renewables posts, articles, and infographics

Renewables, Energy Storage & Data Analytics: The 3 Sisters of the Smart Grid

December 19, 2011 by Christine Hertzog
with 509 views

American history buffs and foodies know the story of the three sisters of agriculture, a brilliant combinatorial planting technique practiced by Native Americans. This uniquely American agricultural invention elegantly illustrates the concept of synergy. Synergy is defined as the interactions of two or more things combined to... [read more]

Solar Combined With Wind Power: A Way To Get Rid of Fossil Fuels?

November 30, 2011 by Barry Brook
with 691 views

Earlier, I wrote on how crucially an unreliable sources of power such as wind depend on fossil fuels. Based on real world production data from around the world, I noted that even with massively distributed production wind power is very variable and necessitates a reliable backup power source (typically from fossil fuels) which must be able to produce essentially all the power society consumes. A way around this problem would be a massive energy storage, but I found the size of the required storage to be unreasonably large. [read more]

New Poll Shows Americans Want Clean Energy

October 25, 2011 by Nicole Lederer
with 329 views

Only 14 percent of country thinks we're going in the right direction on energy [read more]

ARPA-E Director Majumdar: America Must “Out-Innovate” Foreign Competitors

October 14, 2011 by Silvio Marcacci
with 331 views

America pioneered many of the clean energy technologies now being used and manufactured around the world, but the edge we once held in clean tech is slipping to foreign competitors. Five years ago, scientists warned the U.S. was falling behind other nations and Congress responded by creating the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA-E, to help fund the development of breakthrough energy technologies. Now, this initiative faces political headwinds and the U.S. risks any momentum gained since ARPA-E was founded. In this one-on-one interview, ARPA-E Director Arun Majumdar discusses the energy challenges America faces from other countries and how the U.S. must “out-innovate” its competitors to spur new economic growth. [read more]

“Germany's Nuclear Phase-out Will Be Successful and Without Serious Risks”

October 7, 2011 by Helmuth Ziegler
with 1,186 views

Germany has made one of the most radical policy changes in the wake of Fukushima. Like Japan, it decided to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Furthermore, by the middle of the century, fossil fuels shall only play a minor role in the energy supply of the country. Some... [read more]

Assessment of Technologies for Carbon Dioxide Mitigation

August 12, 2011 by Barry Brook
with 388 views

The problem of replacing our dependence on fossil fuels is complex. In Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy (TCASE) #12, a checklist was provided to allow assessment of energy transition plans. The sort of questions listed in TCASE 12 are critical for evaluating the feasibility of future scenarios, like the ones from the... [read more]

Clean Renewables and Clean Energy Storage – A Perfect Combination of Domestic Resources

August 1, 2011 by Christine Hertzog
with 623 views

There are interesting synergies between renewable energy and energy storage that have profound implications for the Smart Grid and our energy and economic security. Wind and solar are readily available domestic sources of clean renewable electricity and share a common characteristic of intermittency. Wind tends to pick up at... [read more]

Highlights of BP’s 2011 Statistical Review of World Energy

June 23, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 445 views

Global Energy Growth BP recently released their highly respected annual Statistical Review of World Energy for 2011. Most of the news stories on the report have focused on the exceptionally strong growth in global energy consumption. While that is without a doubt a major story that I will discuss here, I also want to highlight some... [read more]

GE FlexEfficiency 50 CCGT Facilities and Wind Turbine Facilities

June 20, 2011 by Willem Post
with 1,835 views

Historically, electric grids have experienced varying electric demands during a day and varied the output of their generating plants to serve that demand and, at the same time, regulate frequency. Increased wind energy penetration will present additional challenges to the management of the energy on the New England Electric Grid, NEEG.... [read more]

Harnessing Variable Renewables: Where is the Beef?

June 3, 2011 by Charles Barton
with 323 views

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just published a book titled "Harnessing Variable Renewables: a Guide to the Balancing Challenge." Variable renewables refers to solar and wind power generated electricity. Balancing refers to making the grid stable when solar and wind generated electricity are plugged in.In the best of all... [read more]

It's Time For The Renewables Gold Rush

May 20, 2011 by Kate Garratt
with 185 views

It’s a pretty exciting time to be in energy PR.Climate change secretary Chris Huhne has committed the UK to a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions on 1990 levels by 2027 in the fourth carbon budget. And yesterday at the All Energy show in Aberdeen, Scotland’s newly re-elected First Minister, Alex Salmond, said that the nation should aim... [read more]

Renewable Energy Standards: Savvy or Silly?

May 19, 2011 by David Gold
with 292 views

State renewable energy standards have gained momentum over the past decade with 29 states having put in place various types of standard mandates and five more having implemented voluntary standards (34 total). Now the federal government is looking to get into the game with a bi-partisan bill (S. 3813) aiming to set a minimum national standard. Renewable energy standards certainly feel good, but do they really provide the best path for achieving their goals? The existing renewable energy standards are savvy in finding a way to reduce fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions while simultaneously being politically palatable to a broad array of people. But they are a bit silly in their formulation. [read more]

The UK’s Commitment To Carbon Reductions

May 16, 2011 by Lynne Kiesling
with 67 views

I’ll be interested to see how the political, economic, and environmental consequences of this weekend’s new carbon approach in the UK unfolds; according to the Guardian (and the too-much BBC that I listen to): Cabinet ministers have agreed a far-reaching, legally binding “green deal” that will commit the UK to two decades of drastic cuts... [read more]

Renewables Industry Faces Skills Shortage

May 11, 2011 by Kate Garratt
with 325 views

Leaders in the environmental industry took part in a roundtable this morning to discuss the future of renewable energy.Representing both ourselves and our energy PR clients, Aspectus joined the ensuing twitter debate, which covered many of the usual topics – the energy mix, targets, shale gas (following a question from The Guardian’s... [read more]

Are Oil and Gas Renewable?

April 28, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 686 views

A long-time reader of this blog sent me a link to a New York Times article highlighting the diverse scientific pursuits of Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University, among which is the exploration of the "deep carbon cycle". Although much is known about the behavior of carbon in the first seven miles or so of the earth's crust into which... [read more]