Tidal power rides wave of popularity  

TV NZ has an article on a raft of ocean energy projects in New Zealand - "Tidal power rides wave of popularity".

The government is being urged to give more support to the development of wave and tidal power after a study found it is greener than other forms of renewable energy. Despite the rush to build wind farms around the country, two Auckland University students say tidal power is superior.

Hydro electricity is the backbone of the nation's energy system but when the students looked at whether it was more sustainable than wind, geothermal or tidal power, they got a surprise. "We were sort of expecting hydro generation to be the winner, but as it turned out tidal came out first," says student Zeb Worth.

Tidal power doesn't exist in New Zealand yet, but there are at least 24 wave and tidal power projects under development. "Wave pattern and tidal energy probably have less impact in terms of visual pollution, noise, and competition with other human uses," says John Huckerby, Wave and Tidal Energy Association.

Tidal power projects leave their renewable rivals for dead when it comes to carbon footprint, because geothermal plants use stacks of stainless steel, and hydro dams involve huge amounts of energy intensive concrete and steel. "Steel and concrete have a lot of carbon emissions associated with their manufacture and construction," says Worth.

The findings have been welcomed by Crest Energy, which wants to create the world's largest tidal power plant in the Kaipara Harbour.

The Age reports that Indian company IT MDI-Energy is setting up a manufacturing base for compressed air powered cars in Melbourne - "Air car to call Melbourne home". Rumour has it the unions have invested a bit in this.

MELBOURNE is set to be the manufacturing home base for a car that operates with zero emissions and can run solely on compressed air. Guy Negre, who used to design engines for Formula One team Renault, has spent the past 15 years developing the air engine and says the first manufacturing plant will be established in Melbourne with cars expected to go on sale next year.

Mr Negre, the managing director of IT MDI-Energy, which will manufacture the air car, and partner Louis Arnoux have been in Melbourne this month to demonstrate the technology, which is part of a five-year $1.5 billion planned roll-out across Australia. The Victorian and Federal governments have been shown the technology, as well as other potential investors.

Compressed air, not petrol, pushes the engine's pistons, which can then take the vehicle up to 110 kilometres an hour. Running on compressed air alone, the car can travel 150 kilometres, but when the air is heated externally and incorporated with a fuel source, such as ethanol or diesel, it is possible to travel from Perth to Brisbane without refuelling.

Dr Arnoux said the car would be economically and environmentally friendly. He said the first small car would retail for less than $8000 and running costs would be 80% lower than current comparable vehicles. IT MDI-Energy aims to reduce car emissions in Australia over the next 10 years by 20%. The company says that more than 7000 new jobs will be created over the next five years.

Kevin Bullis at Technology Review has a post on a Google Maps mashup that exposes big polluters.

I've spent just a little too much of my afternoon investigating the smokestacks outside my office with a fun new tool called MapEcos, produced by a few local business schools. It's yet another application based on Google Maps. But this tool, rather than telling me the location of the nearest pizza place or giving me an update on the weather, is letting me know just how much lead the power plant next door is spewing out.

It's about 100 pounds of lead a year. About a mile and a half away from the office is another set of smokestacks that I just learned emit about 30,000 pounds of formaldehyde and 150,000 pounds of ammonia annually. A chemical plant within a mile of my apartment emits 4,000 pounds of vinyl acetate and more than 1,000 pounds of N,N-Dimethylformamide.

This is all publicly available information. I just hadn't bothered looking it up, in part because I had no idea what some of these places were called--or that the chemical plant near my apartment even existed. MapEcos takes EPA data and links it to specific locations, providing color-coded markers that make it easier to pick out the worst offenders.

TreeHugger has the geothermal energy bug - "Finding Geothermal Energy Just Got Easy".

The ground beneath your feet contains energy, vast sums of energy. It has been estimated that in the U.S. alone the geothermal energy resources are enough to power the entire U.S. for 30,000 years. Yet, there are serious questions about geothermal energy development. It has been named the 'poor cousin' of renewable energy: likely because it is mining a finite resource and there is the little issue of causing earthquakes. Yet it is also a non-polluting, constant source of energy that is readily available using todays technology.

No matter if you decide it is a good option or not, one outstanding problem with geothermal energy is that it can actually be tricky to find. Sure, we have 'heat' maps like the one shown below (the fold), but the only surefire way to tell if geothermal energy sources are easily available is to drill, which can be an expensive endeavor. Now scientists have found an easy way to tell if geothermal energy could be bubbling up in your neck of the woods. ...

Links:

* Solar Singapore - S'pore to build first $10m zero energy building
* San Francisco Chronicle - Companies squeezing power from sun, deserts in Southern California
* NPR - Businesses See Green in Iceland's Volcano Power
* SMH - Australia ratifies Kyoto Protocol
* Celsias - No More Coal
* The Energy Blog - Valence Technology Premieres First Intelligent, Large-Format Lithium-Ion Battery System
* After Gutenberg - Shaping Future Transportation Initiate. Some notes on biodiesel and other transport trends.
* TreeHugger - London's Popular Electric Vehicle Gets an Upgrade: The G-Wiz i
* Resource Insights - What should members of the peak oil movement call themselves?. Odograph gets best comment award.
* David Strahan - Surfing the ultimate peak. The impact of peak oil on surfing - sounds familiar...
* Peak Oil Debunked - Electric Agricultural Machinery. If you can get past JD's frequently intemperate language and arguing style, he is right about a number of things. This is one of them.
* Celsias - Ocean Fertilisation a No-Go - New Research Says. Would be geoengineers note - messing with the atmsophere is a bad idea.
* Open The Future - Futurism and its Discontents
* TomDispatch - Why Bush Won't Leave Iraq
* TomDispatch - Iraq as a Pentagon Construction Site
* Salon - Ron Paul: The message is so powerful, in spite of my shortcomings
* Cleveland Plain Dealer - Dennis Kucinich hoping for upset in New Hampshire primary