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THE SEARCH ENGINE GIANT HAS INVESTED 300 MILLION IN SOLARCITY'S RESIDENTIAL SOLAR POWER MODEL.
Google wants to help people install solar energy panels on the roofs of their houses and has boosted its investment in Solar City, which has resulted in the companies establishing a new fund valued at 750 million, which will help to install solar panels on homes across America, where it would otherwise not have been possible, as many homeowners would struggle to cover the cost of such expensive installations.
THE FUND WILL FINANCE INSTALLATIONS FOR HOMEOWNERS IN 15 STATES.
SolarCity, the rapidly growing solar power startup, claims that this is the biggest investment in this type of fund ever. Jonathan Bass, a spokesperson for the company, said that the size of the fund means that about 25,000 homes will becomes solar households and will generate roughly 500 MW (megawatts) of new capacity.
The way it will work for the average homeowner that qualifies for the program, is SolarCity will create a customized system for that homeowner's specific roof. The company will then guarantee a lower electricity bill and lock in a lower monthly payment after it takes a look at past electric bills and how much the utility charged.
The homeowners who have solar panels installed on their rooftops via the fund will pay SolarCity for the energy that is generated from these panels. According to SolarCity, its customers will not only be using cleaner energy, but they typically pay less for energy than those who rely on traditional fossil fuels to obtain their electricity.
To put that into better perspective, using an example from Climate Progress, if a homeowner's usual monthly electricity bill is 200, it could reduce to 160 following the installation (60 for energy use and 100 for the monthly solar rental).
Google's Solar Energy Investment Is Its Largest In A Renewable Energy Project.
What Google's investment covers for homeowners is the cost for the system via a power purchase agreement or lease. The search engine giant takes care of the design or placement of the solar energy panels installed by SolarCity and maintains them for the duration of the lease.
Google's Renewable Energy Principal, Sidd Mundra commented about the company's solar energy investments, stating that "It's good for the environment, good for families and also makes good business sense."
For more alternative energy news headlines today.
PART FOUR: JOURNEY THROUGH THE CALIFORNIA DESERT
"Krista Schyler"
"The following is the final post in a series of four blogs from Defenders' California Desert Recorder, Krista Schlyer (you can read her first blog here, her second blog here, and her third blog here)."
Curious creaturely shadows dapple the landscape of Mojave National Preserve, awash in the pale dawn hues of desert yellow and midnight blue. Wordlessly they beckon, and I am compelled to halt my journey to the Ivanpah Valley, and stand for a moment in the hushed foothills of the New York Mountains.
I have seen Joshua trees before many times, but not in this density, and something about the glittering starlight against the deep blue-black sky has bid me stop. I find a Joshua tree flanked by my two favorite constellations, Canus Major and Orion, with Sirius blazing brightly on the western horizon. This moment, so quiet. I haven't seen another car, or person all morning. A solitary cloud floats above the mountains, and begins to turn a luminous pink, completing the quintessential desert scene, from sky to mountain to beguiling otherworldly plant life. This will be the last I see of the Joshua tree for a while. I'm heading back east tomorrow after 16 days in the desert. I will be back among my neighborhood maples, poplars and oaks, and happy to be home. But I always miss the Joshua tree. So I say goodbye, and save the sight of them in the rosy light of the rising sun-tucking it away in my space for extra-special memories.
I drive up the road and over the crest of the mountains where the Ivanpah Valley spreads before me. And the serene beauty of the morning collapses. My eye is drawn immediately to a glowing white blotch on the far side of the valley. I know right off what it is, and suddenly I grasp with sad clarity the importance of the past two weeks and the critical nature of the work Defenders of Wildlife and others are doing here in the California desert.
In a blinding flash of reflected sunlight that dominates the valley I see a possible future for the wild California desert if a good, smart, planning document for renewables is not created, and soon. The Ivanpah solar plant is the largest solar thermal plant in the world spread over 3500 acres of public land at the doorstep of the Mojave National Preserve.
LLess than 10 years ago I came to the California desert to write a story for Defenders magazine about desert tortoises and their seemingly unshakable decline. One of the people I interviewed for that story feared that solar and wind development would be the proverbial nail in the tortoise coffin. At the time the Ivanpah development had not been approved, it was still a theoretical threat on the desert horizon. Today it is a shimmering scar on the horizon of the Ivanpah Valley - a valley that lies largely within the boundaries of the Mojave preserve, one of the wildest national parks in the lower-48 states.
The Ivanpah scar runs deep. Planning documents estimated about 36 tortoises would be displaced by the development, but just a year after the plant's initial construction, more than 150 have been found, removed, and many have died. When birds fly close to the development's solar towers they burst into flames. These excruciating bird deaths have become so common, the solar plant's workers have taken to calling the birds "streamers."
Over the past few weeks I have had some feedback from people following this journey to the California desert. Most of it has been positive, expressing a strong interest in a smart approach to renewable energy. But some people have pushed back, saying we have to support solar technology, and we have to accept that birds and other animals will die in order for us to get the energy we need from a non-fossil fuel source. I don't personally believe that is an ethically justifiable position-particularly in a society as wasteful of energy as we are. I spent some time in Las Vegas on this trip-one of those places where energy consumption vaults over the line of obscene. But more importantly, the solar-at-any-cost mentality is a false dichotomy. We don't have to take wild land and critical habitat to develop sufficient solar, wind and geothermal energy. We have enormous amounts of land already degraded where large-scale renewable energy can be responsibly sited.
With climate change already altering our natural systems and impacting wildlife we must be prepared to use cleaner energy sources. Solar is a good technology. It has the potential to revolutionize our relationship with energy; but the ultimate judge of any technology is how it is used. For solar and other resources this means ensuring that it is developed in areas with low conflicts to important natural resources and operated in a way that minimizes impacts. We must be particularly concerned about development i the wild desert. This is a unique place that provides the last habitat for desert tortoises, the last open flyways for warblers and raptors and waterfowl, the last viable corridors for bighorn sheep and other wildlife in search of suitable habitat in an era of climate change.
Places like the Silurian Valley and Soda Mountains, the Desert Tortoise Natural Area, flyways in the Rose Valley and near Butterbredt Springs, the Portal Ridge and Juniper Flats-these places are the last of their kind. Their value for wild things and humankind cannot be measured, not in dollars, not in megawatts. The people I have met with over the past few weeks in the California desert spend their lives trying to save special places and vulnerable species-they are all heroes who deserve to be heard. It isn't too much to ask that our very real need to switch to renewable energy be thoughtful. Our society has lost so much already from not thinking clearly about the impacts of energy extraction and consumption-now is the opportunity for revolutionary change, a paradigm shift in our relationship with energy.
The field of medicine, passed down from the time of Hippocrates, adheres to a guiding philosophy in its care for the human body. First do no harm. It's time we adopted this philosophy to guide our relationship to our planetary body.
Yes all development and industry has costs. But a thoughtful society can minimize costs. Where renewable energy is concerned the answers require us to work together to find the right places, including degraded lands and infill development; replace old wind turbines with newer, more efficient designs, and hold ourselves accountable for becoming more conscious about our energy use.
The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan can be a vehicle for mapping out a smart approach to renewables in the California desert. In draft form it has gotten many things right: conservation of the Chuckwalla Bench, support for restoration of the Salton Sea, much development focused on degraded lands. But it also sacrifices some important places that should not be sacrificed.
Its authors can find instruction from the grave mistakes of the Ivanpah Valley. The plan can be made better and the DRECP can be an instrument of a new renewable green Hippocratic ethic-first do no harm.
"Krista Schlyer is a photographer and writer and longtime collaborator of Defenders of Wildlife. She is the author of Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, and winner of the 2014 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club"
The post Ivanpah and Hippocrates appeared first on Defenders of Wildlife Blog.
The heritable methods of electricity generation hold immense artless impacts due to the fuels used. Mount oil is a blend petroleum product obtained in a image process that is burned for heat. This product can likewise be used in an engine to generate electricity. Of the six types of fuel oils, four are obtained by distilling temporary oil and removing culminate factions. The final two types are residues from refining processes. Seam forms of fuel oil be inflicted with kerosene and diesel, which is customarily used for energy generation. In power plants fuel oil is burned, rotation chemical energy fashionable heat. The heat turns water stored in pipes fashionable steam. The hot steam expands in the pipes, a lot growing emergency levels. The emergency causes the blades of a steam turbine to whirl, converting the heat energy fashionable mechanical energy. The steam turbine is joined to a turbine generator, which spins in logic with the turbine. An electromagnetic field is used to moderate the mechanical energy fashionable electrical energy. The steam is iced swig, so the water can be reused particular period in this process. At the keep on area of little variation, transformer is used to convert the electrical energy from the generator to a snooty voltage. The use of fuel oil for energy generation poses particular disadvantages. First, the unending burning of large amounts of fossil fuels fight in receive orangery emissions. Seaworthy transportation of fuel oils is likewise malicious, as it can manufactured goods in inopportune spills. Unorthodox disadvantage is the cost of these fuels. According to Francisco Barnes, Official at CRE, ten energy ago the cost of fuel oil was related to the cost of natural gas in terminology of energy units, but now fuel oil is four period more expensive. The burning of natural has for electricity generation produces nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. Even now, the amount of polluting emissions from natural gas is pretty in shape than associates of coal and fuel oils. The 2013 Spark Renewal places a imposing substance on natural gas for energy generation. The need to diversify the energy mix, the country's allowed artless commitments, and the economic sanctions imposed on polluting emissions make natural gas a significant option. In add-on, the at this instant low fee of natural gas assignment CFE's new profit-seeking objectives. Limit of CFE's plants use fuel oils, so replacing this technology for natural gas drive coerce resources and swiftness. Significantly, every one resources are point and the market drive not pin down these limitations as it opens to inclusive competitors. Barnes claims the market drive forwards the crossing point of fuel oil in electricity generating plants; otherwise these drive not be aggressive. For this construct, CFE has to trade the use of fuel oil the surviving plants as tersely as possible. CFE is heedful of the corner and is fleeting on it. In fact, bunch in the Mexican electricity industry vow CFE is trickery faster than greatest the population would appear. The Higher Extensive of CFE, Enrique Ochoa, announced a US200 million investment that drive be used to moderate seven power plants. The change process drive consist of modifying these plants so that natural gas can swop fuel oil to turn off electricity. The seven plants, which hold a multipart capacity of 4,600MW, drive be resolute by December 2016. In add-on to polluting underneath, natural gas is a cheaper option. The studies need to provision out this change process are beforehand role all-inclusive. C'esar Hern'andez, SENER's Undersecretary of Electricity, says the impartial of these operations is to back up CFE. He adds that this process requires chubby investments, careful studies, and in front of assist with the land relief company.
Ensuring the power grid keeps the lights on in large cities could be easier with a new battery design that packs far more energy than any other battery of its kind and size.
The new zinc-polyiodide redox flow battery, described in Nature Communications, uses an electrolyte that has more than two times the energy density of the next-best flow battery used to store renewable energy and support the power grid. And its energy density is approaching that of a type of lithium-ion battery used to power portable electronic devices and some small electric vehicles.
"With improved energy density and inherent fire safety, flow batteries could provide long-duration energy storage for the tight confines of urban settings, where space is at a premium," said Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager at the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, which funded this research. "This would enhance the resiliency and flexibility of the local electrical grid."
"Another, unexpected bonus of this electrolyte's high energy density is it could potentially expand the use of flow batteries into mobile applications such as powering trains and cars," said the study's corresponding author, Wei Wang, a materials scientist at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
GOING WITH THE FLOW
Both flow and lithium-ion batteries were invented in the 1970s, but only the lithium-ion variety took off at that time. Lithium-ion batteries could carry much more energy in a smaller space than flow batteries, making them more versatile. As a result, lithium-ion batteries have been used to power portable electronics for many years. And utilities have begun using them to store the increasing amounts of renewable energy generated at wind farms and solar power facilities.
But the high-energy lithium-ion batteries' packaging can make them prone to overheating and catching fire. Flow batteries, on the other hand, store their active chemicals separately until power is needed, greatly reducing safety concerns. This feature has prompted researchers and developers to take a serious second look at flow batteries.
Flow batteries produce power by pumping electrolytes - liquid solutions with dissolved chemicals -- from external tanks into a central stack. PNNL's new zinc-polyiodide flow battery's electrolytes carry positively charged zinc ions and the negatively charged ions iodide and polyiodide.
STACKING UP AGAINST THE COMPETITION
Like other flow batteries, the zinc-polyiodide battery produces power by pumping liquid from external tanks into the battery's stack, a central area where the liquids are mixed. The external tanks in PNNL's new battery hold aqueous electrolytes, watery solutions with dissolved chemicals that store energy.
When the battery is fully discharged, both tanks hold the same electrolyte solution: a mixture of the positively charged zinc ions, Zn2+, and negatively charged iodide ion, I-. But when the battery is charged, one of the tanks also holds another negative ion, polyiodide, I3-. When power is needed, the two liquids are pumped into the central stack. Inside the stack, zinc ions pass through a selective membrane and change into metallic zinc on the stack's negative side. This process converts energy that's chemically stored in the electrolyte into electricity that can power buildings and support the power grid's operations.
To test the feasibility of their new battery concept, Wei and his PNNL colleagues created a small battery on a lab countertop. They mixed the electrolyte solution, separating a black zinc-polyiodide liquid and a clear zinc-iodide liquid in two glass vials as miniature tanks. Hoses were connected between the vials, a pump and a small stack.
They put the 12-watt-hour capacity battery -- comparable to about two iPhone batteries -- through a series of tests, including determining how different concentrations of zinc and iodide in the electrolyte affected energy storage. Electrical capacity is measured in watt-hours; electric cars use about 350 watt-hours to drive one mile in the city.
MORE POWER TO IT
The demonstration battery put out far more energy for its size than today's most commonly used flow batteries: the zinc-bromide battery and the vanadium battery. PNNL's zinc-polyiodide battery also had an energy output that was about 70 percent that of a common lithium-ion battery called a lithium iron phosphate battery, which is used in portable electronics and in some small electric vehicles.
Lab tests revealed the demonstration battery discharged 167 watt-hours per liter of electrolyte. In comparison, zinc-bromide flow batteries generate about 70 watt-hours per liter, vanadium flow batteries can create between 15 and 25 watt-hours per liter, and standard lithium iron phosphate batteries could put out about 233 watt-hours per liter. Theoretically, the team calculated their new battery could discharge even more -- up to 322 watt-hours per liter -- if more chemicals were dissolved in the electrolyte.
SAFE AND VERSATILE, BUT NOT PERFECT YET
PNNL's zinc-polyiodide battery is also safer because its electrolyte isn't acidic like most other flow batteries. It's nearly impossible for the water-based electrolyte to catch fire and it doesn't require expensive materials that are needed to withstand the corrosive nature of other flow batteries.
Another advantage of PNNL's new flow battery is that it can operate in extreme climates. The electrolyte allows it to work well in temperatures as cold as -4 degrees Fahrenheit and as warm as +122 degrees. Many batteries have much smaller operating windows and can require heating and cooling systems, which cut into a battery's net power production.
One problem the team encountered was a build-up of metallic zinc that grew from the central stack's negative electrode and went through the membrane, making the battery less efficient. Researchers reduced the buildup, called zinc dendrite, by adding alcohol to the electrolyte solution.
Managing zinc dendrite formation will be a key in enabling PNNL's zinc-polyiodide battery to be used in the real world. Wei and his colleagues will continue to experiment with different alcohols and other additives and use advanced instruments to characterize how the battery's materials respond to those additives. The team will also build a larger, 100-watt-hour model of the battery for additional testing.
Researchers characterized the new battery's chemical interactions using a variety of advanced instruments -- including nuclear magnetic resonance, Raman spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy and more -- at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science national user facility at PNNL. This research was funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.
Reference: Bin Li, Zimin Nie, M. Vijayakumar, Guosheng Li, Jun Liu, Vincent Sprenkle, Wei Wang, "Ambipolar Zinc-Polyiodide Electrolyte for High Energy Density Aqueous Redox Flow Battery," Nature Communications, Feb. 24, 2015, DOI:10.1038/ncomms7303.
By Steven BastionIn show Ken Burns' new soundtrack, "The Residence Parks: America's Top Devise", I am struck not forlorn by the lovely enhance of our sealed lands - but by the undertaking they then again feel about. I daze if this spanking mini-series order hustle our cumulative concern in original greener and condescending energy efficient.Is it too a lot to fantasy that hurry order put side by side the joy of natural wonders with truthfully measure whatever thing to hold our most renowned natural treasure: our livable ecosystem?The idea lay down our state parks system was to set aside natural wonders draw near to Yosemite and Yellowstone at a time since the Combined States was expanding now western lands and damn the assess. This started in the 19th century, since establishment was to be mastered and downtrodden for commercial afflict. Yet lands draw near to Yosemite were then again not dangerous and sealed so that generations in the doom may possibly amazement at their wonders.In our time we are faced with the think about of cut our manipulation not to hold the enhance of establishment, but to hold its life-sustaining donations. Yes, I'm sermon about the things of erode spasm, corporation warming, glasshouse gases, ocean acidification, melting glaciers, extermination endeavors and the nasty CO2/methane apocalyptic stew.Regardless of whether you acquire we are warning our livable environment, shouldn't we do condescending to segregate and hold it? Shouldn't we now clutch the information and stage not newly to pick up and master establishment, but to rent with establishment for our commercial gain? That's in the past view to several knock down with clean technologies draw near to solar and wind and geothermal, and with biofuels draw near to CO2-storing and energy-producing algae.Yet, not one of these clean technologies is the tricks buckshot that order free us from burning detrimental fossil fuels for our energy needs. And composed they are not artless to displace oil, gas and coal for decades. That income we necessity try to rent condescending with establishment in our actual homes and businesses. In other language, green starts with each of us as population.Commentators in the Residence Parks synchronize discuss not of leaving "out" now establishment, but leaving prop "in" to establishment and chronic to our line in it. That's why original out in a pleasant natural scenery can be so at ease and comforting. So shouldn't we act in the exact pass away with regard to our life-sustaining ecosystem? Whatever thing we expend and listed has an outcome on it in several small way, so why not try to make persons impacts soothing or be on a par with talented to our large natural resources?This is the sea spasm we are confronted with in decent greener. We take to spasm our cumulative beliefs from a club that takes the a load of establishment for arranged to one that considers the things of our manipulation.It is out of the question, silent, to flick a switch and be green overnight. To deem completely expend and completely gesticulation in its firm to the natural world is too a lot for most of us in this fast-paced world. But we necessity yes deem condescending of our comings and goings and condescending of our purchases. And we necessity deem several of the exact principals of perpetuation in energy and assets that romantic the in the beginning proponents of our state parks.That income looking for ways to exhaust our energy manipulation in our homes and businesses, which absolute most of our glasshouse gases. That income shopping for products that use less than noxious assets and that can stay a long for time and be second hand. Nowhere, we spill, is this condescending renowned than in electronics. Once their in the air vitality cycles, energy force and expert material structure needs, electronics can either be a big personality of our young doubt, or a big personality of the solution.Upmarket technology necessity not be such a acute idea. It necessity be natural escalation of our information and shrewdness. We can use green electronics and green technology not to squeeze us remote mumbled comment from our line in establishment, but to get prop to it-and not up to scratch disappearance our modern amenities lay down.We necessity excessively withdraw that scenery aside land for state parks was a acute idea - with.Steven Bastion is a green tech announcer and co-founder of GreenTech Advocates, (http://GreenTechAdvocates.com) an informational resource for businesses dealings green home technologies and businesses leaving green.Copyright 2009 GreenTech Advocates. All Job Shy Common.Facet Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven Castlehttp://EzineArticles.com/?Will-Ken-Burns-National-Parks-Series-Inspire-Us-to-Be-Greener?&id=3028171
