Satellite oversight: Ensuring Europe's renewable energy security from above
Researchers are using AI and satellite technologies to make the continent's renewable energy infrastructure more reliable.
Jul 11, 2024
0
6
Engineering
Researchers are using AI and satellite technologies to make the continent's renewable energy infrastructure more reliable.
Jul 11, 2024
0
6
Business
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has announced that he will go to the next election promising to build seven nuclear power stations. Dutton has promised the sites can be operational between 2035 and 2037, and will be built ...
Jun 19, 2024
0
9
Energy & Green Tech
Green hydrogen holds many promises: it can serve as a "battery" for energy storage, it can be used in the chemical industry, and its only emission will be water vapor. But, unfortunately, green hydrogen is not yet widely ...
Jun 18, 2024
0
6
Energy & Green Tech
Energy researchers have been trying to understand the implications of a transition to fully renewable energy for decades. Some past studies suggested that technologies to generate energy from renewable energy sources, such ...
Engineering
From severe storms to recent unprecedented cold and heat waves, extreme weather events are impacting electric utilities, grid operators, and ultimately customers like never before. At the same time, the energy sources that ...
Jun 13, 2024
0
18
Energy & Green Tech
Earth is facing a human-driven climate crisis, which demands a rapid transition to low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar power. But we're also living through a mass extinction event. Never before in human history ...
Jun 8, 2024
0
1
Energy & Green Tech
The sun beats down from a cloudless sky on the town of Boundiali, where Ivory Coast's first solar power plant embodies the drive to embrace clean energy without abandoning fossil fuels.
Jun 7, 2024
0
1
Energy & Green Tech
Researchers have achieved a significant advancement in battery technology that could improve how energy is stored and utilized, particularly for large-scale applications.
Jun 5, 2024
0
6
Energy & Green Tech
The ongoing transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources has never been more important as climate change and sustainability awareness continue to rise.
May 31, 2024
0
16
Energy & Green Tech
A new study maps how energy and food systems depend on stored water to generate hydropower and feed irrigation. Dams and reservoirs won't be able to meet the demand in coming decades.
May 30, 2024
0
5
Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat—which are renewable (naturally replenished). In 2006, about 18% of global final energy consumption came from renewables, with 13% coming from traditional biomass, such as wood-burning. Hydroelectricity was the next largest renewable source, providing 3% of global energy consumption and 15% of global electricity generation.
Wind power is growing at the rate of 30 percent annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 121,000 megawatts (MW) in 2008, and is widely used in European countries and the United States. The annual manufacturing output of the photovoltaics industry reached 6,900 MW in 2008, and photovoltaic (PV) power stations are popular in Germany and Spain. Solar thermal power stations operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of these is the 354 MW SEGS power plant in the Mojave Desert. The world's largest geothermal power installation is The Geysers in California, with a rated capacity of 750 MW. Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugar cane, and ethanol now provides 18 percent of the country's automotive fuel. Ethanol fuel is also widely available in the USA. While most renewable energy projects and production is large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to small off-grid applications, sometimes in rural and remote areas, where energy is often crucial in human development. Kenya has the world's highest household solar ownership rate with roughly 30,000 small (20–100 watt) solar power systems sold per year.
Some renewable energy technologies are criticised for being intermittent or unsightly, yet the renewable energy market continues to grow. Climate change concerns coupled with high oil prices, peak oil and increasing government support are driving increasing renewable energy legislation, incentives and commercialization. New government spending, regulation, and policies should help the industry weather the 2009 economic crisis better than many other sectors.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA