The future of sustainable clean technology is not in huge, one-size-fits-all technologies but in distributed technologies that people embrace on the local level, said experts at the 4th Annual IFC Cleantech Workshop of the International Finance Corporation, part of The World Bank.
Moreover, the technology advances that will enable more sustainable living are already here or on the way, they said. Now it’s the financial and management systems that need innovation. Keep reading →
I spent last week at AISTech – one of the largest conferences of the year for the iron and steel industry – and conversations with attendees centered on how steel producers can implement new technology to remain competitive in the market. As companies around the world expand city skylines, put more planes in the sky and ships in the sea, and produce enough electronics to put them in the hands of millions of consumers, steel producers are being asked to meet a skyrocketing demand. In fact, by the year 2050, world steel production levels are expected to double from 2010 levels. Facing this rapid growth and the mounting global concerns about climate change, steel mill operators around the world are on the hunt for more reliable, efficient and productive sources of power to boost steel production capacity while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact of their operations.
Established in 1958, Wuhan Iron & Steel Group Corp (WISCO) is the first “giant” iron and steel corporation to operate in China since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, ranking fourth in production output in China and fifth globally. At the time WISCO and GE Energy began their business relationship in 2007, WISCO was making approximately 40 million tons of iron and steel a year, operating with traditional steam boilers. A rising demand for steel was driving the need for more electricity, eventually requiring up to 10 billion kilowatt hours per year. That level of energy consumption was unsustainable for WISCO and a costly drain on the public grid. Spurred by new legislation setting stringent regulations on steel mill efficiency in China, WISCO engaged GE Energy to develop and execute an innovative approach to power generation that would increase energy efficiency and profitability, all while reducing emissions and maintaining a high level of production. Keep reading →
Enbridge said it has secured funding for $2.6 billion in additional pipeline projects linking western Canadian oil to eastern markets, while Enbridge Energy Partners said it will spend $360 million to expand its crude-oil mainline system. Enbridge said its Eastern Access expansion projects will include the expansion of its Toledo pipeline, which connects with the Enbridge mainline in Stockbridge, Mich., and serves refineries at Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, and a rereversal of its Line 9B from Westover, Ontario to Montreal to serve refineries in Quebec. The company previously announced plans for a rereversal of Line 9A from Sarnia, Ontario to Westover.
Generating power for your residence is no longer for the paranoid or the peculiar; more than 2,000 of California’s heavy domestic energy users have signed up with Gen110 to meet most of their own power needs, and investors are sinking more money into the business as its burgeoning potential becomes apparent.
Gen110 CEO and co-founder Jason Brown isn’t your usual “energy guy.” He is a relatively recent graduate of business school with a background in sales, not power engineering, and his membership as part of Silicon Valley’s technorati has been confirmed this week with the announcement of funding by the tech startup’s venture capitalist of choice: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Keep reading →
Swiss-Swedish engineering giant ABB group President and CEO Designate Fred Kindle speaks at a press conference in Bangalore 22 November 2004. Kindle, stating that India was the country with the fastest growing operations within the ABB group, announced that his company, which two years ago opened its first research and development center outside Europe and the United States in Bangalore and currently employs about 100 engineers there, will employ another 500 professionals over the next couple of years. The Bangalore center develops engineering solutions and support automation activities across the ABB group.
International companies continue to invest in the US energy sector, with Swiss-based ABB picking up electrical components firm Thomas & Betts for $3.9 billion today, bringing its total business in North America to a total of $10 billion and keeping it the single largest market in the world for the European company. Keep reading →
For all the talk of lessons learned and new global approaches to energy, local conditions can – and should – prevail when it comes to choices for energy infrastructure additions, one of Brazil’s leading energy executives recently told Breaking Energy.
Brazil has been a “hot” developing market for a number of years, undergoing an economic renaissance even as traditionally dominant US markets have stagnated and neighboring Argentina has marked itself out as a risky place for foreign energy investors. But the country cannot seek to recreate the “gold standard” reliability of US and European generators, Energisa CEO Ricardo Botelho told Breaking Energy at the DNV KEMA Utility of the Future Summit in DC recently. Keep reading →
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday sought to tamp down concerns raised by Republican senators that the Obama administration will try to curtail shale gas and oil development through its studies of hydraulic fracturing.
At a hearing before a Senate Appropriations Committee panel on EPA’s $8.3 billion 2013 budget request, Jackson said a request for $8 million for additional hydraulic fracturing research was not intended to put new roadblocks in the way of domestic drilling. Keep reading →
Residents and businesses in the 13-state region covered by PJM Interconnect have now installed more than a gigawatt of solar power, enough to power between 800,000 and 1 million homes, and more than doubled solar capacity last year, the grid operator said.
The milestone, announced in mid-May, continues the trend of solar growth in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic territory in the last two years, and reflects a range of incentives offered by states that are striving to reach renewable-energy goals. Keep reading →
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu earlier this month heralded the creation of a new geothermal-solar power plant in Fallon, Nevada, which he said was “the first of its kind in the world.”
The Stillwater facility has 26 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic solar generating capacity and 33 MW of geothermal power. Keep reading →
