Monday, January 14, 2013

Alternative Clean Energy Roundup: 14 January 2013

Tapping Old World Wisdom
New, certified green buildings may offer sex appeal and flashy style, but older buildings offer unexpected benefits to cost-conscious businesses and homeowners. The older the better!

Buildings account for 39% of America’s energy consumption, totaling 6.5 billion barrels of oil annually. If we could drastically slow the flow of fossil fuels to this sector of our economy, it would go a long way to shrinking our mammoth carbon footprint and reducing the negative impact of $1 Billion a day spent on oil imports.

The many perks of retrofitting are what those in the historic building preservation community have been waving their arms about for decades. World events — from the economic downturn to catastrophic natural disasters — are creating a surge of interest in boardrooms, architectural firms, and certifying agencies for the restoration and retrofit of old buildings. read more>>>

Canadian Solar project wins Solar Project of the Year Award
10 January 2013 - German solar park is one of the world’s largest PV projects covering 352 hectares of a former mining strip

The 148MW solar park in southern Brandenburg, Germany, was awarded the winning title in POWER-GEN International's Projects of the Year awards gala in Orlando. The park stands on a former lignite mine at Meuro, near Senftenberg and incorporates around 636,000 CS60-P modules supplied by Canadian Solar representing almost 90 percent of the project’s total 166MW output. The park will ultimately generate enough renewable energy to power 67,500 households. read more>>>

Mexico, Chile and Brazil will dominate Latin American solar PV sector
07 January 2013 - Explosive growth for solar PV across Latin America and the Caribbean through 2017 will be dominated by Mexico, Chile and Brazil, new report finds

A new report by NPD Solarbuzz entitled Emerging PV Markets Report: Latin America & Caribbean finds that the region will enjoy a forecasted compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45%. Mexico, Chile and Brazil will become market leaders due to a combination of net-metering, Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), and other policies. By 2017 these three countries will be enjoying around 70% of PV demand in Latin America. read more>>>

Ames Laboratory to lead new research effort to address shortages in rare earth and other critical materials
WASHINGTON -- Jan. 9, 2013 -- The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that a team led by Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, has been selected for an award of up to $120 million over five years to establish an Energy Innovation Hub that will develop solutions to the domestic shortages of rare earth metals and other materials critical for U.S. energy security. The new research center, which will be named the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), will bring together leading researchers from academia, four Department of Energy national laboratories, as well as the private sector.

“Rare earth metals and other critical materials are essential to manufacturing wind turbines, electric vehicles, advanced batteries and a host of other products that are essential to America’s energy and national security. The Critical Materials Institute will bring together the best and brightest research minds from universities, national laboratories and the private sector to find innovative technology solutions that will help us avoid a supply shortage that would threaten our clean energy industry as well as our security interests,” said David Danielson, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. read more>>>

NASA Chases Climate Change Clues Into The Stratosphere
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2013 /PR Newswire/ -- Starting this month, NASA will send a remotely piloted research aircraft as high as 65,000 feet over the tropical Pacific Ocean to probe unexplored regions of the upper atmosphere for answers to how a warming climate is changing Earth.

The first flights of the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX), a multi-year airborne science campaign with a heavily instrumented Global Hawk aircraft, will take off from and be operated by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The Global Hawk is able to make 30-hour flights. read more>>>


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