable energy, but how long it will take. And there’s no going back.
This transition is being driven largely by local governments.
A growing numbers of cities, communities and regions are proving that meeting 100% of our energy demand with renewable energy is viable. As urban areas are responsible for 70-75% of energy related CO2 emissions and 40-50% of global GHG emissions, this is an encouraging trend. My city — Vancouver, Canada — recently voted in favor of a target of 100% renewable energy.
100% RE Is Already a Reality Today
Other cities and states — from Hawaii and Georgetown, Texas, in the USA to Coffs Harbour in Australia — have already shown that making the transition to 100% renewable energy is a political, not technical, decision. The necessary technology and knowledge exists.
In Germany, in a network of 140 100% RE regions, 80 communities and municipalities have already reached their goal. One of them is the Rhein-Hunsrück District. As of early 2012, the District, which has around 100,000 inhabitants, officially began producing more than 100% of its electricity needs. In early 2014, it is estimated that Rhein-Hunsrück already produced more than 230% of its total electricity needs, exporting the surplus to the regional and national grid, or re-directing it to meet other energy demands.
The city of Greensburg (Kansas, USA) powers all local homes and businesses with100% renewable energy, 100% of the time. The story of Greensburg is one of tragedy to triumph: a tornado destroyed or damaged 95% of the town’s homes and businesses on May 4, 2007. The community — with a strong leader in Mayor Bob Dixon — turned disaster into opportunity and created a vision to rebuild Greensburg as a sustainable community.
Building efficiency and local wind, complemented by small solar installations and biogas, are the cornerstones of their master plan. The town has gathered a diverse group of experts to make their vision a reality.
Similarly, local governments across Japan are seeking to supply their regions with 100% renewable energy. The Great East Japan earthquake, the subsequent tsunami and the disaster at the Fukushima-daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, encouraged the people of Fukushima to reassess their energy system and to revitalize industry in the shattered region. This led to a vision of transition to renewable energy. Fukushima prefecture now has an official commitment to cover 100% of primary-energy demand in Fukushima with renewable resources by 2040.
Joining them are another 13 cities or regions that have registered a 100% renewable-energy target in the carbonn Climate Registry:……http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-reimer/100-renewable-energy-the-new-normal_b_7126906.html
Renewable energy now being produced globally, on an industrial scale
In developing countries, where renewables are best positioned to address the chronic lack of energy access, clean energy investment rose 36% to $131bn. It’s well on track to surpass investment in developed countries, which amounted to $139bn last year.
The world is finally producing renewable energy at an industrial scale’, Guardian Achim Steiner, 21 Apr 15 Clean energy has spread to every corner of the globe, with more than 100,000 megawatts of capacity installed last year Renewables are finally becoming a globally significant source of power, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March by Frankfurt School UNEP Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Driven by rapid expansion in developing countries, new installations of carbon-free renewable power plants in 2014 surpassed 100,000 megawatts of capacity for the first time, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report. It appears that renewable energy is now entering the market at a scale that is relevant in energy industry terms – and at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels.
The numbers are compelling. Renewables such as wind, solar and biomass generated an estimated 9.1% of the world’s electricity in 2014, up from 8.5% in 2013, according to the report. These sources made up the majority of new power capacity in Europe, and also brought electricity to new markets.
They also caught the eyes of investors: in 2014, energy investment in rose 17% over the previous year, surging to $270bn, according to the report.
Conventional wisdom meets unconventional growth
Some experts still predict that fossil fuels will supply the majority of our energy for decades to come, but the evidence strongly points in another direction. As the Global Trends report points out, the clean energy investment that funded almost half of all new power plants in 2014 came at what would, seemingly, be a very bad time for renewables. While oil prices were rapidly falling and China’s coal consumption was decreasing, both commodities were, if anything, more economically viable.
But at the same time, renewables appear to be increasing rather than decreasing in competitiveness. For example, a large-scale solar plant in Dubai has recently bid to provide electricity at less than $0.06 per kilowatt-hour. To put this in context, this is less than what the vast majority of consumers around the world pay to keep the lights on. It’s a third of the cost of electricity in Africa. Grid parity for solar is already available in many countries; in others, it’s just around the corner.
In developing countries, where renewables are best positioned to address the chronic lack of energy access, clean energy investment rose 36% to $131bn. It’s well on track to surpass investment in developed countries, which amounted to $139bn last year.
When it came to investment, China led with $83bn in clean energy funding, but many other countries followed closely behind. Some of the most promising states – like Brazil, India and South Africa – are expected to lead the way. Others, like Kenya, which boasts one of the largest solar rooftop system on the continent and shortly the largest wind farm, are more of a surprise……..http://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/apr/20/renewable-energy-global-trends-solar-power
Economic advantages: the feasibility of going 100% renewable energy
The adoption of targets for 100% renewables by 2050 could deliver combined energy savings of more than $500 billion a year to the major economies of the EU, the US and China, and create millions of new jobs, a new study has found. The study, released this week by New Climate Institute and commissioned by Climate Action Network, also found that if all countries took action on renewables at this scale, global warming would not cross the 2°C threshold beyond which scientists predict would result in dangerous and irreversible changes to the earth’s climate.Success of wind energy in reducing USA’s greenhouse gas emissions
Wind energy blows US emissions onto right track for 2025 target http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27361-wind-energy-blows-us-emissions-onto-right-track-for-2025-target.html#.VTBP5tyUcnl 16 April 2015 by Fred Pearce Is Uncle Sam going green at last? US carbon emissions from power stations this year are set to be the lowest for 20 years, as decrepit coal-fired power plants shut and clean wind farms and less-dirty natural gas plants replace them.
And back in 1994, the US economy was only 42 per cent of its current size, adding evidence to the idea that an economy can grow while its emissions go down.
This year’s emissions are expected to be 15.4 per cent below 2005 levels. The startling projection comes from analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It suggests that the US may now be on course to meet the promise that the Obama administration will take to UN climate negotiations in Paris later this year, to cut total CO2 emissions by 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025.
So what is going on? Most attention has focused on the replacement of coal in conventional power plants by natural gas, much of it from fracking. Burning gas emits only half as much CO2 as burning coal.
And there is much more to come from wind, says William Nelson, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. He expects 9 gigawatts more wind generating capacity to be commissioned during 2015, much of it in Texas. It is a wind of change that he calls a giant, permanent step towards decarbonising out entire fleet of power plants.
How BP started, then stopped renewable energy projects
BP dropped green energy projects worth billions to focus on fossil fuels, Guardian, Terry Macalister, 16 Apr 15 Oil firm invested billions of pounds in clean and low-carbon energy in the 80s and 90s but later abandoned meaningful efforts to move away from fossil fuels and locked away the research BP pumped billions of pounds into low-carbon technology and green energy over a number of decades but gradually retired the programme to focus almost exclusively on its fossil fuel business, the Guardian has established.
At one stage the company, whose annual general meeting is in London on Thursday, was spending in-house around $450m (£300m) a year on research alone – the equivalent of $830m today.
The energy efficiency programme employed 4,400 research scientists and R&D support staff at bases in Sunbury, Berkshire, and Cleveland, Ohio, among other locations, while $8bn was directly invested over five years in zero- or low-carbon energy.
But almost all of the technology was sold off and much of the research locked away in a private corporate archive.
Facing shareholders at its AGM, company executives will insist they are playing a responsible role in a world facing dangerous climate change, not least by supporting arguments for a global carbon price.
But the company, which once promised to go “beyond petroleum” will come under fire both inside the meeting and outside from some shareholders and campaigners who argue BP is playing fast and loose with the environment by not making meaningful moves away from fossil fuels.
In 2015, BP will spend $20bn on projects worldwide but only a fraction will go into activities other than fossil fuel extraction.
An investigation by the Guardian has established that the British oil company is doing far less now on developing low-carbon technologies than it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. Back then it was engaged in a massive internal research and development (R&D) programme into energy efficiency and alternative energy……..
A major group of shareholders have called on the company to address climate change more robustly through a resolution to be heard at the AGM…….
Suzanne Dhaliwal from the UK Tar Sands Network said support for the AGM resolution looked hollow when the company was still engaged in carbon-heavy extraction activities. “It looks like a stalling mechanism to get large shareholders on board but from a grass roots level commitments to tackling climate change and continuing with tar sands are incompatible.”
Many leading environmentalists such as Jonathan Porritt believe fossil fuel companies will never play a leading role in any move to a low-carbon economy…….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/16/bp-dropped-green-energy-projects-worth-billions-to-focus-on-fossil-fuels
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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