AFP
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Renewable energies could furnish 99.5 percent of European Union electricity needs by 2050 if nuclear loses its priority access to distribution networks, Greenpeace said in a report released Tuesday.
The environmental campaigners said that windfarms are "often stopped in peak production periods to give priority access" to electricity generated by nuclear reactors and coal-fired power stations.
Greenpeace researchers said that solar energy in Europe's south and wind energy from the north could supply 68 percent of the 27-nation EU's electricity needs in 2030 and 99.5 percent by the middle of the century.
However, the group claimed that would require governments to change policy tack and favour investments in green energy to the tune of 70 billion euros (94 billion dollars) by 2030 and another 28 billion euros over the following decade
"It's a question of choice," said campaign figurehead Jan Vande Putte.
Renewables produced 16.1 percent of German electricity needs in 2009, more than double the total six years earlier, according to the German federation of renewable energy producers.
Greenpeace is trying to influence the debate in the run-up to a February 4 summit of EU leaders representing half a billion people.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Top 10 small-scale renewable energy innovators
From high-rise plant factories to solar rubbish dumps, here is the pick of small companies at the World Future Energy conference
A computer-generated graphic of Masdar city, currently under construction in Abu Dhabi, which will host the next generation of small-scale renewable energy companies. Photograph: Fosters + Partners
Abu Dhabi hosting the World Future Energy conference is like Dracula running a meeting of blood coagulant specialists. Never mind that the emirate has vast oil and gas reserves and is throwing up scandalously inefficient buildings by the score, it really wants to make the world believe that the future will be renewable power.
Money is no object here; not only did Abu Dhabi spend big undisclosed amounts in its campaign to house the proposed International Renewable Energy Agency, the emirate is pumping billions of dollars into Masdar City, billed as the world's first carbon-neutral city. Masdar is also paying for the giant London array offshore windfarm in the Thames estuary and many other clean-tech developments in Europe, Egypt and the US.
Now it has now hooked up with the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) to attract the world's top scientists and dozens of blue-chip multinationals to roll out the next generation of renewables.
The energy conference is heavily skewed to solar, as you might expect in this region, but its lifeblood is the small-scale entrepreneurs, inventors and technologists who have come to Abu Dhabi hoping to attract cash and become mainstream in 20 years' time.
Here are my top 10 (mostly) small-scale innovating companies on view in Abu Dhabi this week, in no particular rank or order:
1. Jet-stream power
Skymill Energy is a small US/Indian company trying to harness the limitless high-altitude jet-stream winds that blow at over 200mph at over 30,000ft. Others have tried with tethered kites but Skymill think they have cracked the problem by using a remote rotary-lift aerial vehicle, like a helicopter, which is attached to a generator on the ground. The prize is fabulous: vast renewable energy, no pollution, straightforward technology and available materials. Skymill say it could produce power cheaper than coal and are backed by Boeing, former Nasa scientists and Indian technologists. Pilot trials begin in India next year.
2. Plant factories
Korean company Semi-Materials wants to grow vast quantities of food indoors in what could be high-rise factories. The technology needs no soil but uses nutrients and water with LED lighting linked to solar PV power. These minutely controlled environments, it says, would be ideally suited to high-value crops and avoid bacteria, bad weather and viruses. One plant factory is now working, others are planned.
3. Desert soils
Humus Analysis is a small French firm that has grown out of a government research institute. It makes compost from waste products from the oil industry, as well as municipal wastes and claims to be able to build soils which are good enough to grow grass and trees in a year, and edible crops in two years. If employed widely, says the company, it would enable energy profligate Arab states to reduce water use – and therefore energy – significantly. First trials are taking place in Abu Dhabi this year.
4. Micro geothermal
Ritesh Arya is an Indian hydro-geologist who in 2001 found groundwater at over 11,000ft in the Himalayas, the highest that it has ever been discovered. He is backed by three Nordic research groups as well as giant Norwegian oil company Statoil, and is finding geo-thermal resources in places where no-one thought it could be. Thousands of Himalayan communities could benefit from the source of renewable energy.
5. Solar rubbish dumps
African Renewable Energies is a small London–based firm that aims to help poor communities in developing countries earn money and generate electricity from innumerable rubbish tips around African cities. The idea is to cover landfill sites with thinfilm solar phovololtaic cells printed on to the flexible membranes used to cap landfills. Money would be earned from the UN's clean development mechanism and the electricity should last for decades. Trials now taking place in Italy, the US and Nairobi.
6. Waste houses
2G, an emirates company, takes waste palm tree fronds and leaves, mixes in plastics and produces immensely strong floorboards, gates, walls, cladding, roof tiles, decking and other building materials. The raw material is plentiful and free, and the end product is cheaper than wood or plastic. One factory is already built, others expected soon.
7. Air sandwich
New Japanese technology that uses multiple layers of high performance plastic film with air trapped between them to save up to 40% of energy being lost through glass doors or windows. Cheaper and more efficient than most glass double-glazing and good for retrofits.
8. Desert oases
Hitachi is developing small-scale desalination plants that pump brackish water using PV electricity and then cleans it up using reverse osmosis technology. The result is clean water for humans and animals in remote places which would not normally be served by large scale desalination plants. A 40ft container-sized plant can provide enough clean water for 100 people or a waterhole in the desert. Already being used in conservation areas in Abu Dhabi to help oryx and other animals survive.
9. Algae power
Algaeventure is a small US company that has found a cheap way to efficiently separate liquids and solids, bypassing expensive, power-hungry, centrifugal machines. This, they believe, is the key to developing algae as a major source of both food and power in the next 30 years. The company expects algae technology to race ahead in the next 10 years.
10. Solar fridges
Freecold is a small French company specialising in PV-powered solar refrigerators, ideal for off-grid villages, health centres or even remote bars wanting to make ice. It does not need batteries or converters and uses advanced insulation to keep temperatures cool for 75 hours or more.
• John Vidal's travel and accommodation were paid for by the Zayed Future Energy prize.
Siemens chooses Hull for wind turbine plant generating 700 jobs
• Associated British Ports will build £100m berth in Hull
• Siemens plans to invest £80m to build a wind turbine plant
Tim Webb The Guardian, Thursday 20 January 2011
German engineering conglomerate Siemens has selected Associated British Port's (ABP) Hull development to build what will be Britain's first major offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant.
The decision means that ABP is in line to receive about £20m for the development from the government's ports upgrade fund, which energy secretary Chris Huhne fought to save from the spending cuts in October's comprehensive spending review. Siemens' proposed plant will also create about 700 jobs and the news will be a boost for Hull, which has beaten off competition from ports in Teesside, Sunderland and the Humber which had also been shortlisted for the project.
Siemens will announce today that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with ABP over its Green Port Hull proposed development at Alexandria Dock. The two companies have yet to sign a formal binding contract.
Under the plan, ABP would build a £100m deepwater berth at the port capable of handling the new generation of large offshore wind turbines. It would be one of the biggest single investments ABP has made in Britain. Siemens also wants to build a new £80m wind turbine plant on the site.
The two companies hope to sign definitive agreements this year. Siemens, together with General Electric and Mitsubishi, which also plans to build similar plants in Britain, had threatened to go elsewhere if the £60m ports funding had been withdrawn. It is understood that Siemens was looking at alternative sites in western Denmark to build a plant to make turbines for the North Sea.The two companies will work to develop the plans for the new Siemens plant and export facility at the Port.
The news from Siemens and ABP will also be a shot in the arm for the government's attempts to create new jobs from the "green economy", particularly from the manufacturing of wind turbines, which are being rapidly installed off the British coast.
Industry sources estimate that the proportion of UK-sourced components in onshore wind farms is as low as 6%, with companies bemoaning the missed opportunity for British manufacturers and the wider economy as vast sums are now being spent on renewable energy.
Some government advisers believe the state could do more to promote British turbine manufacturers, for example by introducing specifications for UK wind farms that would benefit domestic firms.
• Siemens plans to invest £80m to build a wind turbine plant
Tim Webb The Guardian, Thursday 20 January 2011
German engineering conglomerate Siemens has selected Associated British Port's (ABP) Hull development to build what will be Britain's first major offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant.
The decision means that ABP is in line to receive about £20m for the development from the government's ports upgrade fund, which energy secretary Chris Huhne fought to save from the spending cuts in October's comprehensive spending review. Siemens' proposed plant will also create about 700 jobs and the news will be a boost for Hull, which has beaten off competition from ports in Teesside, Sunderland and the Humber which had also been shortlisted for the project.
Siemens will announce today that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with ABP over its Green Port Hull proposed development at Alexandria Dock. The two companies have yet to sign a formal binding contract.
Under the plan, ABP would build a £100m deepwater berth at the port capable of handling the new generation of large offshore wind turbines. It would be one of the biggest single investments ABP has made in Britain. Siemens also wants to build a new £80m wind turbine plant on the site.
The two companies hope to sign definitive agreements this year. Siemens, together with General Electric and Mitsubishi, which also plans to build similar plants in Britain, had threatened to go elsewhere if the £60m ports funding had been withdrawn. It is understood that Siemens was looking at alternative sites in western Denmark to build a plant to make turbines for the North Sea.The two companies will work to develop the plans for the new Siemens plant and export facility at the Port.
The news from Siemens and ABP will also be a shot in the arm for the government's attempts to create new jobs from the "green economy", particularly from the manufacturing of wind turbines, which are being rapidly installed off the British coast.
Industry sources estimate that the proportion of UK-sourced components in onshore wind farms is as low as 6%, with companies bemoaning the missed opportunity for British manufacturers and the wider economy as vast sums are now being spent on renewable energy.
Some government advisers believe the state could do more to promote British turbine manufacturers, for example by introducing specifications for UK wind farms that would benefit domestic firms.
Vestas gives away energy prize winnings to runners-up
Danish windpower firm shares out $1.5m (£940,000) Zayed Future Energy prize money in bid to extend influence of the competition
John Vidal in Abu Dhabi guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 January 2011 12.52 GMT
Vestas, the largest windpower company in the world, last night won the $1.5m (£940,000) Zayed Future Energy prize in Abu Dhabi.
But in what has been called an "remarkable" act, the Danish company gave all its prize money away to a new NGO, an impoverished Indian teacher, Arnold Schwarzenegger's former environmental adviser, and a leading US photovoltaic company.
Having installed more windpower than any other company, Vestas turbines now generate enough electricity to provide for 21 million people.
Amory Lovins, chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute , and clean energy investors E+Co each won $350,000 (£218,585) as runners-up, but Vestas chief executive, Ditlev Engel, said he was concerned that other runners-up would receive nothing.
"We quickly decided that we should seize the opportunity to extend the influence of the prize through redistributing the cash award to others," he said.
The company gave $750,000 (£468,396) to WindMade, a new label for products made with windpower backed by a coalition including Bloomberg, Lego Group and WWF. It also gave $250,000 (£156,145) to Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College in India, Terry Terry Tamminen, former Schwarzenegger adviser and Australian founder of Seventh Generation Advisors, and thin film PV company First Solar.
Roy said he was "delighted". Barefoot is the only college in the world open only to those without any formal education, training women and the poorest to combine local knowledge with new green technologies. Some 15,000 people have learned to become "barefoot" water and solar engineers, architects and teachers.
Engel chided Britain for entering the windpower race late. "You had the best resource, a head start on everyone else. Now you are running to catch up."
But he said Britain was still in with a chance of building a new generation of large 6MW offshore turbines which would come on stream in the next few years. Most large turbines today are around the 3MW mark.
Vestas last year had to lay off more than 3,000 people in Europe when it closed five factories because of the recession and closed the UK's only major wind turbine plant in 2009, but has grown significantly in the United States.
• John Vidal's travel and accommodation were paid for by the Zayed Future Energy prize.
John Vidal in Abu Dhabi guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 January 2011 12.52 GMT
Vestas, the largest windpower company in the world, last night won the $1.5m (£940,000) Zayed Future Energy prize in Abu Dhabi.
But in what has been called an "remarkable" act, the Danish company gave all its prize money away to a new NGO, an impoverished Indian teacher, Arnold Schwarzenegger's former environmental adviser, and a leading US photovoltaic company.
Having installed more windpower than any other company, Vestas turbines now generate enough electricity to provide for 21 million people.
Amory Lovins, chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute , and clean energy investors E+Co each won $350,000 (£218,585) as runners-up, but Vestas chief executive, Ditlev Engel, said he was concerned that other runners-up would receive nothing.
"We quickly decided that we should seize the opportunity to extend the influence of the prize through redistributing the cash award to others," he said.
The company gave $750,000 (£468,396) to WindMade, a new label for products made with windpower backed by a coalition including Bloomberg, Lego Group and WWF. It also gave $250,000 (£156,145) to Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College in India, Terry Terry Tamminen, former Schwarzenegger adviser and Australian founder of Seventh Generation Advisors, and thin film PV company First Solar.
Roy said he was "delighted". Barefoot is the only college in the world open only to those without any formal education, training women and the poorest to combine local knowledge with new green technologies. Some 15,000 people have learned to become "barefoot" water and solar engineers, architects and teachers.
Engel chided Britain for entering the windpower race late. "You had the best resource, a head start on everyone else. Now you are running to catch up."
But he said Britain was still in with a chance of building a new generation of large 6MW offshore turbines which would come on stream in the next few years. Most large turbines today are around the 3MW mark.
Vestas last year had to lay off more than 3,000 people in Europe when it closed five factories because of the recession and closed the UK's only major wind turbine plant in 2009, but has grown significantly in the United States.
• John Vidal's travel and accommodation were paid for by the Zayed Future Energy prize.
ExxonMobil warns carbon emissions will rise by 25% in 20 years
Rise predicted in annual ExxonMobil energy outlook effectively dismisses hopes that runaway climate change can be prevented
John Vidal in Abu Dhabi guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 January 2011 17.16 GMT
ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, expects global carbon emissions to rise by nearly 25% in the next 20 years, in effect dismissing hopes that runaway climate change can be arrested and massive loss of life prevented.
According to the company's annual Outlook for Energy report – due to be published in the next few weeks – demand for power will increase by nearly 40% in the next 20 years, lifting emissions by around 0.9% a year at least until 2030.
Beyond 2030, it says, any progress on cuts will require "more aggressive gains in energy efficiency as well as the use of less carbon-intensive fuels. New technologies will by then be essential.".
"It is a significant rise [in emissions], but it is substantially slower because of [expected] improved efficiency and a shift towards lower carbon fuels," says the report, previewed today at the World Future Energy conference in Abu Dhabi.
The projections by Exxon scientists are gloomier than anything publicly expressed by governments and scientists, who maintain that global emissions can be reduced significantly and catastrophic climate change be averted if action is taken for them to reach their "peak" in the next 10 years.
According to the UK Met Office, if emissions rises can be stopped by 2020 and then be made to reduce by 1-2% a year, the planet could be expected to warm 2.1C to 3.7C this century, with the rise continuing even higher after 2100.
But Exxon, which until 10 years ago was sceptical that climate change could be even caused by man-made emissions, said emissions will continue to rise significantly with very little reduction in fossil fuel use.
"In 2030, fossil fuels remain the predominant energy source, accounting for nearly 80% of demand. Oil still leads, but natural gas moves into second place on very strong growth of 1.8% a year on average, particularly because of its position as a favoured fuel for power generation.
"Other energy types – particularly nuclear, wind, solar and biofuels – will grow sharply, albeit from a smaller base. Nuclear and renewable fuels will see strong growth, particularly in the power-generation sector. By 2030, about 40% of the world's electricity will be generated by nuclear and renewable fuels."
The company does not say what it expects global oil output to be in 2030, but suggests that US demand will be roughly at 1960 levels, suggesting that the US will have reduced its dependency on foreign oil considerably.
Instead, it says that growth in CO2 emissions in the future will be dominated by China, India and other developing, or non-OECD countries.
"Non-OECD countries' emissions surpassed OECD emissions in 2004; by 2030, non-OECD countries will account for two-thirds of the global total. Meanwhile, OECD emissions will decline by about 15% on today's figure, and by 2030 will be down to 1980 levels."
John Vidal in Abu Dhabi guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 January 2011 17.16 GMT
ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, expects global carbon emissions to rise by nearly 25% in the next 20 years, in effect dismissing hopes that runaway climate change can be arrested and massive loss of life prevented.
According to the company's annual Outlook for Energy report – due to be published in the next few weeks – demand for power will increase by nearly 40% in the next 20 years, lifting emissions by around 0.9% a year at least until 2030.
Beyond 2030, it says, any progress on cuts will require "more aggressive gains in energy efficiency as well as the use of less carbon-intensive fuels. New technologies will by then be essential.".
"It is a significant rise [in emissions], but it is substantially slower because of [expected] improved efficiency and a shift towards lower carbon fuels," says the report, previewed today at the World Future Energy conference in Abu Dhabi.
The projections by Exxon scientists are gloomier than anything publicly expressed by governments and scientists, who maintain that global emissions can be reduced significantly and catastrophic climate change be averted if action is taken for them to reach their "peak" in the next 10 years.
According to the UK Met Office, if emissions rises can be stopped by 2020 and then be made to reduce by 1-2% a year, the planet could be expected to warm 2.1C to 3.7C this century, with the rise continuing even higher after 2100.
But Exxon, which until 10 years ago was sceptical that climate change could be even caused by man-made emissions, said emissions will continue to rise significantly with very little reduction in fossil fuel use.
"In 2030, fossil fuels remain the predominant energy source, accounting for nearly 80% of demand. Oil still leads, but natural gas moves into second place on very strong growth of 1.8% a year on average, particularly because of its position as a favoured fuel for power generation.
"Other energy types – particularly nuclear, wind, solar and biofuels – will grow sharply, albeit from a smaller base. Nuclear and renewable fuels will see strong growth, particularly in the power-generation sector. By 2030, about 40% of the world's electricity will be generated by nuclear and renewable fuels."
The company does not say what it expects global oil output to be in 2030, but suggests that US demand will be roughly at 1960 levels, suggesting that the US will have reduced its dependency on foreign oil considerably.
Instead, it says that growth in CO2 emissions in the future will be dominated by China, India and other developing, or non-OECD countries.
"Non-OECD countries' emissions surpassed OECD emissions in 2004; by 2030, non-OECD countries will account for two-thirds of the global total. Meanwhile, OECD emissions will decline by about 15% on today's figure, and by 2030 will be down to 1980 levels."
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