GrokEnergy

Wind energy provided more than half of Spain’s total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend as the country set a new national record for wind-generated power. With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain’s huge network of windfarms jointly poured the equivalent of 11 nuclear power stations’ worth of electricity into the national grid. At one stage on Sunday morning, the country’s wind farms were able to cover 53% of total electricity demand – a new record in a country that boasts the world’s third largest array of wind turbines, after the United States and Germany.

Spain’s windfarms set new national record for electricity generation | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Why choose a geothermal heating system? | csmonitor.com

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/11/03/why-choose-a-geothermal-...

In a nutshell, geothermal energy consists of using the constant temperatures stored naturally underground to heat and cool your house.

You drill a few wells, run pipes through them, and then circulate a liquid through those pipes. As the liquid travels through those pipes underground, it heats up to at about 55 degrees F. – the steady temperature that the earth naturally generates between 10 feet and 300 feet down. You then hook those pipes up to a heat pump in your basement.

In the winter, the heat pump compresses the liquid to increase its temperature to about 75 degrees F., which is then used to heat the house. In the summer, the circulating 55 degree F., temperatures are used to air condition the house.

You do need an energy source to run the heat pump – you can use electricity or natural gas, but other than that, the main source of your heat and air conditioning is the ground beneath you.

PG&E CEO Peter Darber, appearing on CNN this morning in a piece about the Chamber of Commerce, commented on his reasoning for supporting clean energy legislation. “Sooner or later there will be controls on carbon,” he said. “The point I make is the sooner you start to work on a big problem, the less disruptive it is to a company, to an industry to consumers, and the less expensive it is. So let’s get on with it.

PG&E CEO on Climate Legislation: Let’s Get On With It :EnviroKnow

Japan plans solar power station in space - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/solarpower/6536752/Japan-plans-solar-...

The plan is to create a miles-wide array of photovoltaic panels, like the solar panels used on Earth, and place it in a geostationary orbit.

Solar rays are at least five times as powerful in space as they are at ground level, allowing the huge panels to gather vast quantities of energy.

The 5 Best High Flying Wind Power Projects : TreeHugger

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/5-best-high-flying-wind-power.php

Tapping into the jet stream—the fast-flowing air currents in the atmosphere—to harness high speed wind power is one of the most compelling ideas in the renewable energy world. How compelling, you ask? Some researchers figure that by successfully tapping into just 1% of the jet stream, we could power all of civilization. At about 6 miles up, the jet stream creates some 200 trillion watts—world energy demand is estimated to be between 2 and 2.5 trillion—the problem, of course, is bringing that stuff down to earth.

smarterplanet:

Surface Area Required To Solar Power The World | Information Is Beautiful

According to the United Nations 170,000 square kilometers of forest is destroyed each year. If we constructed solar farms at the same rate, we would be finished in 3 years.

New: I did a little revisioning, adding another power source we possibly haven’t considered. From LandArtGenerator.org.

smartercities:

Solar Plant on Chicago Brownfield: The Future of Electric Power: BusinessWeek

Half the states in the U.S. require utilities to generate a certain percentage of power from renewable sources, helping to fuel rapid growth in wind and solar power. Exelon is working with SunPower to put a solar photovoltaic plant on an old brownfield site on Chicago’s South Side. The 10-megawatt plant will have 32,000 solar panels and should be able to power between 1,200 and 1,500 homes.

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Road trains' get ready to roll

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8349923.stm

Snippet:

Road trains that link vehicles together using wireless sensors could soon be on European roads.

An EU-financed research project is looking at inexpensive ways of getting vehicles to travel in a ‘platoon’ on Europe’s motorways.

Each road train could include up to eight separate vehicles - cars, buses and trucks will be mixed in each one.

The EU hopes to cut fuel consumption, journey times and congestion by linking vehicles together.

Early work on the idea suggests that fuel consumption could be cut by 20% among those cars and trucks travelling behind the lead vehicle.