By some estimates, America’s oceans could provide enough electric power to meet a quarter of the country’s energy needs. Despite this, until recently the contribution to the U.S. electric grid from marine energy has been exactly zero.
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Offshore Wind At Last
Europe has embraced offshore wind power as a major contributor to its electricity needs for a long time. As of June, there was a total of 3,344 offshore wind turbines with a combined capacity of over 11.5 gigawatts of power connected in European waters in 82 wind farms located in 11 different countries and providing power to millions of people.
Disruptive Light Bulb Technology
Investment companies like to talk about the disruptive nature of technologies and how they change industries while simultaneously changing our lives. The growing emphasis on a low-carbon economy has spotlighted a number of technologies as being disruptive in their industry sectors. One hears this frequently when discussing wind and solar power. Clearly, these two technologies are changing the face of the utility industry, but at least at present, they still represent a fairly small fraction of the overall business.
Virtual Power Plants
The traditional model of the electricity grid is one where centralized large power plants send power through transmission lines to substations and then on to homes and businesses. As localized renewable energy sources, energy storage systems, and efficiency systems proliferate throughout the system, a new concept is emerging: that of the virtual power plant.
Energy Intensity
Every stage of civilization is characterized by its use of energy. From burning wood to steam engines to our electrified society, energy is behind everything we do. Over time, human society has become increasingly energy intensive. As our standards of living have improved and as we overcome the effects of weather – either cold or warm – it takes more and more energy to live the lives we lead.
Solar Power 24/7
The biggest challenge facing both solar and wind power sources is that they don’t produce power around the clock; they only work when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. As a result, they don’t quite measure up to the requirement for power on demand.
Los Angeles’ Giant Battery
Los Angeles has decided to replace a major gas-burning power plant with an energy storage device which, if not exceeded by another before it is completed, will be the world’s largest storage battery.
Too Much Of A Good Thing
Germany has continued to be the most aggressive adopter of renewable energy among large industrial nations. The country has the goal of shifting to 100% renewables by 2050. Its continuing embracing of solar and wind generation resources over the past decade has resulted in renewables supplying a third of the country’s power on average.
Storing Energy With Rocks
Energy storage is hot topic because more and more electricity is being generated from renewable sources like solar power and wind power that can’t operate all the time because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. So we need ways to store surplus energy when it is produced and be able to use it later when it is needed.
Clean Fossil Fuel Electricity
Renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are getting cheaper all the time and are, in many places, competing head to head on price with traditional fossil fuel generation. The ultimate goal is to replace polluting energy sources entirely, but even under the most optimistic scenarios, fossil fuel plants aren’t just going to disappear very quickly.
A Wind-Solar Streetlight
The Caribbean island nation of Grenada has installed a wind and solar powered off-grid streetlight. An Irish company called airsynergy has developed the underlying technology which it calls a Remote Power Unit or RPU.
Coal And Water
We recently highlighted how safe drinking water is in short supply. According to research published in the journal Science Advances, at least two thirds of the global population – more than four billion people – live with severe water scarcity for at least one month every year. And 500 million people around the world face water scarcity all year.
Long Island Wind
The Interior Department has recently defined a “Wind Energy Area”, consisting of about 81,000 acres, located 11 miles south of Long Island. The designation is a first step to opening up the acreage for large-scale, competitive wind energy leasing through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Old-School Companies And Renewable Energy
The biggest Internet companies have been embracing renewable energy for years now. The company that bought the largest amount of clean energy last year was Google, which has three times the renewable capacity of the next biggest user. Other familiar names in the top ten companies in total wind and solar capacity include Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple. These companies have been ahead of the pack in looking for sustainable ways to meet their substantial energy needs.
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