Posts Tagged by Solar Thermal
Earth Day Lunch with Belen Gallego, Director of CSP Today
| April 22, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
I’m in New York City for a few days, and I’ve scheduled my lunch today with Belen Gallego, the Director of CSP Today (Concentrated Solar Power, aka solar thermal). When I interviewed Belen for my “Clean Energy Radio” show a few weeks ago, she impressed me as a wonderful, knowledgeable person, quite enthused with her cause.
I can’t think of a better way to spend a few hours on Earth Day, celebrating a technology that really does have the potential to transform the way we generate our electrical power. I hope readers will learn more about this on the CSP Today website, and sign up for the free newsletter.
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CSP Today Director Discusses Solar Thermal on Clean Energy Radio
| April 5, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
This morning, I recorded next week’s Clean Energy Radio segment for WebTalkRadio, in which I interviewed Belén Gallego, director of CSP Today.
With offices in London and Hoboken NJ, CSP Today provides comprehensive, cutting-edge information online and through trade shows on concentrated solar power (aka solar thermal) in all its varieties – and Belén did a great job as a guest.
Although the CSP industry lacks the political muscle of the fossil fuel and nuclear people, Belén remains quite positive about the future. Of all the forms of energy, clean or dirty, safe or dangerous, CSP is the most dispatchable. While PV and wind are intermittent, and coal and nuclear run 24 hours a day, CSP, with low-cost energy storage in the form of molten salt, can be turned on and off by grid operators when needed.
As I’ve said hundreds of times, if I were king of the world, we’d be doing solar thermal in a very big way.
If you’re interested in their free newsletter, I encourage you to sign up (like I did) on the website: CSP Today.
My thanks to Belén for her terrific job on the show, and for her continued work to bring about a healthy, safe, and sane world.
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Michael Pawlyn on Biomimicry and Concentrated Solar Power
| April 5, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
I got a great deal of really good feedback on some of my previous posts about biomimicry, especially this one on Janine Benyus. So let me suggest another talk I know you’ll enjoy.
Here, Michael Pawlyn explains how we can learn from nature to create radical increases in resource efficiency and move from a fossil fuel- to a solar economy. Note what he says at the end of the talk on CSP (concentrated solar power).
You’ll find the presentation quite upbeat. In fact, Pawlyn notes, “Far too much of the talk about the environment uses negative language; here it’s about synergies, possibilities, and abundance.”
Enjoy.
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A Few Basics on Solar Thermal
| March 23, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
Every chance I get, I bang the drum for solar thermal. When I’m asked where the energy industry will be in 50 years, I always point out that our dependence on fossil fuels is not sustainable, that the sun showers the Earth each day with 6000 times more energy than we can possibly use, and that solar thermal is by far the best way to take advantage of these facts.
Want to learn more? Here’s Katherine Hamnett’s website that provides a few basics on solar thermal; she most definitely gets it.
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[The Vector] Sahara Could Export Electricity to Europe in 5 Years
| February 22, 2011 | Posted by Aedan-Kernan under Photo-voltaics |
DESERTEC, a $496 billion project to generate solar electricity in the Sahara Desert could be exporting electricity to Europe in five years, according to European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, following a meeting with energy ministers from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which will each house a portion of the project. Read More
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[The Vector] $1.45 Billion in Financing for Abengoa Solar
| January 24, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Solar Thermal |
Abengoa Solar announced recently that it has finalized $1.45 billion in financing to build the world’s largest parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant. Called Solana, the new project will be located about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. Abengoa signed a power purchase agreement with Arizona Public Service Co to. buy the energy produced by Solana for a 30 year term. Arizona Public Service Co is Arizona’s largest electric utility.
About 1,700 new construction jobs are being created with the project, and more than 85 are permanent jobs. Read More
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Electric Power Transmission — Technology in Flux
| January 20, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
We hear a great deal about partisan bickering in Washington, but according to a webinar I attended this morning on power transmission, the governors of each state on the eastern seaboard of the US from Maine to Virginia are all in complete accord on the imperative to develop offshore wind. “There are a couple of extremely conservative Republicans in that mix,” one speaker noted. “But let me tell you, if I showed you each governor’s statement on this subject and removed the names, I would challenge you to tell me who made which statement.”
That’s encouraging.
So is the raw potential to share power across what are now regional grids. Read More
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Guest Post from Wayne Mackey: A Case for Solar Photovoltaics Today
| January 17, 2011 | Posted by Wayne-Mackey under Photo-voltaics |
Systems can last for 40 or more years. By going solar, you can lock in your current and future energy costs in at today’s lower rates.
The first crude modern solar photovoltaic Solar cells were created in the Bell Telephone Labs in 1952 – 1954 by Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson. They were trying to find a way to power telephones in remote areas of the country. They were able to produce a solar cell that was 6% efficient at converting sunlight into electrical energy.
Solar energy is not diminished by harvesting, unlike fossil fuels. The amount of energy we capture today in no way diminishes how much we can take tomorrow, or how much is left for our children and grandchildren. Every single day enough solar energy falls on the earth to supply all of the world’s energy needs for four or five years. Solar energy shows up directly in the form as sunlight which can be harvested by panels that can create either heat or electricity. Our allotment of solar energy can also show up indirectly as wind, the result of uneven heating on the earth’s surface. Read More
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[The Vector] World Future Energy Summit January 17-20th, 2011
| January 17, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Renewables - Business |
Secretary of State Clinton and Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, courtesy of Masdar
Held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the summit is hosted by Masdar, a firm devoted to energy sustainability. More than 600 exhibitors, 33 international delegations and 25,000 visitors are expected. We recently wrote about Masdar and its graduate-level institute devoted to sustainability solutions.
“Financing has always been a pivotal step, and a challenging one, for renewable energy project innovators Read More
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[The Vector] Progress in Solar Thermal / CSP (Concentrating Solar Power)
| January 15, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
The Vector is pleased to see progress made in the solar thermal / CSP (concentrating solar power) space. We have always believed that solar thermal is the heavy betting favorite to be the ultimate winner in the race for a clean energy technology to replace fossil fuels – at least through the remainder of the 21st Century.
The US Department of Energy recently provided a loan guarantee that will act as the foundation for Abengoa Solar’s (Gila Bend, Arizona) Solana project — the world’s largest parabolic trough concentrating solar plant. US DoE Secretary Stephen Chu announced the project last month: a 250-megawatt (MW) project — the first large-scale solar plant in the United States capable of storing energy it generates, using large insulated molten salt tanks.
No sooner than the announcement was posted at Renewable Energy World did the detractors start in, deliberately misrepresenting the overall effectiveness of the technology, and referring to the project as Read More
