A coal-fired electrical plant in Tucson, Ariz., is going green — or at least “greener” — partnering with a French, state-owned nuclear company to install a solar add-on that will generate enough clean electricity to power 600 homes using high-pressure, superheated steam warmed by a series of mirrors.

The new solar project is expected to begin construction in Spring 2012 and to be up and running at the current H. Wilson Sundt Generating Station in Tucson by 2013, according to a news release from plant operator Tucson Electric Power and AREVA, the French energy company behind the solar technology.

“Solar booster projects like this are gaining momentum in the United States and around the world as a way to leverage existing power infrastructure to provide needed energy with no new emissions,” said Bill Gallo, CEO of AREVA Solar, in the joint news release on Tuesday.

You can read the entire article here.

And we applaud the argument that it isn’t “nuclear vs. renewables” but that nuclear energy provides a crucial compliment to renewable energy sources as an always on backstop or “baseload” source of energy. As she put it well:

Renewable power suffers from problems of intermittency; it is very difficult to predict how much the wind will blow or how strong the sun will shine. The American electricity grid — built to connect massive, centralized, “always on” power plants to consumers — is unable to handle the unpredictability that a substantial increase in renewable power would bring. Natural gas, too, faces economic hurdles — it has a history of rapid and extreme price fluctuations that have made utilities reluctant to rely on it.

Until these problems are solved, our electricity system requires a stable, cheap source of energy to provide “always on” baseload power. The only candidates for such power in today’s energy mix are nuclear or coal power plants. We are learning that mining and burning coal provides too much danger to human health to base our electricity system on it: a new study in the American Economic Review has found that the air pollution emitted by coal-fired electricity generation is greater than the value it adds to economy. Nuclear power, on the other hand, can provide emissions-free baseload power at a low cost.

Today, a total of 104 nuclear reactors are operational around the country. They provide about 20 percent of the country’s total electricity. No other electricity source can combine the benefits of knowing that it will always be on with its affordability and its lack of emissions….This cheap, always available, zero-carbon power is an important backstop to the growth of new technologies. It can help smooth the price fluctuations that natural gas is vulnerable to and it provides the “always on” capacity that renewable power cannot.

Read the whole article here.

The full video is below; Mr. Besnainou’s comments run from 18:59 – 26:32.

The latest writer to notice this posted an article at The New Republic, “How Germany Phased Out Nuclear Power, Only to be Mugged By Reality.”

“Yet in bowing to the country’s strong anti-nuclear movement, Germany appears to have suddenly gone off track: Within the last year the country has gone from a net exporter of energy to a net importer, and the carbon intensity of the energy it purchases has risen as well. Now, with its energy politics in turmoil, Germany is serving as a very different sort of model for environmentalists: how not to go green.”

The article then lists several specific lessons learned from Germany’s energy choices, with one being that ending nuclear energy did not spur more renewable use in Germany thus far:

Indeed, Laszlo Varro, the head of the gas, coal, and power markets division at the International Energy Agency, told me the end of nuclear power ultimately won’t have a discernible impact on renewable generation. That’s because the main obstacle to renewable development isn’t competition from nuclear power, but the challenge of transmission—how to bring electricity from offshore wind farms in northern Germany to the factories in the south. The nuclear phaseout, Varro argues, will only exacerbate this challenge by removing nuclear plants from southern Germany and increasing the north-south energy imbalance.

And since this is the case, by definition, less nuclear power actually results in more dirty fossil fuel use and more greenhouse gas production:

None of this means that Germany has necessarily fallen off course in meeting its ambitious renewable energy targets (the 2050 goal involves many factors, and it’s too soon to judge the ongoing progress with any certainty). But the country’s chances of meeting its emissions goals will almost certainly suffer. That’s because replacing low-emissions nuclear power with wind or solar doesn’t actually reduce emissions—and replacing it with coal and gas only worsens the situation. “Reaching the carbon dioxide emissions target will be more difficult and more expensive after the moratorium,” Varro predicts.

Thus far the effort has also made Germany markedly less energy independent as a nation:

Meanwhile, the biggest financial winner from Germany’s nuclear moratorium, Varro says, is nuclear power outside Germany. Since March, Germany has imported considerably more electricity from neighboring countries like France that rely on nuclear power sources. It’s also turned to power from coal-fired plants in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The author then closes with a long view perspective: Germany may be a gigantic experiment, showing how policy and energy choices impact a large industrial country, and that “the world’s environmentalists have their eyes on Germany. It’s just that the example the country is setting might not be the one he intended.”

Many other experts from around the world are seeing this same thing:

To be sure, as a laboratory for an energy experiment of this magnitude, Germany does have some advantages. It’s a highly industrialized country with a substantial investment in renewable energy sources and a history of beating expectations…. But many energy experts are more skeptical. In a survey this month of experts in 21 countries by the London-based World Energy Council, none of the respondents said they expected Germany to meet all of its stated energy goals, and more than three-quarters predicted a weakening of the Germany economy over the coming decade as a result of the nuclear phaseout. “It’s really a catastrophe,” Kleinknecht told me.

This is a must read article, you can find the whole work here.

Countries around the world marked the world’s population reaching 7 billion Monday with lavish ceremonies for newborn infants symbolizing the milestone and warnings that there may be too many humans for the planet’s resources….While demographers are unsure exactly when the world’s population will reach the 7 billion mark, the U.N. is using Monday to symbolically mark the day. A string of festivities are being held worldwide, with a series of symbolic 7-billionth babies being born.

Dr. Eric Tayag of the Philippines’ Department of Health said later that the birth came with a warning. “Seven billion is a number we should think about deeply,” he said.

We agree. Seven billion people — not to mention the projected growth rates from here — is a sobering statistic. As many commentators are pointing out, this accelerating population brings up important and pressing global health, housing, education, food and environmental questions.

But we also know undergirding and influencing all of these issues are the immediate questions of energy and sustainability.

Our global future requires a considered and balanced approach combining expanded renewable and nuclear energy solutions to provide and maintain steady, reliable, low-carbon power. This need is clear. How we accomplish it requires creative cooperation still hobbled by polarizing activism.

We must focus on these larger and harder questions together. We now have seven billion reasons to do so, and counting.

Though well established and growing fast in Europe, offshore wind power has yet to get off the ground – or in the water – in the US. That’s despite the tremendous potential offshore wind holds in terms of supplying vast amounts of clean, renewable electricity to highly populated areas all along the US East, West, Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes’ coasts.

Pike Research forecasts that investment in US offshore wind power will rise steeply over the next six years, with revenue reaching $104 billion by 2017. That’s a 56% constant annual growth rate (CAGR). They could reach as high as $130.5 billion under different assumptions incorporated in a “more aggressive scenario,” according to Pike Research’s “Offshore Wind Power” report.
Source: Clean Technica

The blog post continues, comparing the cost and benefit of offshore wind to other energy sources and concludes that “the US populace would continue to be ill-served if their government representatives do not establish fair, equitable support and incentives for developing a largely homegrown industry with such economic, social and environmental benefits and advantages.”

The full report from Pike Research is here.

Then there was also this from the Baltimore Sun, noting how Maryland is potentially a new venue for offshore wind, and is looking at exactly the type of energy questions for their power needs:

Advocates of developing offshore wind power have come to Baltimore this week with optimism that they’re creeping closer to putting the first turbines off the Atlantic coast, but worried that Washington could pull the plug on the fledgling industry just as it gets started.Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar are scheduled to open a three-day conference put on by the American Wind Energy Association.

The future of offshore wind in Maryland may ride on what happens in the next several months, as lawmakers and O’Malley aides chew over whether to ask ratepayers to subsidize offshore turbines off Ocean City or off neighboring states. Lawmakers balked at the idea last winter, tabling it for furrther study. Supporters released a pair of polls this week suggesting that large majorities of Marylanders favor offshore wind and would even be willing to pay more ($2 a month, even) to get it going.

You can read the entire story on this here.

During the recent RETECH conference in Washington, D.C., I was privileged to host offshore wind industry leaders in a robust and detailed roundtable discussion addressing the latest issues and challenges of offshore wind in the United States.

By including a range of international and domestic offshore wind perspectives, including developers, financiers, industry agencies, state government, turbine manufacturers, and consultants, the group’s discussion explored and brainstormed unique concepts for structuring effective business models and policy.

The experts’ roundtable discussion included:

• Potential impact to loan guarantee programs from recent developments and the potential expiration of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC)
• Investment Tax Credit vs. Production Tax Credit – which better serves offshore wind
• Analysis of the structure of the French offshore wind tender, requiring Developers to create full-wrap consortia to tangibly calculate economic benefits in their bid
• Status assessment of the proposed Maryland legislation – MEA serving as an informational portal for the legislature, summer session winding down, results and next steps to be determined
• How to engage utilities, address balance sheet impacts of PPAs, design innovative funding mechanisms, and address the true costs of energy with a comparative net benefits test

Following the discussion, we all came away with new ideas and a better understanding of this fledgling industry’s opportunity and potential.

Through hosting this event and future discussions, AREVA uses its successful international offshore wind project experience to help advance the industry here in the United States.

Those who retain concerns that nuclear power is “big business”, and seek to buck the system by insisting on renewables, please just be aware of the following. Billion dollar energy investments, such as we need to decarbonise, whatever the technology, is nothing but big business.

Corporations are the vehicles for getting things like that done, be it solar, nuclear or other. In all cases, we deserve vigilant governance to ensure citizens get the best outcome. That is irrespective of the technology.

Indeed, we’ve long been clean energy fans; believing that large-scale, low-carbon power production with nuclear and renewables was both crucial and good for the planet, and good for jobs, the economy and business.

Read Ben’s entire blog post here, and be sure to view his detailed analysis in “Nuclear Power – From Opponent to Proponent.”

Three steps to build a wind farm: Towers in the sea

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 4

Published by BBC.co.uk http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14412189

Take a closer look at renewable wind energy through the BBC’s science correspondent David Shukman’s ‘three step guide to the challenges, costs and construction of an offshore wind farm‘.

AREVA also plays a major role in offshore wind through the design, manufacture, assembly and commissioning of high-power wind turbines specially adapted for marine use, notably the M5000. In the summer of 2009, AREVA installed the first six of these M5000 turbines as part of the Alpha Ventus Project in the North Sea.

Click here to watch the video.

Find out how AREVA is helping utilities to make offshore wind projects successful.

Learn more about AREVA’s M5000 wind turbine. It is the first 5 megawatt turbine made specifically for offshore wind farms and is designed to withstand the severe conditions of the marine environment.

You can also watch a video of the installation of these powerful turbines off the German coast in the North Sea.