5 articles and concept about renewable energy

1. Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is energy that comes from resources
which are continually replenished such as sunlight, wind,
rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat
Renewable energy flows involve
natural phenomena such as sunlight,
wind, tides, plant growth, and
geothermal heat, as the International
Energy Agency explains:[10]
Renewable energy is derived from
natural processes that are
replenished constantly. In its various
forms, it derives directly from the sun,
or from heat generated deep within
the earth. Included in the definition is
electricity and heat generated from
solar, wind, ocean, hydropower,
biomass, geothermal resources, and
biofuels and hydrogen derived from
renewable resources

2. Renewable Energy A Smart Choice For Farmers And Ranchers
Jan. 2, 2004 — Golden, Colo. — For many rural families, the cost of
extending a power line to a home or other facility can be time
consuming and costly. By using alternative energy sources such as
solar, wind and biomass, farmers, ranchers, business owners and
homeowners can reduce their utility bills, stabilize electricity
supplies and help reduce America's dependence on foreign energy
supplies.
Engineers from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) next month will host three workshops on
"Solar, Wind and Biomass Energy for Farm, Ranch and Home" at the
National Western Stock Show in Denver. The workshops will feature
hands-on displays of clean, renewable energy systems that farmers
and ranchers can use today.
The consumer-oriented workshops will offer an introduction to solar,
wind and biomass energy systems, which can provide economical
ways to produce electricity and hot water. The workshop will also
describe how energy efficiency combines with renewable sources to
provide clean, low-cost energy.
Some ways in which renewable energy can be made to work in rural
applications include:
* Providing hot water for home and farm use
* Pumping water for livestock
* Powering automatic gate openers, aeration fans in grain storage
bins and automatic supplement feeders
* Powering security and task lighting, as well as entrance signs

3. * Powering buildings and operating labor-saving equipment far from
utility lines
* Helping protect users from electricity price spikes, brownouts,
rolling blackouts and other grid-related reliability and supply
security issues
* Avoiding the high costs of extending power lines to remote
locations
* Producing 5 kilowatts to 5 megawatts of power using small modular
biomass power systems.
"In many cases, renewable energy systems provide the cheapest
and most reliable way to meet the electricity needs of farms and
ranches," said NREL engineer John Thornton. "Installing a solar or
wind energy system is often cheaper than running a new power line
if electricity is needed one-quarter mile or more away from an
existing power line."
NREL also will sponsor an exhibit for the duration of the Stock Show
with free literature on solar, wind and biomass energy in the Hall of
Education.
The workshops are free with admission to the Stock Show and will be
offered 10 a.m. to noon, Jan. 10 in the NWSS Livestock Building and
Jan. 17 and 25 in the Beef Palace Auction Arena.
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's premier laboratory for
renewable energy research and development and a leading
laboratory for energy efficiency R&D. NREL is operated for DOE by
Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.
For further information contact NREL Public Affairs at (303) 275-
4090.

4. London's cooking waste to fuel power station
Thames Water and 2OC in deal worth £200m over 20 years to turn
'fatbergs' clogging capital's sewers into energy for sewage works
and homes
Cooking waste from thousands of London restaurants and food
companies is to help run what is claimed to be the world's biggest
fat-fuelled power station.
The energy generated from the grease, oil and fat that clogs the
capital's sewers will also be channelled to help run a major sewage
works and a desalination plant, as well as supplying the National
Grid, under plans announced by Thames Water and utility
company 2OC.
The prospect of easing the financial and logistical problems of
pouring £1m a month into clearing the drains of 40,000 fat-caused
blockages a year is being hailed by the companies as a "win-win"
project. Thirty tonnes a day of waste will be collected from leftover
cooking oil supplies at eateries and manufacturers, fat traps in
kitchens and pinchpoints in the sewers – enough to provide more
than half the fuel the power plant will need to run. The rest of its fuel
will come from waste vegetable oil and tallow (animal fats).
The deal, worth more than £200m over 20 years, has made possible
the building of the £70m plant at Beckton, east London, which is

5. financed by a consortium led by iCON Infrastructure. It is due to be
operational in early 2015. No virgin oils from field or plantation crops
will be used to power it, says 2OC.
The plant will produce 130 Gigawatt hours (GWh) a year of
renewable electricity – enough to run just under 40,000 average-
sized homes, say the planners.
Thames Water has agreed to buy 75GWh of this output to run
Beckton sewage works, which serves 3.5 million people, and the
nearby desalination plant, which is used in times of drought or other
emergencies. Piers Clark, commercial director for Thames Water,
said: "This project is a win-win: renewable power, hedged from the
price fluctuations of the non-renewable mainstream power markets,
and helping tackle the ongoing operational problem of 'fatbergs' in
sewers."
Andrew Mercer, chief executive of 2OC, said: "This is good for us,
the environment, Thames Water and its customers.
"Our renewable power and heat from waste oils and fats is fully
sustainable. When Thames doesn't need our output, it will be made
available to the grid meaning that power will be sourced, generated
and used in London by Londoners."

6. Solar Storage Market Set for Rapid Growth
LONDON -- News that Germany plans to launch a €50 million solar
storage incentive is the latest indicator that solar storage's time has
come.
Under the program, German owners of solar systems with storage
will be entitled to a low-interest loan from KfW, the state-owned
bank, and a repayment allowance from the Ministry of Environment,
which will cover 30 percent of the battery system's cost. The
program will apply to newly-installed PV facilities with storage and
solar plants with storage systems installed after December 31, 2012.
Systems under 30 kW will be eligible for the subsidy.
Although lack of emissions trading revenue for the Energy and
Climate Fund is said to be currently delaying the program, it is
predicted that it will soon move forward, possibly by the originally
specified date of 1 May.
This incentive will make almost any emerging energy storage
technology capable of tying into a PV array cost-effective, according
to Brian Warshay of Lux Research. Subsidizing a storage system's
energy capacity rather than its power capacity, as does California's
Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), is a more logical
approach, says Warshay, because the solar shifting application

7. requires more energy than power. Germany's incentive will benefit
technologies capable of longer discharge duration such as molten
salt and flow batteries rather than most lithium-ion batteries,
Warshay said.
Research firm NanoMarkets believes the growth of the solar storage
market is driven by declining costs for PV modules and reductions in
government support for solar power. Without attractive subsidies,
self-consumption can be more valuable than selling power and
storage becomes desirable. NanoMarkets predicts that demand for
storage in the residential and commercial sectors will soon show
rapid growth.

8. Biomass To More Than Triple Globally by
2030
LONDON -- Driven by aggressive biofuel mandates, rapid industry growth will cause
great strain on biomass by 2030, according to analysis firm Lux Research. A report
from the firm says that, using today's technologies, an area the size of Russia would
need to be cultivated to replace all petroleum used for chemicals and fuels, and
feedstock innovation will be needed to keep growing biomass's market share.
But the future doesn't look grim for biofuels, according to KalibKersh, Lux's bio-based
materials and chemicals/alternative fuels analyst. Kersh told REW that he believes
some developers will deliver the needed innovation, though others will flounder. ―When
cellulosic pre-treatment technologies come to commercial viability in the next several
years, biofuels and biocemicals producers will have new options for feedstocks,‖ he
said. ―In turn that will create a new variation of agriculture, stimulating biomass
production in a very efficient way.‖ And Kersh saw more investment in the bioenergy
sector in 2012 than ever before.
When Stresses Bite
Today biofuels and biochemicals need more than one billion metric tons of material per
year to replace 3 percent of total petroleum products, according to Kersh. ―By 2030 this
number will soar to 3.7 billion metric tons,‖ he said. To meet this growing challenge,
measures will be needed such as crop modifications, new value chain configurations
and agronomic technology improvements like irrigation and biosensors.
Kersh is ―cautiously optimistic‖ that these measures will be taken - although particular
regions could be problematic. What will happen if industry innovation doesn't
materialize to the levels necessary to avert a crisis? Kersh said his research had led
him to conclude that Japan, North America and Brazil would end up being importers of

9. biomass. ―It's almost impossible to see it happening otherwise‖, he said. And he warned
that ―it's always possible that some of these countries will backpedal on their
mandates‖, although he cautioned that it's too soon to tell.
Costs Can Be Lowered
New logistics methods could lower costs, according to the report. Alternative fuel
companies such as Sweetwater Energy and BlackGold Biofuels are developing 'hub-
and-spoke' models to build satellite intermediate conversion facilities that feed into a
central processing facility, cutting transportation costs. According to Kersh, the largest
contributing cost in bioenergy production is the feedstock. Other contributors to cost
are in harvesting, processing, transport and, in some cases, storage.
The Public Opinion Factor
It may surprise some that the biofuels market appears to be burgeoning despite
widespread public debate over food vs fuel and destruction of the world's rainforests.
Kersh shed some light on the issues: ―For one thing,‖ he told REW, ―sugar cane in Brazil
is actually grown far from rainforests; it needs a fairly dry environment for part of the
growing season.‖
In terms of the food vs fuel debate, Kersh believes that ―some disingenuous players‖
have been making much of the issue, but that it ―doesn't make that much sense‖.
―The issue of food security needs to be dealt with head-on, not in an indirect way by
attacking biofuel,‖ he said. ―There is plenty of grain and plenty of foodstuffs for
everybody; the problems are not a matter of supply.‖
In the US, he said, the American Petroleum Institute has exerted efforts to eliminate the
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2). "The irony of that," said Kersh, "is that use of ethanol
frees up other petroleum-derived blend-stock fractions for higher-value sale to other,
non-fuels markets."

10. Bibliography
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2004, January 2).
Renewable Energy A Smart Choice For Farmers And Ranchers.
ScienceDaily.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/07/london-
cooking-waste-power-station
By Tildy Bayar, Associate Editor, Renewable Energy World
March 28, 2013
By Tildy Bayar, Associate Editor, Renewable Energy World
March 14, 2013

11. Entertainment