Hydro

New Focus For Ocean Power Following Eco Wave Kiev Tests

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Trying to find the silver bullet in energy is not an easy task. Developing a power source that is clean and widely available, yet also cheaper and more reliable than fossil fuels or intermittent wind and solar has led to a great deal of expensive research but few commercially successful technologies.

Proponents of ocean power, in which converters capture the power of the constant energy provided by high and low waves and tide flows, believe they have the answer – but pricing, infrastructure prejudiced to existing generation types and lack of data all form robust challenges for the still-small sector. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 10, 2012 at 10:30 AM

Asian Countries At Head Of Developing World Pack In Renewable Energy Shift

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Renewable energy’s future is now in the developing world, analysts at accounting giant Ernst & Young claim, as cost-conscious and indebted industrial economies focus on investments like smart grid that can slow demand and cut costs.

After a robust decade driven first by concerns about climate change and eventually-foiled expectations that a global price on greenhouse gas emissions would emerge followed by heavy central-government subsidies for renewable energy projects seen as promoting energy security and job growth, the renewable energy sector is moving into a “revolutionary” new phase, a new E&Y report indexing renewable energy country attractiveness says. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 4, 2012 at 7:00 AM

Wind Power Saver Could Be The Pits

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You’ve heard it before: Taking full advantage of wind power is dependent on finding an economically viable way to store its production, which often comes at night, when demand is low.

In Minnesota, where wind provided just shy of 10% of the state’s electricity in 2010 and continues to grow, a new study is suggesting that a viable way to do just that might be there for the taking in the Iron Range. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 28, 2011 at 7:00 AM

Congress invests $59 million in hydropower research and development

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Congress invests $59 million in #hydropower research and development bit.ly/ty0VWq @NatlHydroAssoc

 /  Published December 19, 2011 at 10:00 AM

Wave Power From Down Under (The Water)

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It’s a big island, but it’s still an island. And most of Australia‘s population is within a boomerang’s throw of the water – all of which makes marine-based power generation a potentially important part of the country’s future clean-energy mix. Recognizing this, the Victoria state government is conditionally pumping $5 million into BioPower, bringing the wave power startup closer to the funding needed to demo a 250-kilowatt prototype of its bioWave device.

“We are now ready for the ultimate test – installing the bioWave in high energy 30-metre deep ocean waters,” CEO Timothy Finnigan said in a statement. “We have to raise another $3.6 million to complete the project funding, and given our results to date we are confident of achieving this in the coming months. The technology has been positively assessed by more than a dozen independent reviewers.” Keep reading →

 /  Published December 8, 2011 at 6:00 AM

At The Crossroads: International Energy Investors Grow Turkish Presence

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Amid a struggling US economy rife with political dissonance, a European sovereign debt crisis and Asian markets often closed to foreigners, a stable country of 70 million in the process of a full-scale deregulation of its energy markets–without restrictions on foreign investors–sounds almost like a fantasy.

But Turkey is that country, sitting at the crossroads between some of the most energy-rich countries in the world and some of the most energy-hungry. As international investor dollars get allocated in the region, uncertainty about the eventual outcome of the Arab spring has left Turkey as a standout target for foreign money. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 23, 2011 at 6:00 AM

States Pass Feds In Encouraging Renewable Energy

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State-based targets for green electricity generation have been so successful in developing renewable energy projects that any current proposals for a federal clean energy standard could require little or no additional capacity, according to a leading academic.

Ryan Wiser, a scientist specializing in electricity markets and policy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said recent data showed that any proposed federal RPS would require fewer additions than were seen in 2008-10 to meet state-based Renewable Portfolio Standards targets. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 22, 2011 at 6:00 AM

The World At Seven Billion: AOL Energy Week In Review

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The Earth’s human population reached 7 billion this week, according to the United Nations Population Fund, shining the spotlight on the world’s infrastructure, water, and energy problems.

To complicate matters further, the UN estimates that by 2050, the population will reach 9 billion. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 4, 2011 at 2:00 PM

Seeing The Future In Hydropower: NHA Talks Investment, Permitting And Technology

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While it would be hard to call hydropower the forgotten renewable when it already produces seven percent of US electricity, the industry’s role as a technology driver with the same funding and financing challenges as other innovative sectors is often shortchanged when consumers and regulators imagine solar panels and wind turbines.

But the hydropower sector is an area of constant reinvention through technological innovation, National Hydropower Association executive director Linda Church-Ciocci told Breaking Energy at the recent US Association for Energy Economics summit in Washington, DC. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 2, 2011 at 6:00 AM

Ocean Power Means Green Energy For Ireland

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Ireland’s waters are famous for their crashing waves and as the country looks for ways to meet its renewable energy standard of 16% by 2020, these waves are becoming an increasingly important energy resource.

IBM and The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) have announced a joint effort to both understand and minimize the potentially harmful environmental impacts of so-called “wave energy conversion devices.” Chief among the concerns is noise pollution that can disrupt fish migrations and other marine ecosystems. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 2, 2011 at 6:00 AM
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