Archive for the ‘Solar energy’ Category
Posted by pfairley on January 31, 2013
Much of your editor’s reporting in 2012 focused on the re-emergence of direct current or DC power — through pieces in IEEE Spectrum, Technology Review, and Power & Energy Magazine — and there is more in the works. Some of you, however, may still be wondering what DC power is and how it differs from the alternating current or AC power flowing from most electrical sockets. So here are some answers.
The questions were posed by Andrew Huang, a 9th grader at High Technology High School in Lincroft, NJ, who recently interviewed me for a history project on Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison’s late-19th Century War of Currents. (Check out The Oatmeal’s Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived for a rather tilted yet entertaining take on a key combattant in this epic tech tussle.)
What are some differences between the physics of AC and DC? Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Energy Efficiency, Integrating renewables, Photovoltaics, Power Grids, Renewable Energy | Tagged: AC, alternating current, DC, direct current, Edison, Nikola Tesla, War of Currents | 3 Comments »
Posted by pfairley on December 28, 2012
The Arctic is melting faster than predicted. Is now the time to shut down the low-carbon nuclear power plants in France — the 20th Century’s staunchest proponent of nuclear energy? Is natural gas produced via hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ a gift that is buying time for a transition to renewable energy or a curse that reinforces fossil fuel dependence? Will carbon belching heavyweights such as the U.S. and China ever get serious about cleaning up their energy systems?
Such questions are top order in France, whose President kicked off a Grand Débat on energy this month. The national debate launched by François Hollande, the Socialist who put Nicolas Sarkozy out of work six months ago, could well set France on a path to put nuclear power out to pasture. It could also lift France’s current moratorium on fracking.
No surprise then that France 24‘s English network dedicated one of its year-end debates to Energy in 2013. Your editor was honored to be at the table, along with:
Part One focuses on the what, why and why nots of fracking to produce shale gas and shale oil. Part Two backs out to consider the fate of nuclear and renewable energy in a ‘fracked’ world awash in cheap oil and gas.
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Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Climate skeptics, Energy Economics & Policy, Energy Efficiency, Energy politics, Energy vision, Environmental Journalism, Media, Natural gas, Nuclear Power, Nuclear safety, Renewable Energy, Shale gas, Solar energy, Wind power | Tagged: fracking, france, France 24, Francois Hollande, hydraulic fracturing, Natural gas, nuclear energy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pfairley on April 11, 2012
An advisory body for Japan’s powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has endorsed a tripling of the capacity to pass power between Japan’s otherwise estranged AC power grids: the 50-hertz AC grid that serves Tokyo and northeastern Japan, and the 60-hertz grid that serves western Japan. This frequency divide hascomplicated efforts to keep Japan powered since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami — a task that keeps getting harder with the inexorable decline in nuclear power generation (at present just one of Japan’s 54 reactors is operating). Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Feed-in tariffs, Integrating renewables, Nuclear Power, Power Grids, Renewable Energy, Solar energy, Tariffs, Wind power | Tagged: frequency converters, HVDC, japan, power grid, Renewable Energy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pfairley on June 8, 2010
Ethnic and economic tensions may have stalled Turkey’s longstanding bid to join the European Union, but electrical circuits can be color blind. As of September the alternating current on the Turkish power grid will flow in synchrony with Continental Europe’s, according to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), which took control of Europe’s power grids last summer.
Yesterday’s announcement means that Turkey can trade electricity with Europe and benefit from the bigger grid’s stability, in turn helping to stabilize the lines in neighboring Bulgaria and Greece. The link will run for at least one year, with power exchanges ramping up in stages.
Turkey’s integration provides hope for would-be regional developers in the Mediterranean, who face rising protectionism, ethnic tensions, and seemingly endless diplomatic bombshells from Israel and the Palestinian territories. The Middle East troubles caused the Union for the Mediterranean organized by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to delay a second summit scheduled to convene in Barcelona yesterday until November, according to the AP. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Energy politics, Integrating renewables, Photovoltaics, Power Grids, Renewable Energy, Solar thermal power | Tagged: Algeria, entso-e, Gaza, interconnection, Libya, Mediterranean Ring, Medring, Middle East Peace, Morocco, North Africa, power grid, solar thermal, Tunisia, Turkey, Union for the Mediterranean | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pfairley on April 20, 2010
Solon SE's new paternoster lift. Credit Kevin Matthews / ArchitectureWeek.
“Don’t leave the planet to the stupid.” The corporate tag line from German solar module manufacturer Solon SE screams: ‘We reject complacency’ (not to mention gentility). It’s a slap-in-the-face warning to expect the unexpected, so I was looking for something completely different when I visited Solon’s one-year old Berlin headquarters on an architectural tour of Germany last week. I was not to be disappointed. What I found is probably the first cyclic elevator system installed anywhere in decades.
No pressing a button and waiting for a lift with this modern incarnation of a late-19th-C elevator design! In a cyclic elevator a string of passenger cars run by in a continuous loop. One simply steps into one of the open cars scrolling up or down through its adjacent elevator shafts and takes off. To your weary Canadian correspondent, presently immobilized in Berlin by an angry planet, the hassle-free transport offered by Solon’s cyclic lift was a source of almost drunken pleasure.
Unfortunately, it may also be quite stupid (so to speak). Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Energy Efficiency, Green building, Photovoltaics, Renewable Energy, Solar energy | Tagged: cyclic elevators, Hitachi, paternoster, Photovoltaics, PV, solar power, Solon SE | 1 Comment »
