Written by Philip Proefrock on 13/07/10
Capturing carbon dioxide from exhaust in order to reduce emissions levels has seemed as difficult as rocket science. And now, some rocket science may provide a solution to the difficult problem of extracting CO2 from industrial exhausts. Rocket nozzles are being studied as part of a new approach to capturing carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of coal power plants and other heavy emissions sites. The new approach could lead to significantly lower costs for carbon sequestration.
Vapor trails are commonly formed behind jets and rockets. Water vapor in the exhaust is suddenly allowed to expand, leading to rapid cooling and condensation. By pressurizing industrial exhausts and passing them through a nozzle, the same effect can be obtained for flue gases from coal plants, cement mills, and other CO2 sources. Once released, the suddenly expanded and cooled CO2 would form into dry ice. In this form, it would be much easier for the CO2 to be collected. It could then be turned into industrial product, or put into other kinds of sequestration.
ICES (Inertial CO2 Extraction System) is an investigational project under the Department of Energy's IMPACCT (Innovative Materials & Processes for Advanced Carbon Capture Technologies) program. Researchers on the product say that use of this technology could reduce the cost for carbon capture from current levels of around an 80% premium on the base cost down to a 30% premium.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Ignite Solar 1 MW Innovative Turnkey Solar Park
HOUSTON, July 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Ignite Solar, developer of large scale solar photovoltaic projects and manufacturer of tracking systems, introduces a 1 MW turnkey solar park for distributed installations. The innovative design is scalable from 1 to 30 MWs, and delivers a distributed solution at the cost advantage of a large utility project. The fully integrated 1 MW solution is able to greatly reduce the deployment cycle and cost of traditional solar.
The Ignite 1 MW turnkey design uses innovative large format 2.6m x 2.2m a-Si thin film 360-W modules. These modules deliver reliable and robust performance, capable of performing well under diffused and indirect sunlight, and in diverse climatic conditions.
The modular 1 MW design is available in a fixed configuration or with Ignite's 1-axis tracking system. The customizable mounting solutions are also able to accommodate many soil conditions with driven pole, ground screw, concrete, and ballasted foundation options.
Peter Mathey, the CEO of Ignite Solar, stated, "The 1 MW design brings a level of customization, deployment speed, and cost competitiveness not previously available to distributed solar installations."
Ignite Solar, LLC will be exhibiting at Intersolar North America 2010 in San Francisco's Moscone Center West Hall from July 13-15, booth number 7067.
About Ignite Solar, LLC
Ignite Solar, LLC based in Houston, Texas specializes in providing end-to-end turnkey solutions for commercial and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects. Ignite Solar also manufactures tracking and fixed mounting systems for deployment in the United States. Ignite Solar has created one of the most value-added, environmentally friendly, and easiest to install PV solutions in the industry through commitment to customer focus and strategic partnerships.
For more information about Ignite Solar, please visit www.IgniteSolar.com
The Ignite 1 MW turnkey design uses innovative large format 2.6m x 2.2m a-Si thin film 360-W modules. These modules deliver reliable and robust performance, capable of performing well under diffused and indirect sunlight, and in diverse climatic conditions.
The modular 1 MW design is available in a fixed configuration or with Ignite's 1-axis tracking system. The customizable mounting solutions are also able to accommodate many soil conditions with driven pole, ground screw, concrete, and ballasted foundation options.
Peter Mathey, the CEO of Ignite Solar, stated, "The 1 MW design brings a level of customization, deployment speed, and cost competitiveness not previously available to distributed solar installations."
Ignite Solar, LLC will be exhibiting at Intersolar North America 2010 in San Francisco's Moscone Center West Hall from July 13-15, booth number 7067.
About Ignite Solar, LLC
Ignite Solar, LLC based in Houston, Texas specializes in providing end-to-end turnkey solutions for commercial and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects. Ignite Solar also manufactures tracking and fixed mounting systems for deployment in the United States. Ignite Solar has created one of the most value-added, environmentally friendly, and easiest to install PV solutions in the industry through commitment to customer focus and strategic partnerships.
For more information about Ignite Solar, please visit www.IgniteSolar.com
Making UK homes energy efficient would cost less than £3,000 per house, survey claims
While homes are becoming more energy-efficient, says new research by the Energy Saving Trust, private rented housing stock lags far behind
Rebecca Smithers guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 July 2010 17.37 BST Article history
Loft insulation cuts energy costs efficiently and cheaply. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
The majority of the UK's least energy-efficient homes could be brought up to near-average green standards for less than £3,000, a new analysis claims today.
The Energy Saving Trust says the cost of upgrading such properties may be less than many consumers think, while also revealing that the numbers of energy-inefficient homes in both the private and rented sectors has decreased.
The Trust found that in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, 17% of English homes were in the F and G bands – the lowest gradings on an energy performance certificate (EPC). Two years previously in 2006, 22% were in those bands.
But 84% of these homes could be brought into E band for £3,000 - typically by installing new loft and cavity wall insulation or a modern boiler. The average home in the UK is currently rated at D.
Older homes needing major modernisation, including an entire new central heating system, would need at least £5,000 to bring them into line. The Trust found that this group – deemed to be very energy-inefficient homes – are twice as common in the private rented sector as in the rest of stock.
The study found that the worst, G-rated homes can emit over 22 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – and for each home it would be possible to save 14 tonnes of CO2 annually by upgrading them to an E rating. By comparison an average British home emits five tonnes of CO2.
David Weatherall, housing strategy manager for the Energy Saving Trust, said: "On the whole, our study is good news. Most F- and G-rated homes can be improved very cost-effectively, for less than £3,000. That's less than 2% of the sale price of the average UK home."
He continued: "With the abolition of Home Information Packs, and the new government committed to the green agenda, EPCs are going to enjoy a higher profile. For anyone about to sell their home with an old boiler or lacking full loft and cavity insulation, we'd strongly advise you not to take the risk of getting a very poor energy rating and potentially a lower sale price."
Friends of the Earth's climate campaigner Dave Timms said: "It's shocking that the very worst homes are twice as common in the private rented sector. The government must act urgently to ensure they are brought up to scratch. That means financial help and incentives to enable landlords to make improvements, and legislation so that rented homes are required to meet a minimum energy-efficiency standard by 2016."
A previous Energy Saving Trust survey suggested 70% of people would consider renegotiating the price of a property if they discovered it was inefficient.
The findings come just a day after a government advisory group warned that people in fuel poverty are being hardest hit by climate change policies - without seeing much benefit from efforts to reduce energy use. According to the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, energy bills have increased by 125% in the past six years, with the number of households in fuel poverty in England quadrupling as a result. Some 4.6m households in England now spend more than 10% of their income on heating their homes - the measure defines fuel poverty.
Rebecca Smithers guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 July 2010 17.37 BST Article history
Loft insulation cuts energy costs efficiently and cheaply. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
The majority of the UK's least energy-efficient homes could be brought up to near-average green standards for less than £3,000, a new analysis claims today.
The Energy Saving Trust says the cost of upgrading such properties may be less than many consumers think, while also revealing that the numbers of energy-inefficient homes in both the private and rented sectors has decreased.
The Trust found that in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, 17% of English homes were in the F and G bands – the lowest gradings on an energy performance certificate (EPC). Two years previously in 2006, 22% were in those bands.
But 84% of these homes could be brought into E band for £3,000 - typically by installing new loft and cavity wall insulation or a modern boiler. The average home in the UK is currently rated at D.
Older homes needing major modernisation, including an entire new central heating system, would need at least £5,000 to bring them into line. The Trust found that this group – deemed to be very energy-inefficient homes – are twice as common in the private rented sector as in the rest of stock.
The study found that the worst, G-rated homes can emit over 22 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – and for each home it would be possible to save 14 tonnes of CO2 annually by upgrading them to an E rating. By comparison an average British home emits five tonnes of CO2.
David Weatherall, housing strategy manager for the Energy Saving Trust, said: "On the whole, our study is good news. Most F- and G-rated homes can be improved very cost-effectively, for less than £3,000. That's less than 2% of the sale price of the average UK home."
He continued: "With the abolition of Home Information Packs, and the new government committed to the green agenda, EPCs are going to enjoy a higher profile. For anyone about to sell their home with an old boiler or lacking full loft and cavity insulation, we'd strongly advise you not to take the risk of getting a very poor energy rating and potentially a lower sale price."
Friends of the Earth's climate campaigner Dave Timms said: "It's shocking that the very worst homes are twice as common in the private rented sector. The government must act urgently to ensure they are brought up to scratch. That means financial help and incentives to enable landlords to make improvements, and legislation so that rented homes are required to meet a minimum energy-efficiency standard by 2016."
A previous Energy Saving Trust survey suggested 70% of people would consider renegotiating the price of a property if they discovered it was inefficient.
The findings come just a day after a government advisory group warned that people in fuel poverty are being hardest hit by climate change policies - without seeing much benefit from efforts to reduce energy use. According to the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, energy bills have increased by 125% in the past six years, with the number of households in fuel poverty in England quadrupling as a result. Some 4.6m households in England now spend more than 10% of their income on heating their homes - the measure defines fuel poverty.
Sweden leads the way in burying its depleted nuclear waste
Underground rock cavities in south-east Sweden will contain radiation threat for 100,000 years, say scientists
Hervé Morin
Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 13 July 2010 14.00 BST
The bus stops after travelling 3.5km underground, taking us to a depth of 500 metres. We are near the Oskarshamn nuclear power station in south-east Sweden. Water is dripping steadily from the crystalline rock. "It is pumped out at a rate of 1,700 litres a minute," says Jenny Rees, the spokeswoman for SKB, a company set up by Swedish electricity utilities to manage nuclear waste.
In 1995, Sweden launched a project to study ways to store depleted fuel from its 10 nuclear plants. Whereas France is obsessed with finding rock formations that stop water from circulating, here the approach is based on a moist environment. "Other rock formations would be preferable, but we don't have them," says Björn Dverstorp, of Sweden's Radiation Safety Authority (SSM).
So the Swedes adapted their system to suit local conditions. They plan to encapsulate depleted fuel rods – unlike France there is no reprocessing here – in copper-coated cast-iron canisters. Some 6,000 of these boxes will be required for the waste from existing power stations, but their number is due to increase following the decision by Sweden on 17 June to gradually replace its 10 reactors.
After being stored for 40 years in special pools, where part of the residual heat wears off, each canister will be set into a cavity, subsequently plugged with bentonite, a rock that swells up in a moist environment and stops water from circulating. But will that be sufficient to contain the radiation for 100,000 years?
All over the world a strange slow-motion race is on to answer the tricky question of how to dispose of waste, some of which will remain radioactive for millions of years, without endangering future generations. The US will have to look for a new site, having abandoned its Yucca Mountain repository where a crack has appeared. Germany has 43,000 cubic metres of waste stacked up without additional protective measures in a leaking salt mine. In Belgium a decision has been postponed for 10 years to enable an underground laboratory to continue investigating how clay reacts to heat released by the storage canisters.
So Sweden is among those that have made the most progress. At the end of the year SKB will file a formal application to build an underground storage facility and in 2025 it will launch the transfer of waste fuel currently cooling in ponds at Oskarshamn. Finland, which is working on a similar technical solution, could follow suit shortly.
France also hopes to commission a repository by then but seems to have made less progress at the administrative level. Only in 2014 will nuclear authorities be filing an application to build a storage facility near the Bure underground laboratory in eastern France.This article originally appeared in Le Monde
Hervé Morin
Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 13 July 2010 14.00 BST
The bus stops after travelling 3.5km underground, taking us to a depth of 500 metres. We are near the Oskarshamn nuclear power station in south-east Sweden. Water is dripping steadily from the crystalline rock. "It is pumped out at a rate of 1,700 litres a minute," says Jenny Rees, the spokeswoman for SKB, a company set up by Swedish electricity utilities to manage nuclear waste.
In 1995, Sweden launched a project to study ways to store depleted fuel from its 10 nuclear plants. Whereas France is obsessed with finding rock formations that stop water from circulating, here the approach is based on a moist environment. "Other rock formations would be preferable, but we don't have them," says Björn Dverstorp, of Sweden's Radiation Safety Authority (SSM).
So the Swedes adapted their system to suit local conditions. They plan to encapsulate depleted fuel rods – unlike France there is no reprocessing here – in copper-coated cast-iron canisters. Some 6,000 of these boxes will be required for the waste from existing power stations, but their number is due to increase following the decision by Sweden on 17 June to gradually replace its 10 reactors.
After being stored for 40 years in special pools, where part of the residual heat wears off, each canister will be set into a cavity, subsequently plugged with bentonite, a rock that swells up in a moist environment and stops water from circulating. But will that be sufficient to contain the radiation for 100,000 years?
All over the world a strange slow-motion race is on to answer the tricky question of how to dispose of waste, some of which will remain radioactive for millions of years, without endangering future generations. The US will have to look for a new site, having abandoned its Yucca Mountain repository where a crack has appeared. Germany has 43,000 cubic metres of waste stacked up without additional protective measures in a leaking salt mine. In Belgium a decision has been postponed for 10 years to enable an underground laboratory to continue investigating how clay reacts to heat released by the storage canisters.
So Sweden is among those that have made the most progress. At the end of the year SKB will file a formal application to build an underground storage facility and in 2025 it will launch the transfer of waste fuel currently cooling in ponds at Oskarshamn. Finland, which is working on a similar technical solution, could follow suit shortly.
France also hopes to commission a repository by then but seems to have made less progress at the administrative level. Only in 2014 will nuclear authorities be filing an application to build a storage facility near the Bure underground laboratory in eastern France.This article originally appeared in Le Monde
Spain overtakes US with world's biggest solar power station
With the new La Florida plant, the nation's solar power production is now equivalent to output of a nuclear power station
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 July 2010 16.59 BST
Spain has opened the world's largest solar power station, meaning that it overtakes the US as the biggest solar generator in the world. The nation's total solar power production is now equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station.
Spain is a world leader in renewable energies and has long been a producer of hydro-electricity (only China and the US have built more dams). It also has a highly developed wind power sector which, like solar power, has received generous government subsidies.
The new La Florida solar plant takes Spain's solar output to 432MW, which compares with the US output of 422MW. The plant, at Alvarado, Badajoz, in the west of the country, is a parabolic trough. With this method of collecting solar energy, sunlight is reflected off a parabolic mirror on to a fluid-filled tube. The heated liquid is then used to heat steam to run the turbines. The mirror rotates during the day to follow the sun's movement. The solar farm covers 550,000 square metres (the size of around 77 football pitches) and produces 50MW of power.
Protermosolar, the association that represents the solar energy sector, says that within a year another 600MW will have come on-stream and projects that by 2013 solar capacity will have reached 2,500MW.
The northern, though thinly populated, region of Navarra is already producing 75% of its energy from a range of renewables, including wind, solar, hydro and biomass. Spain's windfarms now produce around 20,000MW of electricity and on one day in November they accounted for 53% of demand. Last year, solar energy met 2.8% of demand out a total of 12.9% for all renewables. In March, the government announced a plan to increase the renewable share to 22.7% by 2020, slightly ahead of EU targets.
With an average of 340 days of sunshine a year in Spain, solar is more reliable than wind, and can go a long way towards weaning the country off gas-fired and ageing nuclear power stations. Spain is now the fourth largest manufacturer of solar power technology in the world and both solar and wind power technology exports have become valuable earners in a country with a weak manufacturing
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 July 2010 16.59 BST
Spain has opened the world's largest solar power station, meaning that it overtakes the US as the biggest solar generator in the world. The nation's total solar power production is now equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station.
Spain is a world leader in renewable energies and has long been a producer of hydro-electricity (only China and the US have built more dams). It also has a highly developed wind power sector which, like solar power, has received generous government subsidies.
The new La Florida solar plant takes Spain's solar output to 432MW, which compares with the US output of 422MW. The plant, at Alvarado, Badajoz, in the west of the country, is a parabolic trough. With this method of collecting solar energy, sunlight is reflected off a parabolic mirror on to a fluid-filled tube. The heated liquid is then used to heat steam to run the turbines. The mirror rotates during the day to follow the sun's movement. The solar farm covers 550,000 square metres (the size of around 77 football pitches) and produces 50MW of power.
Protermosolar, the association that represents the solar energy sector, says that within a year another 600MW will have come on-stream and projects that by 2013 solar capacity will have reached 2,500MW.
The northern, though thinly populated, region of Navarra is already producing 75% of its energy from a range of renewables, including wind, solar, hydro and biomass. Spain's windfarms now produce around 20,000MW of electricity and on one day in November they accounted for 53% of demand. Last year, solar energy met 2.8% of demand out a total of 12.9% for all renewables. In March, the government announced a plan to increase the renewable share to 22.7% by 2020, slightly ahead of EU targets.
With an average of 340 days of sunshine a year in Spain, solar is more reliable than wind, and can go a long way towards weaning the country off gas-fired and ageing nuclear power stations. Spain is now the fourth largest manufacturer of solar power technology in the world and both solar and wind power technology exports have become valuable earners in a country with a weak manufacturing