Australia seems to be turning green. Last week they announced that they are making a massive solar power plant and now they’re making using wind to generate electricity. The wind farm will be the biggest one in the southern atmosphere.
“The wind farm would have the capacity to generate enough power for almost 190,000 homes every year, Victoria state planning minister Rob Hulls said of the 55 square kilometre (22 square mile) project to be built at Macarthur in the state’s west.”
Aussies are looking to the sky as a solution for their predicted energy shortfall. Even though the Australian government denies that global warming is happening, they have given A$420 million towards the solar power plant. The demand for the solar power plant is a result of an increase in popularity of air conditioners, solar powered air conditioners make sense though as power generation will be higher when demand is high.
“Treasurer Peter Costello said the new solar concentrator with a capacity of 154 megawatts would be built in Victoria state, and would reach full capacity by 2013.
“The project aims to build the biggest photovoltaic project in the world and this is by using mirrors which concentrate the sun’s rays on a power plant,” Costello said.”
It seems like that neat engine, which is powered by trash, in that car from Back to the Future is almost real! Researchers at UC Davis have found a way to turn leftovers from meals into biogas that can be used to generate electricity or make fuel. That in itself is not revolutionary, what is though, is that they found an effective (cheap) way to do this on a large scale.
The machine will use leftovers from restaurants to make energy, thus making it also a waster-diversion program to boot.
“The Biogas Energy Project is the first large-scale demonstration in the United States of a new technology developed in the past eight years by Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering. The technology, called an “anaerobic phased solids digester,” has been licensed from the university and adapted for commercial use by Onsite Power Systems Inc.”
Canada’s Environment Minister Rona Ambrose introduced a proposed clean air act during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday. The Tory Government has targeted industry sectors who will now have mandatory requirements that will be enforced to cut greenhouse emissions in half by 2050. These industries include gas and oil as well as the auto industry.
By 2011 further measures will be taken for more long term goals to cut smog emmisions, the act will take a baby steps approach toward a larger goal of reductions up to 65 per cent by 2050. Although it is a small step it is nice to see some action being taken. Ambrose said any polluter who goes over the regulated targets will be fined, with the money going to an environmental damage fund.
Google is going to power it’s corporate headquarters using solar power! The installation at the Googleplex will generate a total capacity of 1.6 megawatts which is “enough to supply 1,000 average California homes.”
The Googleplex has a lot of space on its roof it looks like. This is a great thing for any corporation to consider doing. I believe that Google is actually quite concerned about the amount of power an average PC uses because of the cost. Maybe this is their solution since computer makers are dropping the ball.