it will be the largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the world, and the first phase, called Noor 1, will go live next month.
The potential for solar power from the desert has been known for decades. In the days after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 the German particle physicist Gerhard Knies
Morocco environment minister, Hakima el-Haite, believes that solar energy could have the same impact on the region this century that oil production had in the last.
so when we heard about the potential of solar energy, we thought; why not? olar energy will make up a third of Morocco renewable energy supply by 2020,
with wind and hydro taking the same share each. e are very proud of this project,
due to open in 2017 will store energy for up to eight hours opening the prospect of 24/7 solar energy in the Sahara,
says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of Société dnvestissements Energétiques, the national renewable energy investment firm. But he says the project ultimate impact will go far wider even as far as the Middle east. he ultimate objective given by his majesty the king is Mecca. hether that ambition is achieved remains to be seen
but exporting solar energy could have stabilising effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen).
what is advanced the most renewable energy programme in the middle East and North African region. e are at the avant-garde of solar,
#Shortening Organic solar cell Production One of the building blocks of the solar panel, solar cells are responsible for converting solar energy into electricity.
electric cars and grid-scale storage for solar power.""In their simplest form, batteries are made of three components:
One compelling idea is to use solar energy to split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen and then harvest the hydrogen for use as fuel.
This meant that more of the solar energy could be used by the electrode.""Now we understand what's going on at the microscopic level,
#Storage advance may boost solar thermal energy potential Engineers at Oregon State Univ. have identified a new approach for the storage of concentrated solar thermal energy,
Auyeung said. he molten salts now being used to store solar thermal energy can only work at about 600 degrees centigrade,
which consumes thermal energy. During discharge, the recombination of strontium oxide and carbon dioxide releases the stored heat.
#Energy-efficient reaction drives biofuel conversion technology A new study from the U s. Dept of energy (DOE)' s Oak ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) explains the mechanism behind a technology that converts bio
Uncovering the mechanism behind the reaction helps support the potential economic viability of ORNL's direct biofuel-to-hydrocarbon conversion approach."
Conventional propeller-type turbines are like underwater wind turbines and the number of suitable sites for them are reduced vastly by the size of their large blades,
"This solar flow battery design can potentially be applied for grid-scale solar energy conversion and storage, as well as producing'electrolyte fuels'that might be used to power future electric vehicles,"one of the team,
's goal of being powered by 90 percent renewable energy by 2025. The decision means that, with the exception of a few small-scale industrial plants,
"But significant market investment in other forms of renewable energy in recent years, particularly in geothermal, means that a coal backstop is becoming less of a requirement."
Over the past year and a half, New zealand has increased significantly the amount of electricity it produces from renewable energy,
with nearly 80 percent of its electricity coming from renewable sources in 2014 thanks to huge expansion in geothermal.
when it comes to renewable energy. But if recent research has shown us anything, it's that there are plenty of renewable energy sources out there to be exploited,
and every country On earth has more than enough to go around. We just need to follow New zealand's lead,
say researchers Figures indicate that the world uptake of renewable energy has eclipsed finally its demand for fossil fuel sources,
which effectively mimics plant-based photosynthesis by using solar energy to convert water into hydrogen. The process,
clean and renewable source of hydrogen as the ultimately sustainable fuel, said Leone Spiccia, lead author of the research,
Theye since been working towards a battery-integrated window that can store energy from sunlight while also changing its structure automatically to provide a tint during the day.
It plans to start selling CO2-based synthetic fuels by 2018.""It's now possible to take CO2 out of the atmosphere,
not just for smartphones but for electric cars and solar power, where batteries are essential for storing energy to use
Solar energy heats the zeolite and increases the methanol vapor pressure, the refrigerant is condensed and stored in a tank flowing to the evaporator."
The project was presented at the International Congress of Solar energy at Germany y
#Future antibiotic-making kit for amateurs? Kit could one day Be led by widely available Professor Jeffrey Bode of the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules at Nagoya University in Japan,
and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels.
"In natural photosynthesis, leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass,
"In our system, nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria, where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products."
the Berkeley team achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of up to 0. 38-percent for about 200 hours under simulated sunlight,
in the production of biofuels--have been produced in the reactor. Following synthesis, magnets used as catalysts can be gathered efficiently in
and silicon-based materials for thermoelectric and solar power components. VTT is currently seeking a party interested in commercializing the technique e
#Better battery imaging paves way for renewable energy future"Iron fluoride has the potential to triple the amount of energy a conventional lithium-ion battery can store,
we could advance large-scale renewable energy storage technologies for electric cars and microgrids, "he says. Jin also believes that the novel X-ray imaging technique will facilitate the studies of other technologically important solid-state transformations
wind turbines Karl A. Gschneidner and fellow scientists at the U s. Department of energy's Ames Laboratory have created a new magnetic alloy that is an alternative to traditional rare-earth permanent magnets.
and wind turbines--eliminates the use of one of the scarcest and costliest rare earth elements, dysprosium,
#Electrical power converter allows grid to easily accept power from renewable energy Doctoral student Joseph Carr developed the system with his adviser, Juan Balda, University Professor and head of the department of electrical engineering.
Innovations in this field are critical as the United states moves toward integration of renewable energy sources to the national power grid.
"The availability and use of renewable energy sources, such as solar, geothermal and wind, and their associated harvesting systems increase the need for new power converters that can efficiently convert diverse energy sources to work across modern electrical grid systems.
Current renewable energy conversion systems are bulky, inefficient and struggle to accept multiple inputs from diverse sources.
under the sunlight, a small portion of solar energy(<1 percent) captured by chlorophyll is emitted as fluorescence.
and storing renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, is a key barrier to a clean energy economy.
According to the team's simulations of solar power generation during the summer solstice in Arizona it is almost as good as a conventional single-axis tracker, offering a 36 percent improvement over a stationary panel.
a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.
a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.
#Biodiesel made easier, cleaner with waste-recycling catalyst Researchers at Cardiff University have devised a way of increasing the yield of biodiesel by using the waste left over from its production process.
Using simple catalysis, the researchers have been able to recycle a non-desired by-product produced when biodiesel is formed from vegetable oil,
and convert this into an ingredient to produce even more biodiesel. It is believed this new process will have significant environmental benefits by improving the yield of biodiesel in a sustainable way that doesn't require the use of additional fossil fuels
and could potentially reduce the costs of the biodiesel production process. The results have been published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
By 2020, the EU aims to have 10 per cent of the transport fuel of every EU country come from renewable sources such as biofuels.
Fuel suppliers are required also to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the EU fuel mix by 6 per cent by 2020 in comparison to 2010.
At present, biodiesel is produced by combining fats and oils with methanol, which is derived usually from fossil fuels.
A waste product from this process is crude glycerol which is formed on a large scale and contains many impurities that make it costly to purify
which could then be used as a starting reactant to create more biodiesel. To achieve this, the researchers reacted glycerol with water,
the researchers estimate up to a 10 per cent increase in biodiesel production, which they claim would be very helpful to industry at this point in time.
"Biodiesel manufacture is a growing part of the EU fuel pool, with statutory amounts being required to be added to diesel that is derived from fossil fuels."
"We've provided unprecedented chemistry that highlights the potential to manufacture biodiesel in a much more environmentally friendly,
"This paper shows how fundamental catalysis research can develop new mild processes to enhance the sustainability of biodiesel.
Sun powered cell phone chargers woven into the fabric of backpacks. A new generation of organic semiconductors may allow these kinds of flexible electronics to be manufactured at low cost,
A recent U s. Department of energy report identified one of the fundamental bottlenecks to improved solar power technologies as"determining the mechanisms by
"because it shunted thermal energy directly into the deep, cold void of space. In their new paper, the researchers applied that work to improve solar array performance
#Building a biofuel-boosting Swiss Army knife Researchers at Michigan State university have built a molecular Swiss Army knife that streamlines the molecular machinery of cyanobacteria,
also known as blue-green algae, making biofuels and other green chemical production from these organisms more viable. The team has done in a year
organisms that have many potential uses for making green chemicals or biofuels. The new protein replaces four gene products,
and thus tapping into increasingly efficient solar energy conversion and new pathways for CO2 reduction. Beyond this, researchers are interested in numerous other chemical reactions.
Holey metamaterials enhance thermal energy harvesting It's estimated that the U s. fails to use more than half of the energy it generates--mostly
For the case of optimizing thermal energy harvesting, the researchers found they could"spectrally tune"a surface to emit more radiation at 1 THZ frequency.
Simulations predict that an antenna placed near the holey surface could capture 10,000 to 100,000 times more thermal energy than an antenna in open space.
The results will also help the team calculate how rectenna thermal energy harvesting might compare to other ways of harvesting waste heat,
#Energy-efficient reaction drives biofuel conversion technology A new study from the Department of energy's Oak ridge National Laboratory explains the mechanism behind a technology that converts bio-based ethanol into hydrocarbon blend
Uncovering the mechanism behind the reaction helps support the potential economic viability of ORNL's direct biofuel-to-hydrocarbon conversion approach."
and a flatpack biofuel stove. What other sustainable resources could be tapped into for similar purposes
and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels.
leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass,
nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria, where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products.
With this approach, the Berkeley team achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of up to 0. 38-percent for about 200 hours under simulated sunlight,
season and year along with weather events and increased use of intermittent renewable energy from the sun
and at the National Renewable energy Laboratory that collectively analyze trends in PV system pricing. The latest edition of Tracking the Sun
energy harvesters that would convert waste heat to electricity and ultimately for a new way to efficiently capture solar energy.
we could apply it to energy conversion technologies and solar energy capture. The research, supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center and the Army Research Office (ARO
The advance could eventually lead to vastly improved technology for capturing solar energy. In fact, it could literally reshape solar cells.
and for the wider use of renewable energy. OSU officials say they are seeking support for further research
#Graphene's thermoelectric properties to help cars recover lost thermal energy Charging bateries or running air conditioning could be assisted by energy from fuel normally wasted as heat emissions One of the less well-known properties of graphene could enable the carbonaceous wonder-material to help combustion engine vehicles to make better use of the energy from their fuel by converting waste heat into electricity
including power generation in wind turbines, memory storage, and medical imaging. However, only three metals iron cobalt and nickel-are naturally ferromagnetic,
This meant that more solar energy could be used by the electrode. ow we understand what going on at the microscopic level,
And the new design could be used to store renewable energy of the electrical grid, the researchers suggested.
Musk also unveiled a larger owerpack a 100kwh battery block to help utilities smooth out their supply of wind and solar energy
There is more good news for proponents of renewable energy after the UK government #which is no longer encouraging onshore wind
and solar energy#gave the go-ahead for a large offshore wind farm that could provide power for up to two million homes.
solar power inverters, industrial motor controllers, and other electronics will produce $900 billion in energy savings annually by 2025.
It will help us make parts that are stronger lighter and function better for more energy-efficient transportation and energy production applications such as cars and wind turbines.
The research was supported by the Advanced Manufacturing Office in DOE's Office of Energy efficiency and Renewable energy.
Research for this project was conducted at ORNL's National Transportation Research center and Manufacturing Demonstration Facility DOE user facilities with funding from DOE's Office of Energy efficiency and Renewable energy.
#Discovery of cellular snooze button advances cancer, biofuel research The discovery of a cellular snooze button has allowed a team of Michigan State university scientists to potentially improve biofuel production and offer insight on the early stages
while seeking ways to improve algae's capacity as a biofuel. Its application in cancer research
But to convert them into truly viable biofuel producers we need them to grow and produce oil simultaneously.
and is always active For biofuels this would remove a major hurdle and gives scientists a way to potentially produce high amounts of oil and biomass.
#Balancing renewable energy costs and optimizing energy mix Increasing reliance on renewable energies is the way to achieve greater CO2 EMISSION sustainability and energy independence.
In the region of Pucanganom we installed a system that processes toilet sewage of 15 families and the dung of their animals in three biogas facilities.
There the organic wastes are converted into biogas and fertilizer within a period of one month. Via a pipeline system the gas is passed directly on to the gas stoves of the neighboring houses.
#Balancing birds and biofuels: Grasslands support more species than cornfields In Wisconsin bioenergy is for the birds.
and biofuels too by providing information for land managers farmers conservationists and policy makers as the bioenergy industry ramps up particularly in Wisconsin and the central U s as bioenergy production demand increases we should pay attention to the ecological consequences says Turner.
According to Blank and Turner the study is one of the first to examine grassland fields already producing biomass for biofuels
While previous studies suggest corn is a more profitable biofuel crop than grasses and other types of vegetation the new findings indicate grassland fields may represent an acceptable tradeoff between creating biomass for bioenergy and providing habitat for grassland birds.
and the biofuels industry can win. Incentives for a conservation-minded approach could be used to help offset potential differences in profit the researchers suggest.
this area of research could revolutionise renewable energy production. Working in collaboration with researchers at the University of Sheffield,
While the idea of concentrating solar energy is not new transmitting it flexibly to a customizable location via fiber-optic cables is the really unique aspect of this project.
and solar energy work environmental engineers for waste treatment and stabilization mechanical engineers to build actuators and moving parts and electrical engineers to design control systems Linden said.
In late December tests at CU-Boulder showed the solar energy directed into the reaction chamber could easily boil water
because we have a high interest in developing countries and expertise in all of the renewable energy technologies as well as sanitation.
or from huge rotating machines akin to wind turbines that sit above water, said Ozgur Sahin, Ph d,
#Safe drinking water Via Solar power Desalination Natasha Wright, an MIT Phd student in mechanical engineering, has designed a solar powered system that makes water safe to drink for rural, off-grid Indian villages.
She designed a village-scale desalination system that runs on solar power. Since her system is powered by the sun,
and provide backup for renewable energy sources that produce intermittent output, such as wind and solar power. But Chiang says the technology is suited also well to applications where weight
#New Technology Could Transform Solar energy Storage Chemists at UCLA have developed a new technology that is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
The new design is inspired by the way that plants generate energy through photosynthesis. iology does a very good job of creating energy from sunlight,
To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material. There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics
though, the UCLA research has proven that inexpensive photovoltaic materials can be organized in a way that greatly improves their ability to retain energy from sunlight.
The netherlands is not a top producer of solar power, although installed solar capacity jumped 50%last year, according to estimates.
Renewable energy now accounts for a little less than 9%of electricity used in the country. The project developers believe about 20%of the country roads would be suitable for solar panel installations.
#Where GE is putting its latest $10b investment GE announced it will invest another $10 billion into its green energy R&d program with an aim of boosting the output of its wind turbines (while cutting costs), increasing power plant efficiency and perhaps,
natural, renewable energy and power plants. On the natural gas front an area that many environmentalists would argue is not a green energy source GE will work on developing alternative technologies to replace water in the hydraulic fracturing process.#
and expand renewable energy production. For more details on the U s. smart grid plans, read: Administration Announces Grid Modernization Initiatives to Foster a Clean energy Economy and Spur Innovation Fact sheet:
In standard turbine design, wind energy is used to turn the unit's rotors, which then converts this type of power into electricity through powering machinery
and accounts for a problem faced by any system reliant on wind energy--the natural element's variability.
Described as the on-demand generation of electricity from stored wind energy, the patent application details a mechanism in
The variable nature of wind may interfere with on-demand generation of electricity from wind energy.
renewable energy sources to power its manufacturing chain. Image credit: Apple Insider Related:''Cliff'bill winners: wind, rum,
and wind farms to retailers turning to rooftop solar and biogas to power their big box stores and distribution centers,
He said he expects the retailer to be paying as little for solar power as utility power in less than three years,
The King Adbullah City for Atomic and Renewable energy, the government organization also known as Ka-care that was set up in 2010 to oversee the country's renewable energy strategy,
Ka-care announced at the recent Fourth Saudi Solar energy Forum it plans to add 41 gigawatts of solar capacity--enough to generate a more than 20 percent of the country's power needs--by 2032.
The estimated $109 billion plan isn't just about building solar power plants. Instead, the government wants to build a solar industry, according to al-Sulaiman's presentation.
#Leaked EU documents rank biofuel emissions higher than crude oil European union politics website Euractive has gotten its hands on official EU data reporting that many biofuel crops release more carbon dioxide than crude oil,
The numbers were intended for release in the spring when the EU presents new proposals on biofuels,
The European commission has defended long biofuels, despite dissent from Greenpeace and other environmental organizations. Its current biofuel roadmap demands that at least 5. 75%of all energy sold on the market of any member country be biofuel
boosted to 10%by 2020. However, also in the biofuel directive is that biofuel production should be sustainable,
and the new numbers suggest that it is not. The leaked data present higher carbon costs for biofuels because, for the first time,
the analysts incorporated the effects of indirect land use change (ILUC). ILUC is the rise in emissions
when forests and wetlands are destroyed to clear land to grow biofuel crops. And with ILUC added to the mix, it looks like some top biofuel crops are worse for the environment, in terms of carbon emissions, than crude oil.
The EU's default value for measuring carbon efficiency for oil from tar sands is 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel (CO2/mj.
incorporating ILUC, for various biofuel crops, thanks to Euractive: Palm oil-105g Soybean-103g Rapeseed-95g Sunflower-86g Palm oil with methane capture-83g Wheat (process fuel not specified)- 64g Wheat (as process fuel natural gas used in CHP)- 47g
Corn (Maize)- 43g Sugar cane-36g Sugar beet-34g Wheat (straw as process fuel in CHP plants)- 35g 2g Ethanol (land-using)- 32g 2g Biodiesel (land-using)- 21g 2g Ethanol
(non-land using)- 9g 2g Biodiesel (non-land using)- 9g If European politicians recognize these figures
The top biodiesel crops--palm soybean, and rapeseed oil--are all the least energy efficient. However, they are also the cheapest to produce,
Solar power Bike path Opens In Netherlands This Week On November 12, 2014, The netherlands will proudly open up the world first public solar powered road.
#Wind turbines Power Liquid-air Energy storage One startup energy company is looking to reinvent not only wind energy, but also energy storage.
Unlike traditional wind turbines, which have three blades and a central gearbox, Keuka turbine is a pinwheel of aluminum blades that sits atop a floating V-shape platform containing liquid air.
Bright Energy is developing a system that would use offshore renewable energy to store compressed air in vessels in the ocean.
which you can temporarily store your solar energy. In short, for a solar fuels future we cannot ignore gallium phosphide any longer,
Visible light accounts for under half of the solar energy that reaches Earth's surface. Nearly all of the rest comes from infrared radiation.
Apple is putting a massive $848 million into solar energy. According to Cook, Apple is putting $848 million into building a 1, 300-acre solar farm in Monterey, Calif,
As Amazon announced last November, its long-term goal is o achieve 100 percent renewable energy usage for the global AWS infrastructure footprint.
in today announcement. his power purchase agreement helps to increase the renewable energy used to power our infrastructure in the US
and renewable energy projects for powering our datacenters that we currently have in the works. While Google has made various wind energy investments over the last few years
this is Amazon first (or at least the first one it is publicly talking about) s
#Cheaper Sensors Will Fuel The Age Of Smart Everything For better or worse, we are about the enter the age of smart everything.
long-lived batteries that could make it possible to rely heavily on intermittent, renewable energy sources. Aquion Energy, a company spun out of Carnegie mellon University,
solar, and hydropower, could help hundreds of millions of people who live beyond conventional grids get reliable electricity.
or wind turbines to provide round-the-clock power. Alternatively, diesel generators can be used. Aquion batteries use sodium ions from saltwater as their electrolyte.
The new energy storage technology could be crucial to making renewable energy more viable, especially in remote locations.
By making solar power cheaper than diesel fuel in many places, it could help bring clean power to some of the more than one billion people in the world without reliable electricity (see Billion People in the Dark.
including stabilizing conventional power grids as they come to rely more heavily on renewable energy. The company isn disclosing where its batteries are being usedxcept to say the projects are international a
This contraption is part of one of the most efficient solar power devices ever made. Semprius, a startup based in Durham, North carolina,
claims that the next generation of this power unit will make solar power the cheapest option for utilities installing new power plants.
That raises a disturbing possibilityight a breakthrough technology that could make solar power truly competitive never see the light of day, not because of any lack of technical merit,
low-cost solar power possible. The stamp, developed in Rogers lab, allows Semprius to improve upon a type of solar power called concentrated photovoltaics,
which has been around for decades (see ltra-Efficient Solar. The idea is that you can increase the amount of energy any solar cell gathers by putting lenses over the cell to focus light into it.
and some clever lens designs, allowed Semprius to break a solar power efficiency record in 2012.
and Siemens drawing on its expertise in building solar power plants. But 15 months after Siemens invested in Semprius,
Huge investments in conventional silicon solar power, especially in China had lowered costs of production but also flooded the market with cheap solar panels.
Semprius solar devices are suited best for use in solar power plants. Having the backing of Siemens would have helped convince utilities to take a chance on novel technology.
Such advances might eventually make solar power cheaper than fossil fuels, even without Semprius technology. But silicon-based solar power is not yet there,
and that the opportunity for Semprius. The U s. Energy Information Administration estimates that new solar power plants will produce power at just under 15 cents per kilowatt-hourar higher than the 6. 5 cents per kilowatt-hour for natural gas power.
Thus, if Semprius is right that it will soon have technology to make solar panels capable of producing electricity at around 5 cents per kilowatt-hour,
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