Energy

Portugal Joins Other Countries by Running Only on Renewable Energy

- Adam Clare

Portuguese architecture
Portugal reached a very significant milestone on its path to being fully powered by renewables by consuming energy only from sustainable resources for four days. Other countries are on similar paths. In 2012 Germany got 50% of it’s power from renewable sources, Scotland powered itself exclusively on renewables for a week earlier this year, but the most impressive is Costa Rica. In 2015 Costa Rica went at least of a quarter of the using only renewables and improving this year.

Portugal joins those countries (and others) that are looking forward to a future that isn’t dependent on finite energy sources. More countries should be joining this renewable revolution.

Electricity consumption in the country was fully covered by solar, wind and hydro power in an extraordinary 107-hour run that lasted from 6.45am on Saturday 7 May until 5.45pm the following Wednesday, the analysis says.

News of the zero emissions landmark comes just days after Germany announced that clean energy had powered almost all its electricity needs on Sunday 15 May, with power prices turning negative at several times in the day – effectively paying consumers to use it.

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Thanks to Delaney!

Scotland Generated Enough Renewable Energy to Power Itself

- Adam Clare 3 Comments

This past weekend Scotland generated enough electricity from wind turbines to meet all its power demands. A day of strong winds and low demand combined to make this the first time Scotland has achieved this renewable milestone. For a compression, in 2012 Germany got 50% of it’s electricity from renewable sources, and today Germany gets almost all of its power from renewable sources on a regular basis. In a couple years Scotland could be 100% powered by renewables. The cost of solar and wind installations continues to fall so it’s likely more regions of the world will be able to follow Scotland’s lead.

“It should also be remembered that wind power is not the only renewable power source Scotland has at its disposal.

“If we continue to take steps to reduce our energy demand, invest in storage, and increase our use of renewables we can hopefully look forward to many days that are fully powered by nature.”

The figures showed that wind turbines in Scotland provided 39,545 megawatts per hour (MWh) of electricity to the National Grid for 24 hours on Sunday. Scotland’s total electricity consumption for that day was 37,202MWh. It is unclear whether demand at any single point in the day exceeded the amount supplied by the turbines.

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Former Nuclear Disaster Site Could Become Solar Plant

- Adam Clare

Ukarine countryside

One of the worst energy disaster in human history was the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It has left a giant chunk of land around Pripyat uninhabitable to humans (although the rest of nature has been thriving because humans aren’t there), now the Ukrainian government wants to reuse the land for a new source of electricity. A collection of companies are proposing that the land from the disaster be converted to the world’s largest solar farm!

The development of the 1GWh(!) installation makes a lot of sense considering there is useful land and infrastructure in the area, and Ukraine needs the power.

Because Chernobyl was a site for energy production in its former capacity, transmission lines already exist. “The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy,” Semerak said. “We already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations, the land is very cheap and we have many people trained to work at power plants.”

As long as environmental and banking concerns are addressed, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development indicated it would be interested in participating.

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Global Economy Becoming Efficient

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Usually when economists talk about efficiencies they means firing people so executives can get better returns, this time efficiency is found by using electricity in smarter ways. The myth that increased energy consumption means a better economy has been “decoupled”. The global economy is using less energy for every dollar produced – a sign that economic progress doesn’t have to mean the destruction of the environment.

The EIA also measured energy productivity, which is the inverse of energy intensity, measuring units of economic productivity for every unit of energy consumed. The world also saw significant increases here over the past two and a half decades. China came out far ahead, with a 133 percent increase in energy productivity between 1990 and 2015, largely due to the fact that increases in economic output were twice that of increases in energy consumption. The US saw a 58 percent gain in energy productivity over the same 25 years as well.

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Parents Need to be Nagged by Their Kids

- Adam Clare

Kids are always being told what they can and cannot not do, and new research says that when it comes to the environment it’s parents that should be told what to do. In a study by Stanford University they have found that children who nagged their parents about energy use made a measurable difference on their household’s energy consumption. The researchers used Girl Scouts as their little energy-conscious eco-warriors.

And these Girl Scouts trooped on home to spread their world-saving knowledge to clueless parents.

The results were promising for residential energy use: Both the girls and their parents showed immediate and long-term improvement. The li’l Scouts reported a 50 percent increase in frequency of energy-saving practices after the experiment, with a 12 percent improvement in parental behavior. Over the following seven months, that rate of improvement halved for both groups: Girls were only minding the light switch 27 percent more than they had been before the study, and their parents only 6 percent.

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