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 […]

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Renewable Community Energy request for european contacts

Subject: Renewable Community Energy – request from George Hay in the US. Claverton:   Are there any European “leaders” in community energy/sustainable energy concepts in England/Europe you could put me in contact with?   I’m seeing in CA: the RESCO project by Gerry Braun, methodology for municipalities to plan for distributed resouces, attract critical mass of investment […]

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ADRECS – 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

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Toronto gets feed in tarrifs – we don't – we wonder why.

Quote “Renewable energy in Ontario got a massive boost Thursday with the proposal of a fixed-price plan that, by June, could see the province paying out generous premiums to large and small generators of green power. The premiums – called advanced feed-in tariffs – are what the government guarantees to pay over the life a […]

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"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 […]

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Cheap 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 […]

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New Study Puts The Generation Costs For Power From New Nuclear Plants Triple Current U.S. Electricity Rates

A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour — triple current U.S. electricity rates.

see: http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/ rel=no follow

Current CSP costs (still substantially less than nuclear):
Vinod Khosla gives current CSP at 16 cents kWh (and note PV far higher at 22.4 cents kW/hr – see slide 124 onwards at http://www.slideshare.net/guest76ed37/khosla92507 rel=no follow
Also, good summary of costs can be found here: puts current CSP at 13 – 17 cents kWh: http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/04/concentrating-on-important-things-solar.html/ rel=no follow
Makes CSP look very attractive indeed at 11 cents per kWh by 2011 (cf Ausra & Bright Source CSP plants signed up with PG&E in South West America) – compatible with gas prices, and estimated to reduce to 4-6 cents per kWhr by 2020. Nuclear costs unlikely to reduce, but instead are on an upward trajectory.

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