The Canada Energy Regulator has just released Canada’s Energy Future 2023, its first long-term outlook on what achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 might look like for Canada.
(Spoiler: the future is electric. Though the report mentions biomass, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage as well. It'll be interesting to see what happens with these technologies in the next 7 years...)
The #EdenProject today switches on its 5km deep #geothermal heat source to help power its climate control in the biomes (reducing their #energy bills by around 40%).
While there're issues of network connectivity (long delays currently) & expense (drilling these shafts is not cheap), the solution that has worked in #Iceland so well, may offer some benefit in our #renewableenergy mix....
so lets home we don't wait another 37 years for the next major geothermal project!
"In the #ClimateChange discourse, #Africa is typically cast as a victim. But what if it could instead become our #hero?
Some envision a different path for Africa, in which investors place its 54 countries at the heart of a green Industrial Revolution. The continent has three things going for it – a young workforce, abundant natural resources and the potential for #RenewableEnergy."
The more powerful the AI, the more energy it takes.
Making generative AI more efficient is the subject of research currently, but the good news is that AI can run on renewable energy. And as a consumer, you can do your part to put pressure on companies and research labs to publish the carbon footprint of their AI models, as some already do.
May was a great month for our #photovoltaic system. The total production was 1.24 MWh (an amount of energy that would power an EV for ~8000 km), it reduced our consumption from the grid by 90% and the surplus we sold to the grid was 580 kWh.
"Scientists Find a Way to Harvest Clean Energy From Nothing But Air
Engineers have demonstrated something marvelous. Almost any material can be used to create a device that continuously harvests energy from humid air.
It's not a development that's ready for practical application, but it does, its creators say, transcend some of the limitations of other harvesters. All the material needs is to be pocked with nanopores less than 100 nanometers in diameter. That's around a thousandth of the width of a human hair, so easier said than done but far simpler than expected.
Such material can harvest the electricity generated by microscopic water droplets in humid air, according to a team led by engineer Xiaomeng Liu of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
They have called their discovery the "generic Air-gen effect"."
Engineers use nanotechnology to pull electricity from thin air?
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a method to harvest continuous electricity from air humidity. They say a device using their tech could be capable of delivering kilowatt-level power.
Not sure if this is a pipe dream or another one of those "good news if scalable" stories but the science seems cool!
Theory of #RenewableEnergy is that it’s very low surface power density, and the practice is that because of this, it occupies vast amounts of one non-renewable resource that everyone forgets about: land surface. In terms of surface power density PV outputs 6.63 W/m2, wind power 1.84 W/m2. Nuclear - 240.81 W/m2. That means for one 1 W of power you need to allocate 120x more land for wind than nuclear, and that is not only for the space occupied by the actual plant but everything: mining, manufacturing, operations, decommissioning.
Some people will argue that utility-scale renewables are not good indeed, but we should stick to decentralised rooftop or wall PV installations. Except that decentralisation requires vast redundancy of infrastructure (cabling, inverters), much lower efficiency, which results in 4x higher production cost (LCOE) per kWh, thus nullifying the claimed lower cost of renewables.
Engineers have been trying to get that message to the broad public long ago: a PV farm or wind turbine look really nice at distance. But an utility-scale renewables power plant is what any other power plant is: a huge, industrial compound, installed on steel and concrete foundation interfering with the land it occupies.
Wenn ihr mit euren #heimspeicher n was für die Netzstabilität und gg. Netzentgelte tun wollt, dann schiebt eure Ladezeiten in den Mittag, zumind. nach 10h. Beide Außenflanken des Solarertrags sind wertvoll fürs Netz und die Ertragsspitze Mittags gilt es abzukappen, das kann euer Speicher.
Gleiches gilt auch für Wärmepumpen und eAutos. Alles Mittags, 7-10h und 17-Ende eher ins Netz schieben. #PVbuddies#Solarenergie#renewableenergy
#SolarEnergy is currently providing over 32% of the #UK's electricity demand. #WindEnergy is down below 14% but together, they are providing nearly half of the electrical power requirement. #France is contributing over 10% and 2.6% from #Norway. About 3.6% is being exported to #Ireland via two interconnects. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
It is so incredibly, irritatingly windy in #Kitchener especially in the concrete canyons downtown (you don't get a pass either #Waterloo :/) Given the whole innovation spiel we love to tell ourselves so much, why aren't we some hub of in-city wind-based technology? Let's at least put this frigging annoyance to work for us.
The nine hours in which Spain made the 100% renewable dream a reality.
Electricity generation through solar, wind and water exceeded total demand in mainland Spain on Tuesday.
A huge drive in the installation of renewables — especially solar — is enabling to cover an increasing part of its electricity needs with renewable energy, substantially reducing its carbon footprint and applying downward pressure on prices during daylight hours.
They arrived about 10am, and just left now about 6pm. Four guys doing the install. We have 10 panels, five on the front and five on the back of the roof so should get good coverage, and a 5.5kW lithium battery. Alas they finished as the sun was going down so there was barely time for it to charge, but the battery did charge to 20% while they were hooking things up to it. We also have an app to check everything.
Scientists in China and the Netherlands say they have collaborated to create solar cells that are made of the same material as 95% of current solar cells but are 26.81% more efficient.
The new solar cell uses a "nanocrystalline-silicon hole contact layer" that can transfer electricity with far less resistance and results in a higher power conversion efficiency.
Solar will be in “unassailable position” as cheapest source of electricity (pv-magazine-usa.com)
Solar levelized cost of electricity will reach $30 per MWh in 2050 as global capacity grows 22-fold, said DNV.