300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds by @postcarbon

Interesting video titled "300 years of Fossil Fuels in 300 seconds" that we discovered today.

It's by the Post Carbon Institute. While the narrative occasionally gets amusingly neo-Malthusian, the issues it raises are genuine and of great concern, and something many of the projects we have looked at here on The Green Radar have looked to tackle.

In the Post Carbon Institute's own words,

Fossil fuels have powered human growth and ingenuity for centuries. Now that we're reaching the end of cheap and abundant oil and coal supplies, we're in for an exciting ride. While there's a real risk that we'll fall off a cliff, there's still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future.

Floating Windfarms. An innovative renewable solution

Fast Company recently covered a fascinating new design proposal in Malta -- the development of floating windfarms.

The article further states that:

To catch up quickly, Malta is considering a proposal by the Swedish company Hexiconto build the world’s largest floating wind farm. It would consist of 36 turbines arranged around a 460-meter-wide platform, tethered to the ocean floor by cables. The proposed site for the platform is 11 nautical miles off the island’s northeast shore. It would be far enough away to take advantage of high ocean winds (and be more or less out of sight) yet close enough that it could be connected to the country’s electricity grid without too much trouble.

This is incredibly interesting and would be a fascinating proof-of-concept for renewable energy.

It must be pointed out however, that while this design is purported to have a capacity for 54MW, that is still some distance off coal -- averaging around 700MW; or nuclear -- averaging around 850MW.

Pay-as-you-go Electricity - Developing Markets

Another fascinating development we're tracking here at The Green Radar is that of Pay-as-you-go / "micro-supply" forms of energy.

SharedSolar is an incredibly interesting project in this regard, as Millenium Villages reports. Check it out.

"As part of the Millennium Villages project, in 2009 the Earth Institute’s Modi Research Group took up the challenge of how to bring electricity to rural villages in Africa. After analyzing the data and sociological constraints, the team arrived at an innovative solution to the problem: solar-powered micro-grids with prepaid metering and semi-automated, remote management. They called it SharedSolar: pay-as-you-go electricity via mobile telephony."

Sustainable Energy Management for Underground Stations

Nobody has ever asked themselves how much energy an underground station uses. Calculating escalators, lights and air-flow, the world average is around 550.000 kWh per year (equivalent to the electricity consumed in more than 200 households). Considering that in Europe there are 4412 stations, in America 2761 and in Asia 2685, a quick multiplication will tell us that the energy demand is 5,5 GWh per year.
This is why the European Union is contributing 2,8 million Euros for a project that, for the first time, will try to understand where this energy is used to find the best solutions for the stations.
The name of this 4,1 million Euuro project is Seam4Us (acronym of Sustainable Energy maNagement for Underground Stations) and is coordinated by an Italian company: Cofely Italia Spa.

The project started with a pilot station in "Passeig de Gràcia" in Barcelona and will take 36 months to complete. The first year is dedicated to study of how energy is consumed and how innovative technologies can compliment it. In the next year it's expected to install systems that will regulate light, escalators and optimize the ventilation depending on the presence of people (thanks to environmental sensors).




http://seam4us.eu

A Green Battlefield for US Armed Forces

Building on previous efforts to adopt energy efficient technologies for the armed forces, the current administration set a goal to build "...three gigawatts of solar, wind, and geothermal power capacity on U.S. military installations by 2025" the majority of which would be US installations.
The announcement isn't totally driven by a desire to be "green," but by the logistically positive outcomes that it provides for the Armed Forces when considering the effects that power disruptions can have on a mission. Additionally, the transportation and protection of fuel have always been high risk operations leading to many casualties on the ground.

Other efforts by the administration to move towards a greener armed forces included solar backpack adoption in 2010 for grounds troops in Afghanistan. The announcement earlier in the week also included a 30 Billion dollar research competition by the Energy Department for improving battery storage.



-Image provided by CleanTechnica