How California Could Power Itself Using Nothing but Renewables

[ SMARTER ENERGY ]

By John Upton – Under the plan, all new energy generation in the Golden State from 2020 onward would be from renewable sources.

By 2030, 80 to 85 percent of the state’s current energy supply would be replaced with clean sources.

And starting in 2050, the state wouldn’t need to burn another drip of oil, hunk of coal, or molecule of natural gas—and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant wouldn’t be needed. more> http://tinyurl.com/ml379zq

Updates from GE

We Have Solar Power and Wind Power, Here Comes Moon Power
GE – Twice a day, like clockwork, the moon’s gravity makes the seas ebb and flow.

For Mark Baker, a marine renewables business manager at GE Power Conversion, the tides are the perfect source of energy, more predictable and reliable than wind or solar power.

People tried to capture tidal and wave energy since the Middle Ages when  they used “tide mills” to grind grain. Ideas Lab reported that the first tidal power station was the Rance tidal power plant built between 1960 and 1966 in La Rance, France. But the technology did not catch on because of its high capital cost and the limited availability of sites with sufficient tidal flows.

The turbines resemble large aircraft propellers submerged in 180 to 240 feet of water. They stand in strategic “pinch points” of the firth, where the tides rush in and out at the highest speeds.

Engineers can capture energy from the vertical and horizontal movements of the tides. Some teams have also used buoys that generate electricity from the up and down movement of the waves. more> http://tinyurl.com/ph56ebk

Updates from GE

GE Bids to Acquire Alstom’s Energy Units for $13.5 Billion

GE – GE announced today that it made a binding offer to acquire the thermal power, renewable energy and electricity grid businesses of the French engineering conglomerate Alstom for $13.5 billion in cash.

This is not the first time the two companies meet. In fact, both GE and Alstom grew out of common roots.

In 1892, Thomas Edison’s Edison General Electric Company merged with Elihu Thomson’s Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form GE. Thomson-Houston’s co-founder Charles A. Coffin became GE’s first chief executive officer and president.

In 1928, Thomson-Houston’s French subsidiary combined with France’s Sociéte Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques to create Alstom. The company developed into a major builder of power plant technology, including gas turbines built around technology licensed from GE.

In 1999, GE acquired Alstom’s heavy duty gas turbines business and the two companies have remained close. Their facilities in the northern French city of Belfort stand next to each other, divided only by a road and a fence, and their top executives live in the same neighborhoods.

In 2011, GE also bought Alstom’s former power conversion business, which became GE Power Conversion. The unit is now developing next-generation energy storage and power systems for a broad range of industries including oil and gas, mining, renewables and shipping.

Forty years ago, GE formed an aviation joint-venture called CFM International with France’s Snecma (Safran). Since then, CFM has delivered some 26,000 jet engines to 530 operators. CFM has more than 6,000 orders valued at $78 billion for its latest engine, the LEAP, which will enter service in 2016. more> http://tinyurl.com/ohd2w82

Can Climate Skeptics Save the Planet?

By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger – Twenty-five years of efforts to cap and reduce global emissions have utterly failed. Two decades of heavy subsidies for renewable energy have not had any measurable success moving the needle on emissions or clean energy. We will, in the decades to come, be living on a hotter planet. How much hotter will depend on what we do now.

The only countries in the world that have moved to zero-carbon energy at the rapid pace that would be required to keep emissions close to 450 ppm are France and Sweden. Both did so by moving to nuclear, and to a lesser extent hydro-electric, energy. more> http://tinyurl.com/ke2g43t

Related articles

• Earth, 2100 AD: Four futures of environment and society (newscientist.com)
• Can Climate Skeptics Save the Planet? (ideas.time.com)
• China’s Poisoned Air Prompts Woman to Devise Green Tax – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Renewable energy technology the key to climate change (abc.net.au)

Updates from BOEING

Factory for the Future
BOEING – In April 2011 Boeing and South Carolina Electric and Gas announced a partnership that ensures renewable energy capacity for the entire Boeing South Carolina site in North Charleston. The site is the first within Boeing to commit to 100 percent renewable energy.

A major component of this partnership is the installation of thin-film solar laminate panels on the roof of the new 787 Final Assembly building, providing approximately up to 2.6 megawatts of electrical power for the site, enough to power 250 homes. The remainder of the renewable energy comes from SCE&G biomass energy generation facilities in South Carolina.

Boeing South Carolina is also a zero waste to landfill site, meaning that no waste generated at the site is sent to landfill. Waste material is recycled, reused, repurposed or sent to energy recovery facilities. more> http://tinyurl.com/lg7wtla