Green Energy News From Around The World
This week in solar news has the latest reports on climate change, and it seems we only need to install 53 gigawatts of solar power per year to end climate change.
Google released its latest solar tool, an amazing idea which allows homeowners to calculate their roof’s solar potential by using the same technology as Google Earth.
Hillary Clinton is under fire again, and this time from Nevadan Republicans over her solar net metering policies. This doesn’t bode well for Hillary as she is now locking horns with her biggest supporter and financial backer, Warren Buffet.
Brad Pitt is back in New Orleans as he drops the cameras and heads back to New Orleans 10 years after Hurrican Katrina to continue building solar homes in this hurricane-stricken area.
And in solar news from abroad, the world’s fourth largest international airport becomes fully solar-powered, saving the planet more than 300,000 tons of carbon emissions!
India looks set to launch a massive solar power plan for the future in an effort to push them to the forefront of renewable technology, possibly even overtaking China.
Turning the tides on climate change, the latest in green technology is able to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and turn it into carbon nanofibers, all with the help of solar. Could this finally be the answer to global warming?
A new report suggests the world will need to install solar PV at an average rate of 53 gigawatts per year between 2013 to 2020 while transforming its energy mix to prevent dangerous climate change.
With the rapid fall in the cost of electricity from renewables, solar PV is expected to overtake conventional fossil fuels by 2030. Energy Darwinism, as it has been dubbed, simply means that solar PV will continue to get cheaper while battery technology will continue to become more reliable.
Solar PV will soon beat out traditional energy sources, with or without policy help.
“Project Sunroof”, Google’s new online tool, allows you to explore your own rooftop to determine if it’s suitable for solar panels.
Now you can literally google your house to see if you should go solar.
Project Sunroof uses the same technology that powers Google Earth, except it actually helps you calculate your roofs solar potential.
For now, however, it’s only available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno and the greater Boston area, but this is sure to expand soon.
Google has long been a supporter of low-carbon energy and is currently the largest corporate purchaser of renewable power on the planet.
Nevada is now in the middle of the old “value of solar” debate.
In late July NV Energy filed a 500-page application which would create a three-part charge for solar customers. The proposal would reduce the credit solar customers receive for electricity they send to the grid from 11.6 cents to about 5.5 cents.
Though several studies (including one in Nevada) show that net-metered customers cover their own costs, yet this report insists changes are needed to address an unreasonable cost shift between solar and non-solar customers.
Since then, the debate on how to value solar has made its way to the national stage.
Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, expressed support for net metering while criticizing utilities for blocking the practice.
Republicans in Nevada provoked Clinton to address net metering, where the power company opposing the policy is owned by one of Clinton’s strongest supporters, Warren Buffett.
India’s solar power plan is big, and it could turn out to be a game changer for the whole world.
A look at China shows the downsides of a coal-heavy strategy, severe pollution, and massive scale water usage. Right now, India is where China was 30 years ago…in need of industrialization and a massive energy industry expansion.
India, however has an option China never had – to build its future energy infrastructure around solar power and other renewables. This will be a choice that costs less, is much cleaner, saves water, provides a maximum of energy security, and allows India to move to the forefront of future technologies.
The promise of the Indian solar market is attracting an entirely new crowd of international investors, ranging from American, European, and Japanese utilities, and even Russian oil mogul, Rosneft.
Cochin International Airport in the southern Indian state of Kerala became the world’s first entirely solar-powered airport , unveiling a new system that will make it “absolutely power neutral.”
The airport’s solar power plant, which is comprised of more than 46,000 solar panels arrayed across 45 acres of land, will produce 48,000 units of energy per day, the Economic Times reports.
Over the next 25 years the solar power station is expected to save 300,000 tons worth of carbon emissions.
That’s the equivalent of planting three million trees or not driving 750 million miles!
A new technique for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere could finally be the answer to global warming.
The new method uses a unique solar powered system, the Solar Thermal Electrochemical Process, or STEP, to run volts of electricity through molten lithium carbonate.
Previous systems had struggled to make the process cheap and efficient enough for large-scale production, but professor Stuart Licht of George Washington University claims that his team’s new method could be scaled up if given enough backing.
Licht told the American Chemical Society in Boston that his prototype can make 10 grams of carbon nanofibers per hour, all using solar power.
Now it’s possible to suck stuff out of the air and make something from it.
Brad Pitt has been doing some off-camera work recently when he was back in New Orleans. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s 10th anniversary, Brad has been working to help rebuild homes that were destroyed in the Lower Ninth Ward, and so far 109 families have been touched by the star’s Make It Right foundation.
However, these are not your average urban homes. Brad enlisted the help of some of the region’s top architectural designers including Shigeru Ban, Thom Mayne, and Frank Gehry.
The latest reports say that some homes have already begun rotting, and the question still remains, however, can less really be more ?
Charles Clarkson
