Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi recently published two papers in Energy Policy expanding upon our article on 100% wind, water, and solar power for the world, published in Scientific American in November 2009. I am attaching corrected in-press proofs of the articles. Mark and I continue to work on various aspects of this, so we […]
Read Morea regular up to date source of hard info on renewable energy- Renew
Need a regular up to date source of hard info on renewable energy? Renew is a 36 page newsletter on renewable energy developments and policy which has been produced by Open University Professor Dave Elliott without a break bi-monthly since 1979. It’s widely seen as a reliable and up to date source of information, news […]
Read MoreHas Professor MacKay FRS, Chief Scientific Advisor to DECC, underestimated Britain's potential for Renewable Energy?
Today, The Times has claimed that Britain’s potential renewable resources are insufficient to meet demand, and therefore that Britain needs new nuclear plants. This is reported as having been stated by the new Chief Scientific Advisor to DECC, Professor David MacKay FRS, the author of the free online book: Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air – though it appears that The Times invented this quote. Nevertheless, the claim that Britain cannot live on its own renewables, is also made in his book.
However, the claim is not true.
On the professor’s own (underestimated) calculation of Britain’s renewable potential, it is possible for Britain to power itself from wind and solar. Current energy demand (heat, transport & electricity), is 98kWh per person per day (245GW), and the professor’s book identifies 68kWh/d (170GW) of wind onshore and offshore, and 55kWh/d (137.5GW) from photovoltaics, which together gives 123kWh/d (307.5GW). That means that even ignoring wave, tidal, geothermal and biomass, Britain’s renewable potential supply just from solar and wind substantially exceeds our energy demand.
Read MoreNotes on Spanish Solar Energy Plants (CSP)
At this moment, Spain has about 150 MW of thermo electric plants
connected to the grid; some 750 MW are under construction and some 14 GW
of these types of plants have requested license and have established the
required bonds by the Spanish government. There are basically three
types of plants:
Note from TREC on extra supergrid / DESERTEC links
Hi Andrew, House of Commons presentation, June 18th 2009- European Supergrid and 100% Renewable Energy Congratulations on organising the above meeting at the HoC about supergrids and thanks for your support in that area. In connection with supergrids, you may be interested to put some or all of the following links on to the website […]
Read MoreADRECS – How To Rapidly Convert The Central Deserts Of China To Agricultural Regions Producing Huge Amounts Of Renewable Energy For Europe
This article describes a novel concept using existing technology to very quickly a) control the desertification and sand drifts b) enable the establishment of plant species c) the construction of wind farms or CSP connected to Europe by either a lengthy HVDC transmission system, or the local production of ammonia which can readily be transported to eg Europe / USA and easily used as a vehicle fuel d) the construction of a vast area of seawater greenhouses using sea water pumped thousands of miles to be desalinated by solar energy to allow the production of food and or energy crops. (Contrary to what some ill-informed people claim this does not use a huge amount of energy compared to other national uses) e) unlocks the massive potential for carbon sequestration via organic matter in soil
Read More"Green Grid" – Excellent article in New Scientist by David Strahan (The Last Oil Shock) on HVDC supergrids
Articles “Green grid” A version of this article was published in New Scientist on 12 March 2009. Original is here (This article was in part stimulated by the last Claverton conference held at Wessex Water, Bath where Dr Czisch spoke, and various discussions, (various discussions2), (various discussions3) (varous discusions4) on this website. Graeme Bathhurst is […]
Read MorePumping Power calculator – what power is needed to pump seawater to the middle of the Gobi Desert for desalination in the SeaWater Greenhouse? – answer – not a lot
The spread sheet for calculating this, kindly provided by Wessex Water, one of the UK’s leading water supply companies, is available here: This spread sheet enables you to calculate power needed to pump water any distance through any height: http://tx1.fcomet.com/~claverto/cms/?dl_name=Pipe_Headloss__Power_calculator.xls You can see that in fact, compared to national energy consumptions, […]
Read MoreCheap Solar Concentrator for PV
“Article describes a square piece of clear, molded acrylic about a centimeter thick which when beam of light shines a directly at its flat surface, a green beam enters the acrylic and bends toward the center of the square. “If the process is repeated at different points on the surface the beam darts toward the […]
Read MoreTHE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY: LIBERALISATION, LONG DISTANCE TRANSMISSION, HVDC AND SUPERGRIDS
Polly Higgins 28.07.08 ELECTRICITY & TRANSMISSION IN EUROPE AND BEYOND Russia is running out of gas, oil is peaking globally, and energy prices are escalating. The most recent climate change science from NASA tells us that we must stabilise our carbon dioxide emissions at 350 parts per million, a figure we have already overshot with […]
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