Archive for the ‘Wind power’ Category
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 April 4, 2011
Amidst the stubbornly disappointing string of news emanating from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, there are signs that its melting nuclear fuel rods are inspiring some important and long-overdue developments in global power systems. And there’s good news for both nuclear supporters and critics.
Hopeful spinoff number one: Berlin is getting serious about upgrading the balkanized and inadequate transmission grid that represents a serious liability for Germany’s renewable energy ambitions.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision last month to shut down Germany’s oldest nuclear reactors and temporarily scrub life extensions for the rest was widely seen as a sop to voters in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Well, Merkel’s Conservative Democrats lost the state to the Green Party, and she hasn’t looked back. Last week a document leaked from Germany’s Economy Ministry and reported by Bloomberg revealed plans to revamp the power grid–a precondition to replacing nuclear energy with solar, wind and other renewable power sources. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Integrating renewables, Nuclear Power, Nuclear safety, Power Grids, Renewable Energy, Wind power | Tagged: China, DENA, fukushima daiichi, Germany, japan nuclear emergency, nuclear safety | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pfairley on March 24, 2011
In January we reported that winds across the Northern continents were losing some of their punch, and that climate change threatened to weaken them further — altogether bad news for wind power. In stark contrast, Australian researchers report today in the journal Science that gusts are accelerating over Earth’s oceans.
Unfortunately the trend offers offshore wind power a mixed bag: stronger but also more dangerous winds. “Mean wind conditions over the oceans have only marginally increased over the last 20 years. It is the extreme conditions where there has been a larger increase,” says Ian Young, vice chancellor at the Australian National University in Canberra and principal author of today’s report. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Earth observation, Renewable Energy, Wind power | Tagged: altimeters, Climate Change, Earth observation, Renewable Energy, satellites, wind power, wind speed, wind turbines | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pfairley on October 18, 2010
The UK government has shelved schemes to build a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary, West of London, that could have supplied 5% of the UK’s power needs. What reports are missing is the endurance of more nimble tidal turbines and other marine power devices–distributed energy devices that the UK is helping to nurture.
Barrages are essentially hydro dams that capture each high tide and generate electricity from their outflow.The first large barrage and largest currently operating crosses the estuary of the Rance River on France’s Atlantic coast, generating a peak of 240 megawatts–the scale of a large wind farm. Five competing proposals for a Severn barrage were to generate up to 40 times that much from the region’s 14-meter tides. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Environmental impacts, Financing renewables, Renewable Energy, Wave & tidal energy, Wind power | Tagged: La Rance, marine energy, Severn Barrage, tidal energy, U.K., wave power | Leave a Comment »
