_kt75 | mirror

  note (by W. Scharnhorst ) As of 1st July 2015 _progress | M will replace _kt75 | mirror, the latter will as of than to be further developed nor will any content be published via that platform. Already today, you can visit _progress | M via http://progress-m.blogspot.ch . There are many improvements compared with _kt75 | mirror, e.g.: full responsive design panel/mobile reader mode (recommended if you want to get the full content of an article redesigned download area ( http://progress-m.blogspot.ch/p/downloads.html ) redesigned fonts to facilitate readability There are some more features currently still in the development mode, therefore they are not yet available, e.g.: embedding related content (via the content bar in the panel£/mobile reader mode) opportunities to allow for 3rd party actions (user customisation) Overall the development of _progress | M is part an entire blog development package. Other parts of development include: u....

  reprint (by W. Scharnhorst ) Divestment of stocks in fossil fuel companies may seem like a good idea if the goal is to put financial pressure on conventional energy companies and thereby leave an opening for cleaner alternative fuels in the fight against climate change. The question is whether the strategy works. Certainly any company, whose core business is making money, is likely to take notice of any activity that affects its revenues. Yet many argue that a drop in investment in an energy company may not be the best way to get its attention, especially at a time when alternative energies are scarce and fossil fuels remain the dominant source of power . In other words, how many people today can afford to junk their gasoline-powered cars and invest in more expensive electric models? That’s exactly the point made by London Mayor Boris Johnson, a member of Britain’s Conservative Party who also harbors libertarian, if not liberal, political views. The Lond...

  reprint (by W. Scharnhorst ) Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking , is shunned by the environmentalists that laud renewable energy sources. However, by not supporting both initiatives, they may be working at cross purposes. Natural gas, booming largely because of fracking, complements renewable energies on the grid . The two seemingly opposite technologies are, for the moment, inextricably linked. Renewable energies like solar and wind produce most of their output at times of the day when not that many people need it. Peak demand for electricity is usually in the morning and evening. Solar production is highest during the middle of the day and afternoon, and wind reaches its highest production at night. Because there is no large-scale economical way to store that energy and reconcile the misaligned supply and demand, most of our peak demand must still rely on non-renewable fuel sources. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ...

  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...

  reprint New analysis from Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the Indian School of Business shows that, with the appropriate policies, the Budget 2015 target of 60 GW of wind power by 2022 can easily be met with minimal government financial support. In the report, Reaching India’s Renewable Energy Targets Cost-Effectively, CPI found that, in absence of any subsidies, wind power is already cheaper than the total cost of power from a new build imported coal plant, at INR 5.87/kWh for electricity from wind power and INR 6.81/kWh for electricity from imported coal. The comparison with imported coal is key because this is the fuel that additional renewable energy will likely replace, rather than domestic coal or natural gas , which are limited in supply. The analysis also finds that wind power will continue to remain competitive beyond 2022. Because the government has a constrained budget, a cost-effective policy path to achieving its renewable energy targets is crucial. Th...

reprint Investors who have dumped holdings in fossil fuel companies have outperformed those that remain invested in coal, oil and gas over the past five years according to analysis by the world’s leading stock market index company, MSCI, which runs global indices used by more than 6,000 pension and hedge funds, found that investors who divested from fossil fuel companies would have earned an average return of 13% a year since 2010, compared to the 11.8%-a-year return earned by conventional investors. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ The figures indicate that if a major charitable institution or foundation with £100m in funds had divested from fossil fuels in November 2010 they would be around £7m better off today than if they had maintained their holdings in coal, oil and gas companies. In total, a portfolio of shares with fossil fuel companies included has grown in value by 62.2% since 2010,...

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...

reprint European energy storage developers have until the end of this month to submit proposals for projects in a new 10-year transmission system operators plan. But the minimum requirements imposed by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) mean that only a small number of projects might be eligible. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ ENTSO-E, which represents 41 system operators in Europe, announced the search for energy storage plants at the end of last month as part of a 10-year network development plan. The plan, updated every two years, acts as the basis for a list of so-called "projects of common interest" to better integrate the grid across the European Union. To be eligible for inclusion, a project has to be at least partially located in one of the 34 countries represented within ENTSO-E, and needs to have a minimum 225-megawatt installed cap...

reprint In an industrial park on the outskirts of Pullman, Wash., 10 white storage trailers sit side by side, neatly arranged in two rows. These are no ordinary storage units. Arranged on racks inside are the guts of a large rechargeable battery, the kind of device that can store and release utility-scale amounts of electricity. But this is no ordinary storage battery , either. In contrast with the typical lead-acid batteries used to start car engines or the lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles — both of which are largely solid — this battery is mostly liquid. The chemicals that react to produce electricity are dissolved in water and circulated into and out of the heart of each cell, where the reaction occurs. For that reason, it is called a flow battery, and the one in Pullman, a demonstration project that will be tested over the next year and a half, is one of the largest in the world. It can store about 3.2 megawatt-hours of energy and discharge a meg...

reprint Eighty miles east of Palm Springs, California, eight million solar panels lean toward the sky, their deep blue shine a modern oasis interrupting the brown dust of the Mojave Desert. Known as Desert Sunlight, the solar power plant is the first of its kind and promises to provide 550 megawatts (MW) of clean energy powering over 150,000 homes in California (a few percent of the state's total power consumption). Such large amounts of power from one, 3000-acre solar installation have been unheard of until now, hinting at a revolution in _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ For 2013 — Installed More Solar Power In 2013..." href="http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/2014/01/chinas-solar-market-beat-all.html" target="_blank">large-scale renewable energy generation that could compete with fossil-fuel-based power plants. Not so fast, say Native American tribes and ...

reprint Renewables are finally becoming a globally significant source of power, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March by Frankfurt School UNEP Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Driven by rapid expansion in developing countries, new installations of carbon-free renewable power plants in 2014 surpassed 100,000 megawatts of capacity for the first time, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report. It appears that renewable energy is now entering the market at a scale that is relevant in energy industry terms – and at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels. The numbers are compelling. Renewables such as wind, solar and biomass generated an estimated 9.1% of the world’s electricity in 2014, up from 8.5% in 2013, according to the report. These sources made up the majority of new power capacity in Europe, and also brought electricity to new markets. They also caught the eyes of investors: in 20...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint The so-called “carbon bubble” is no longer a concept, it’s a reality, according to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who will oversee the crucial UN climate conferencein Paris in December. Investors who sunk their money into the fossil fuel sector are going to come up losers, she suggested, as plummeting oil prices have made new extraction projects too costly to continue to pursue and concerns about global warming have made them too risky. “A lot of the stranded asset conversations we’ve been having for a long time are now coming true,” she told RTCC, speaking from the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. “Those expensive oil projects —deep sea, Arctic, tar sands—those are actually beginning to be taken off the table because of the low oil prices.” That’s good news for the environmental groups that have long warned about “stranded assets”—coal, oil ...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint The global rebirth of nuclear power was meant to be well under way by now, writes Jim Green. But in fact, nuclear's share of world power generation is on a steady long term decline, and new reactors are getting ever harder to build, and finance. The only real growth area is decommissioning , but that too has a problem: where's the money to pay for it? The UK's planned Hinkley C nuclear plant is looking increasingly like a dead duck - or possibly parrot.  As the Financial Times reports today, Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has abandoned plans to examine the 'value of money' Hinkley C offers taxpayers - because no deal has been reached and none is expected before the general election in May. In other words, all that bullish talk about Hinkley C launching Britain's ' nuclear renaissance ' has melted away like a spring...