reprint Russia possesses the potential to produce significant gas from its Eastern Regions, with total proved reserves in East Siberia and the Far East of Russia standing at 5 trillion cubic metres (Tcm) while prospective resources could be as large as 65Tcm. This would appear to give Russia a huge opportunity for export sales into the Asia Pacific region , which contains the world’s largest LNG importing nations and two of the world’s fastest growing gas markets in China and India (also importers of LNG). It is surprising, therefore, that despite the obvious commercial logic of linking enormous gas resources to expandin...
-- a _kt75 | reprint Tweet Renewable energy sources, at least wind and solar, are variable — the wind isn’t always blowing, the sun isn’t always shining. This is something every glib pundit on the internet cites as a reason we’ll need fossil-fuel or nuclear “baseload” power plants for the foreseeable future. It’s a frustrating topic, since people who actually study the subject (like NREL) have shown that there are all sorts of ways to handle variability without disrupting the grid. One of those ways is transmission : building power lines to take renewable energy from where it is abundant (often remote areas) to where it is needed (mainly big cities). More specifically, the idea is to build high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) lines that would carry energy over long distances from remote sites and feed it into the alternating-current (AC) lines that serve urban areas. (The DC vs. AC question is interesting, but not particularly essential...
reprint The solar energy industry may prove to be a dark horse in the race to provide global energy security. The world has renewed its interest in solar energy investment as it searches for a cleaner and more sustainable alternative to conventional fossil fuels. Countries like China , Germany, the UK, the US, Japan and Canada have already made significant investments in solar power . Who are the other players who are investing big in solar energy? With its own set of limitations such as high installation costs and high plug-in time, are consumers across the world ready to choose solar energy to power their daily lives? Or, are the conventional energy sources still the best bet? The best part about solar energy is that it is abundant and freely available, at least in most parts of the world. However, the high upfront costs of a photo voltaic panel remain a concern for many. Things are changing fast, however, and according to data from SEIA, the cost of an average PV system i...