Cleantechnica reports that the UK is experimenting with smart fridges (fridges that adjust their power consumption dynamically based on grid load) - UK Giving Away “Intelligent Fridges”.

Live in the UK? You may be the lucky recipient of a free “intelligent” refrigerator. 3,000 fridges that adapt power usage based on the demands of the electrical grid will be given away by the government next year. According to a report from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, the dynamic demand fridges could potentially save 2 million tons of carbon each year and £222m.

In addition to saving energy, the dynamic demand fridges will also help ease the transition to intermittently produced renewable energy by reducing the minimum amount of power necessary to keep the electrical grid stable— in other words, the fridges limit the base amount of fossil fuels used in energy creation.

The fridge works by monitoring energy demand with circuitry that keeps track of the electrical grid frequency. Depending on the ebb and flow of grid demand, the fridge adjusts its energy use— all within normal parameters.

While the UK’s trial will only look at refrigerators, dynamic demand technology can be used in other electronics as well. Possible applications include air conditioners, immersion heaters, and electric car chargers.

GetUp's campaign against internet filtering in Australia continues to gather steam, with over 75,000 signatures so far.

The thin film solar field is still a hot bed of activity - Technology Review has a post on a prototype cell that uses photonic crystals - Efficient Thin-Film Solar Cells.

Researchers at MIT have unveiled a new type of silicon solar cell that could be much more efficient and cost less than currently used solar cells. Materials science and engineering professor Lionel Kimerling and his colleagues presented results of the first device prototype at a recent meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston.

The design combines a highly effective reflector on the back of a solar cell with an antireflective coating on the front. This helps trap red and near-infrared light, which can be used to make electricity, in the silicon. The research team is licensing similar technology to StarSolar, a startup in Cambridge, MA.

The researchers applied their light-trapping scheme on thin silicon cells that are about five micrometers thick. Their prototype solar cell is 15 percent more efficient at converting light into electricity than commercial thin-film solar cells. Project leader Peter Bermel, who is StarSolar's chief technology officer, says that sophisticated computer simulations suggest that much greater gains in efficiency are possible.

Thin-film silicon solar cells could be cheaper than conventional devices because they use hundreds of times less material. Conventional solar cells use silicon wafers that are about 0.5 millimeters thick, while thin-film devices have thicknesses of a few micrometers. But thin-film devices suffer from lower efficiencies. This is mainly because of the red and near-infrared photons, which don't stay trapped inside the thin silicon long enough to get absorbed. ...

The photonic crystal reflects light, while the grating sends this light back into the silicon at a low angle. This keeps the light bouncing around inside and prevents it from escaping. The longer the light stays in, the more likely it will be absorbed and converted into electricity.

China's export and construction driven economy is facing a few (major) challenges right now, but for the time being they are still breaking ground on some innovative new buildings - including this latest green building from Inhabitat - China’s Spiraling Shanghai Tower Breaks Ground.

Recently Gensler broke ground on a soaring sustainably skyscraper that is set to become the tallest tower in China. The slender, elegantly spiraling Shanghai Tower will rise 632 meters, making it the latest super-tall to spring up in China’s rapidly developing Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zone. A beacon for a more sustainable future, the skyscraper will feature a high-performance façade that shelters no fewer than nine sky gardens, a rainwater recycling system, and a series of wind turbines perched beneath its parapet. ...

The skyscraper’s twisting, asymmetrical envelope features a carefully considered structure and texture that work together to reduce wind loads on the building by 24%, saving building materials and construction costs. The building’s spiraling parapet collects rainwater to be used for the tower’s heating and air conditioning systems, and wind turbines situated below the parapet generate on-site power. Additionally, the gardens nestled within the building’s double-skin façade create a thermal buffer zone while improving indoor air quality.

TreeHugger has a post on micro-wind power devices for the home - Hot Home Wind Turbines You Can Actually Buy, Plus One You Wish You Could.

Though solar panels definitely hog the renewable energy stage when it comes to home installations, a number of new, innovative wind turbines have entered the market in the past couple of months. Not all of these are intended to be mounted on your roof, some you’ll need a bit of a yard (and a dearth of neighbors) to install and they vary in price from affordable to "when am I going to actually pay this off?”, but they all go to show that there’s more than one way to harness the wind to generate electricity. Check 'em out...

OTEC News reports that there may be a second OTEC plant planned for Hawaii - Not one, but two OTEC plants in Hawaii? .

Thanks to Maria Tome, Hawaii State Energy Office for confirming that the Lookheed Martin OTEC will be built on Oahu, Hawaii. She pointed to this Energy Agreement which was signed by the State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Companies.

Looking a little deeper into the 52 page agreement (2 MB PDF) I found something which I hadn't seemed mentioned before, and I am not sure I understand what it means. On page 45 in the document it says "Cumulative Target Goal (MW per year end)", and has a table. The Lookheed Martin OTEC is in there with 10 MW. But there is a second line with "Sea Solar OTEC 100 MW", to be in place at the same time as the Lookheed Martin installation. Sea Solar OTEC shows up on page 49 as well and as having a "completed term sheet" by Q3 2008, and a proposed "commercial operation date" of Q3 2013.

Is there a separate OTEC plant being negotiated with Sea Solar Power for Oahu, Hawaii?

Technology Review has an article on efforts to expand and modernise the European energy grid, easing the way for large scale renewables, particularly offshore -Europe Backs Supergrids.

Last month, the European Commission (EC) called for construction of regional electric transmission connections across the North Sea, around the Baltic region, and around the Mediterranean Sea, to distribute solar and wind power to and across Europe. It's all part of a plan to boost renewable energy from 8.5 percent of European energy consumption to 20 percent by 2020--and even more thereafter.

But the EC, the European Union's executive body, acknowledges that getting these so-called supergrids built will mean forging new agreements between European countries for transmission planning and investment--much as the United States needs more cooperation between states to, for example, move wind power from the Midwest to major cities. "The wind power which consumers demand cannot be delivered without new networks," the EC report says, and "there is little strategic planning" between nations to build the required connections.

However, several recent developments suggest that progress on transmission between European nations is possible. This summer, for example, a negotiator appointed by the EC convinced France to accept a new transmission connection with Spain, breaking a 15-year impasse over expanding power exchanges between the countries. Use of high-voltage DC (HVDC) technology will enable planners to bury the new line and thereby overcome local opposition to conventional overhead AC transmission lines.

The French-Spanish connection will help both countries balance power supply and consumption--especially Spain, which struggles at times to accommodate its installations of highly variable wind power, the largest in Europe. EC negotiator Mario Monti estimated that the link, called an interconnection, would reduce reliance on the countries' least efficient power plants, thus avoiding 1.5 million tons per year of carbon-dioxide emissions (roughly the annual emissions of 600,000 cars).

Christian Kjaer, CEO of the European Wind Energy Association, a Brussels-based trade group, calls it a "major breakthrough" that shows how Europe can overcome entrenched opposition to such interconnections. "It's a good example of why we need more than a national approach," says Kjaer.

Meanwhile, proposals for HVDC grids to deliver clean power from offshore wind farms to European consumers are getting more detailed. In September, for example, Brussels-based environmental consulting firm 3E mapped out a blueprint for what a North Sea offshore wind-power grid might look like. In 3E's design, 3,500 miles of underwater HVDC cables crisscross the North Sea, forming a network capable of hooking up 68,000 megawatts' worth of new offshore wind farms--enough generating capacity to meet 13 percent of the region's power consumption.

Plenty has a report on water recycling in California - or, as they indelicately put it "a drought-stricken California county has found a new source of water: its toilets" - Sewers To Sinks.

“Here, try this," says Gina DePinto, a spokesperson for the Orange County Water District [OCWD] as she offers me a bottle of NEWater from a cooler. It looks like it could be any other brand, but there’s one slight difference: this water came from a sewer in Singapore. I unscrew the cap and go bottoms up. Although it has been down a toilet, water-purity tests have shown the water to be some of Earth’s cleanest — and a possible solution to a global problem.

Water is so commonplace in countries like the US we sometimes take it for granted; it's safe, fresh and available at the flick of the wrist. But as drought in arid regions like northern China, eastern Australia, and the American Southwest intensifies and global warming alters weather patterns, clean water will grow more scarce for many; already, according to the UN, a billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water. The UN estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could face water shortage. Here in the US, the parched Southwest is already struggling: nearly eight years of drought have left reservoirs in the Colorado River basin almost half-empty, and in Northern California, 2008’s spring was the driest on record — with some researchers predicting still worse to come.

To meet the challenge, a growing number of cities are purifying wastewater to recharge groundwater or reservoirs, a process engineers call “indirect potable reuse” and skeptics refer to as “toilet-to-tap.” Among the early adopters are El Paso, Texas; Singapore; Windhoek, Namibia; and Fairfax County in Virginia. Other US cities considering or launching similar projects include Los Angeles, San Diego, and Miami-Dade County, which is scheduled to begin an operation in 2013 at an estimated cost of $350 million (that’s still cheaper and more energy-efficient than seawater desalination). Leading the way is Orange County, California.

Known more for its wealth than its filth, the county has a new state-of-the-art plant that opened in January. OCWD engineer Mehul Patel boasts of an 80-to-85 percent recovery rate; the plant produces some 70 million gallons of potable water a day — enough to meet the needs of nearly half a million thirsty Southern Californians.

Our tour of the filtration plant starts next to a row of concrete basins where Coca-Cola colored wastewater churns in the depths; solids have been removed, but this water is thick with muck. In a technique called microfiltration, pumps draw the wastewater through bundles of fibers shaped like ultra-slim drinking straws, with holes 1/300 the size of a human hair, trapping bacteria and dirt. Every fifteen minutes a blast of air flushes the dirt from the microfilter while the water passes to the next stage.

The IHT has a report on a plan by Matt Simmons and George Hart to build the world's largest wind farm in the gulf of Maine - Plans for the world's biggest wind farm.

It is not the usual green suspect. But it hopes to build a 5-gigawatt, deep-water wind farm - the largest in the world, equal to the output from five nuclear plants.

"It" is the Ocean Energy Institute, a tiny research organization founded by Matthew Simmons. An energy investment banker who specializes in oil and gas, Simmons was an energy adviser to President George W. Bush. His main partner, George Hart, is a physicist who consults for the Pentagon on the Strategic Defense Initiative, where he uses supercomputers for the mathematical modeling of complex systems. He also co-invented a laser used for eye surgery and semiconductor manufacturing.

Simmons does not believe in climate change, but he believes in peak oil. His book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," presciently published in 2005, argued that the world was at or near peak oil production, which would limit supply and drive prices skyward.

The International Energy Agency appeared to support that thesis in a report released Nov. 12, saying that, even if demand remained flat, by 2030, the world would need to find new oil production equivalent to four Saudi Arabias, merely to offset oil field decline.

Simmons predicts resource wars if the world fails to change course; and he is particularly concerned with the future of Maine, where he has a home.

"Understand how dire it is in the state of Maine," said Habib Dagher, an engineering professor at the University of Maine who specializes in composite materials and is working to develop advanced turbines. About 80 percent of Maine residents use oil to heat their homes, and the price of heating oil tracks that of crude. The average family uses about 1,000 gallons, or 3,785 liters a year, so if prices are $4 a gallon, or $1.06 a liter, that's about one-tenth of the average family's annual income.

Simmons, referring to the proposed wind farm, said, "If we don't do this, we're going to have to evacuate most of Maine."

The institute's founding mission was to study different forms of ocean energy. But Hart quickly realized that the Gulf of Maine has one of the best wind resources on the planet. The U.S. Department of Energy has rated it up to a Class 6 on a scale of 7.

Gale-force winds there in winter carry as much as eight times more energy than summer breezes. That means more power could be available precisely at periods of greatest demand. "The resource matches the problem the state of Maine faces," Dagher said.

The target generating capacity of 5 gigawatts equals the power required to replace the use of home heating oil in winter, said Simmons. But more could be generated if necessary. The Gulf of Maine has an estimated total wind power potential of 100 gigawatts.

Glenn Greenwald has a look at a classic example of the way the US mainstream media acts as a pro-war propaganda apparatus - How the media talks about torture and the rule of law.

Yesterday, The New York Times' Mark Mazzetti, in reporting on John Brennan's withdrawal from consideration for a top intelligence post, wrote:

The opposition to Mr. Brennan had been largely confined to liberal blogs, and there was not an expectation he would face a particularly difficult confirmation process. Still, the episode shows that the C.I.A.’s secret detention program remains a particularly incendiary issue for the Democratic base, making it difficult for Mr. Obama to select someone for a top intelligence post who has played any role in the agency’s campaign against Al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks.

I quoted that paragraph yesterday to show how the establishment media is acknowledging the role blogs played in this episode, prompting Billmon to materialize in the comment section and make this point:

Glenn should have noted the sly way that asshole Mazzetti slides from "the CIA's secret detention program remains a particularly incendiary issue for the Democratic base" -- because, of course, only those wacko lefties worry about war crimes -- to the completely bogus assertion that said concerns have made it "difficult for Mr. Obama to select someone . . . who has played any role in the agency’s campaign against Al Qaeda since 9/11" (emphasis mine).

So, according to the New Pravda (sometimes known as the New York Times) to criticize crimes against humanity is to oppose the entire campaign against the people responsible for 9/11. Dick Cheney couldn't have put it better.

Now THAT'S some sleazy journalism we can believe in.

Digby noted the same passage and made a similar point: that to object to someone like Brennan -- who advocated and defended the Bush administration's rendition and "enhanced interrogation tactics" -- is hardly the same as objecting to anyone who "played any role in the agency’s campaign against Al Qaeda." And Andrew Sullivan made a related point about an AP article by Pamela Hess which contains this wretched sentence: "Obama's advisers had grown increasingly concerned in recent days over Web logs that accused Brennan of condoning harsh interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, which critics call torture." As Sullivan notes: "no sane person with any knowledge of the subject disputes the fact that waterboarding is and always has been torture. So why cannot the AP tell the truth?"

All of this underscores a crucial fact: a major reason why the Bush administration was able to break numerous laws in general, and subject detainees to illegal torture specifically, is because the media immediately mimicked the Orwellian methods adopted by the administration to speak about and obfuscate these matters. Objective propositions that were never in dispute and cannot be reasonably disputed were denied by the Bush administration, and -- for that reason alone (one side says it's true) -- the media immediately depicted these objective facts as subject to reasonable dispute.

Hence: "war crimes" were transformed into "policy disputes" between hawkish defenders of the country and shrill, soft-on-terror liberals. "Torture" became "enhanced interrogation techniques which critics call torture." And, most of all, flagrant lawbreaking -- doing X when the law says: "X is a felony" -- became acting "pursuant to robust theories of executive power" or "expansive interpretations of statutes and treaties" or, at worst, "in circumvention of legal frameworks."

All of that is what has created the warped Beltway consensus that Bush officials who broke the law, committed war crimes and other felonies, should be absolutely immunized from the consequences of their crimes. That's because when government officials commit "crimes," they're not actually crimes -- they're mere "policy disputes among people in good faith." Only "incendiary" liberals believe that government officials who break the law should be subject to accusations as shrill and extreme as: "they committed crimes."

The Business Spectator reports that Shall and Anglo-American have put the proposed Monash coal to liquids project on hold - yet another casualty of falling oil prices (though perhaps not one that will be missed much by those of us concerned about global warming and other environmental issues) - Shell, Anglo American rethink local coal-to-liquids project. More at Bloomberg amd The Australian.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Anglo American Plc are rethinking development of an Australian project to turn coal into liquid fuel, saying it might cost too much.

"Monash Energy, and its owners Shell and Anglo American, believe that, in the long term, coal to liquids may provide an opportunity for Victoria to provide domestically produced clean liquid fuels for Australian and international markets," Roger Bounds, project director at the jointly-owned Monash Energy Holdings Ltd venture, said in an e-mailed statement.

But Mr Bounds said critical requirements for the project were not yet in place for the oil and mining consortium to proceed to the next phase. "The reasons for this include higher capital cost estimates and escalated construction costs," Mr Bounds said.

Backers of many alternative energy projects around the world have delayed or scrapped plans since crude oil prices. Almost $A20 million ($US13 million) has been spent since September 2006 proving up the coal-to-liquids concept, according to Monash's website. Media reports estimate the project was originally estimated to cost $A5 billion to get up and running.

The core of the project is a large scale commercial plant in Victoria's Latrobe Valley drawing coal from its own mine and then drying and gasifying the coal for conversion into transport fuels. The use of brown coal for power generation in the Latrobe Valley accounts for 55 per cent of CO2 emissions in Victoria, a state with a population of around five million.

Another Australian venture between an oil company and a mining firm aimed at reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions has already been axed. BP Plc and Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc last May cancelled a plan to build a carbon capture power plant.

Neal at DailyKos has an article on problems facing farmers in North Dakota. The "great famine" headline might be overdoing it, but it certainly sounds like corn and soy production will be under pressure next year - The Famine Of 2009 (via Idleworm).

The fall nitrogen fertilizer application has been 10% of the norm. A typical year would see 50% put on in the fall and 50% in the spring. During fertilizer application season the 3,100 mile national ammonia pipeline network runs flat out and the far points on the network experience low flow both fall and spring. If they try to jam 90% of the fertilization into a period of time when the system can only flow a little more than half of the need much of our cropland will go without in the spring of 2009.

Finances as much as weather are the issue with regards to fertilization this fall. Crop prices have fallen to half of what they were, ammonia prices have dropped but ammonia suppliers here, receiving 75% of their supply from overseas, still have product in their storage tanks purchase at the historical highs last spring and summer.

When farmers plant they record the acreage and they purchase crop insurance - $20 to $40 an acre depending on the crop. If they have a failure they file a claim, an adjustor contacts them, and they get a check to cover the deficit. Some of this runs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and some of it is through private insurers.

My conversations with farmers earlier this week lead me to believe that the largest private insurer, Des Moines Iowa’s Rain and Hail Agricultural Insurance may be insolvent. Flooding claims from this spring were filed and payments would have typically been received by the end of June or beginning of July. It’s now the end of November and payments are not being dispersed. Individual farmers are told there was something wrong with their paperwork, but this is nonsense – some of these guys have been farming thirty years and they all didn’t forget how to fill out a simple form all at the same time. Iowa did have its second five hundred year flood in a decade and a half this spring which certainly has something to do with the situation, but I suspect Wall Street’s sticky fingers got hold of Rain & Hail’s assets, just as they’ve done to every pension fund and state run municipal investment pool.

So, we’re already facing what Bryan Lutter calls “the mother of all fertilizer shortages” next spring and on top of that local banks won’t lend to farmers.

The local bank was quite willing to lend to a farmer on a crop despite the weather related risks just like they’d lend on a car despite the driving risks. So long as the asset was insured the risk was deemed manageable. There were sure to be losses here and there, but they’d be administrative hassles associated with well known risks. If the auto insurance companies were viewed as untrustworthy no one would be getting a car without 100% down at the dealership and the same rule is now in effect for farmers.

Farmers without financing can’t afford nitrogen fertilizer at $1,000 a ton, which translates to $100 an acre at current application rates. They won’t be paying $300 for a bag of 80,000 hybrid corn kernels, again a $100 per acre expense. The average farm size in Iowa is four hundred acres and planting to harvesting would run about $120,000.

This looks incredibly bad. Bryan and I are both puzzled as to why the mainstream media isn’t covering this. Perhaps the need to sell Christmas season advertising trumps the need for the public to know about the troubles that are brewing.

The (UK) Telegraph has an article on the Vivace tidal / current power device I mentioned recently - Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.

As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.

Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.

A "field" of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

The system, conceived by scientists at the University of Michigan, is called Vivace, or "vortex-induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy".

Michael Bernitsas, a professor of naval architecture at the university, said it was based on the changes in water speed that are caused when a current flows past an obstruction. Eddies or vortices, formed in the water flow, can move objects up and down or left and right.

"This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake."

Such vibrations, which were first observed 500 years ago by Leonardo DaVinci in the form of "Aeolian Tones", can cause damage to structures built in water, like docks and oil rigs. But Mr Bernitsas added: "We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature.

"If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power."

The Age reports that a child welfare group doesn't think the government's internet filter is a good way of protecting children and that there are much better ways of spending the money - Children's welfare groups slam net filters.

Support for the Government's plan to censor the internet has hit rock bottom, with even some children's welfare groups now saying that that the mandatory filters, aimed squarely at protecting kids, are ineffective and a waste of money.

Live trials of the filters, which will block "illegal" content for all Australian internet users and "inappropriate" adult content on an opt-in basis, are slated to begin by Christmas, despite harsh opposition from the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, consumers and online rights groups.

Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.

She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently block legitimate resources.

Furthermore there was no evidence to suggest that children were stumbling across child pornography when browsing the web. Doel-Mackaway believes the millions of dollars earmarked to implement the filters would be far better spent on teaching children how to use the internet safely and on law enforcement.

The ABC reports that a geothermal energy plan has been launched in Australia to make it a baseload power source (this is different to schemes to make wider use of low temperature geothermal power) - Geothermal industry plan launched.

The development of geothermal energy in Australia is a step closer with the launch of an industry framework today. Geothermal energy is produced by harnessing the heat of so called 'hot rocks' buried kilometres underground.

The framework has brought together industry, researchers and governments to work out how to make geothermal a genuine baseload power alternative. Geoscience Australia estimates it will take five to 10 years before geothermal energy is commercially available.

PACE reports that geothermal power hopeful Hot Rock is trying to get a 50 MW plant up and running in Victoria - Geothermal energy planned for 2012.

Local company Hot Rock Limited is preparing developments for its first geothermal exploration power station next year, in a quest to provide a cleaner, greener energy source for Australia by 2012.

Hot Rock is the largest single holder of geothermal exploration permits in Australia, and its four permits in the area have a total area of 18,294 square kilometres and extend for approximately 270 kilometres along the South Australian coastline and inland.

Locations within Hot Rock’s reach include Portland, Hamilton, Warrnambool, Terang and Colac, some of which have hot springs related to the Otway Basin Geothermal Province.

Geothermal energy is a process of generating clean electricity from naturally-occuring hot water under the ground. The heated water is pumped from below the surface via a network of production wells, and its heat is extracted to produce electricity. Cool water is then pumped back into the hole for use next time.

An independent review by engineering consultants, SKM, showed that the area in which Hot Rock holds permits has the scope to generate up to 1,750MWe or approximately 35 per cent of Victoria’s electricity needs.

Fully developing this area could position Victoria as one of the cleanest states of Australia for electricity generation, says Hot Rock.

The four permit areas held by Hot Rock have already been explored for oil and gas, with over 180 wells drilled. Four of these wells have been shown to offer geothermal resources with water heated to 145 degrees C at depths of 2,400 to 3,600 metres below the ground, which is relatively shallow, according to the company.

Hot Rock is in discussions with electricity generation and retail companies on a joint venture power development in the Koroit Project, which is a 250 square kilometre area within the permitted locations, within the vicinity of two previous drill holes that encountered hot water.

“The [joint venture] comprises an initial proof on concept phase involving the drilling and testing of two wells followed by development of a 50MW power plant,” the company said in a recent quarterly report to the Australian Stock Exchange.

Adelaide Now reports that Geodynamics is looking to expand into the Hunter Valley, with the NSW government giving them some financial encouragement - Cooper Basin hot rocks explorer Geodynamics gets $10m grant. Geodynamics' first pilot plant is South Australia is due to be operational in March next year.

COOPER Basin hot rocks explorer Geodynamics has been given a $10 million grant by the NSW Government to develop a commercial geothermal project in the Hunter Valley, NSW. The NSW government will invest $27 million in seven renewable energy projects, with Geodynamics' the largest player.

Managing director Gerry Grove-White said the funding would be for commissioning of a small geothermal power plant in the Hunter Valley in 2012. "The first stage of this will be the drilling of a 2km exploration well in early 2009 to confirm temperature gradients,'' he said. Geodynamics Hunter Valley tenements at Bulga and Muswellbrook may also hold significant geothermal resources, he said.

Meanwhile the company was close to a major milestones at its key project in the Cooper Basin near Innamincka, South Australia. A 1 MW pilot plant to power the company's joint venture operations with Origin Energy in the outback town of Innamincka is planned to be commissioned from February 1 and the town powered by geothermal energy by March 31.

Mr Grove-White said the knowledge and expertise Geodynamics has achieved in the Cooper Basin over the past five years will be used in the development of the Hunter Valley project.

Adelaide Now also reports that Petratherm is looking to start drilling at Paralana in May next year - Hot rocks fire up investors.

INVESTORS have bought into South Australian geothermal energy explorers in response to renewed Federal Government support for the sector, says Petratherm managing director Terry Kallis.

Federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson reinforced the Government's commitment to a $50 million geothermal drilling program at a CEDA speech in Adelaide on October 24. Shares in SA-focused geothermal energy stocks have since climbed a combined 34 per cent despite turbulent market trade.

"The Federal Government is reinforcing the fact that they're still committed to the renewable energy sector . . . I think people are starting to see what the quality stocks are in each sector,'' Mr Kallis said. ...

Drilling at Petratherm's Paralana project begins in May, 2009 under its $57 million TRUenergy farm-in agreement. Its shares have climbed 37 per cent since October 24, up 13c to 48c. ...

Mr Kallis said Petratherm had costed its Paralana Project at $6 million per megawatt (MW) for a 30MW base-load plant operating around the clock. A typical wind project would cost $2 million per MW of installed capacity, but would only operate for one third of the time, making geothermal as cost competitive as wind, Mr Kallis said.

He said Petratherm planned to generate revenues as early as May, 2010 when its Geo-Madrid District Heating Project is expected to be on stream.

Smart Meters are hitting the news with ever increasing frequency (which means I really should pull my finger out and finish off a detailed post on them one day) - The (UK) Telegraph reports that "Smart metering alone will not make Britain meet its 2050 carbon emission targets. But the necessary cuts will not be made without them." - Smart metering is essential to hit 2050 cardon emission targets.

Tough times call for bold leadership and a steady hand. Never more so than today when the effects of the credit crunch are becoming more and more apparent.

As the wave of pain felt by financial markets washes across other sectors, there are some who claim that environmental issues should again be returned to the periphery.

This must not happen. As Lord Stern noted in his 2006 report into the economics of Climate Change, we are dangerously close to a tipping point when no amount of remedial action will be enough to counterbalance the damage caused in previous years of environmental negligence.

If Europe is to meet its 20-20-20 targets (increasing energy efficiency and share of renewable energy by 20 per cent and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent) within 12 years and the UK is to honour it's even more ambitious pledge to cut carbon by 80 per cent by 2050, tough decisions must be made.

While economic circumstances today may not be ideal for a move away from coal and other carbon emitting fuels tomorrow, important steps can and should be taken to enhance energy efficiency and security of supply.

The UK and Europe as a whole must modernise and liberalise an ageing electricity grid, create economies of scale for renewable energy and promote consumer efficiency. None of which is possible without the introduction of the pre-requisite for the smart grid, smart meters.

The rationale behind smart meters is simple – by making it clear to consumers how much energy they are using and exactly what it is costing them, they are empowered to cut their usage and thus their bills. After all, unless you can measure something you can't be expected to accurately control it.

Utilities meanwhile, benefit from a two-way flow of data which enables them to manage use more efficiently and which will help them to solve one of the biggest bug-bears in the industry: estimated billing.

With significant technological progress and encouragement from lawmakers and regulators, smart metering is expected to revolutionise energy management and grid reliability across the globe.

A recent study suggests that meters are capable of delivering a 10 per cent cut in annual energy use. Another estimates that dynamic demand-side response in the EU could save electricity equivalent to the domestic consumption of Germany and Spain.

So the potential benefits are enormous. And not just in terms of increasing efficiency. As we step into the brave new world of renewable energy, we need a smart, flexible system that can manage intermittent sources of clean energy such as wind and solar and employ them in tandem with more traditional sources.

In short our current system needs to be upgraded to the digital era.

One building block for a smart grid is a smart home network that understands both dynamic power pricing and how much power each device is using - and which ones can be turned off if necessary. Solsie.com reports on Nokia's efforts to break into this emerging market - Nokia Develops a Smart Home Platform

Nokia redefines its business model by extending his hardware offerings to more solution and platform oriented offerings. After the decision to pull out from the Japanese market due to inadequate hardware for country specific requirements such DVB-TV, Electronic payment, etc.. Nokia announced today it is developing a smart home platform to offer Consumers New Ways to Control Their Homes With a Mobile Device.

Nokia Home Control Center. The platform is opening a new era for networked home services and solutions. Nokia’s Home Control Center will be the basis for next generation security, smart home solutions and household energy management systems.

The platform is open allowing third parties to integrate their own smart home solutions and services; its core consumer value is the plug and play experience across all solution areas with high security levels built in. All solutions based on the platform can be used through a smart phone or PC locally or remotely. Consumers can monitor and control their electricity usage, switch devices on and off, and monitor different objects, such as temperature, camera, and motion. In future, entire systems within the home can be connected to the Nokia platform, including security, heating, and ventilation systems.

"We see there is growth potential in the smart home market," said Teppo Paavola, Vice President, Head of Corporate Business Development, Nokia. "The home of today has intelligence everywhere, but to date there has not been a solution that is interoperable with wide range of home systems that can easily be controlled. We want to create an open solution where external partners can develop their own solutions and services on top of our platform.

We believe that the mobile device is an ideal interface to control home intelligence, especially when the user is not at home."

Nokia today also announced a partnership with one of Europe’s biggest energy companies, RWE. The co-operation aims at developing a comprehensive solution for managing energy consumption and CO2 footage at home. This cooperation combines RWE’s energy competence with Nokia’s technological know-how.

With this in mind, the first joint solution from Nokia and RWE on late 2009 will focus on home heating management. The product consists of a central control unit together with remote-controlled thermostats for the actual radiator. The user interface will be the PC and the mobile phone. In addition, a separate display will be available. RWE is also planning special offers combining these devices with new energy supply contracts. In a second step, Nokia and RWE are planning additional services in connection with smart meters beyond 2009. These services will provide consumers with real-time information about their energy consumption and allow them to control their energy bill remotely.

Technology Review has an article on a "new design that draws on technology developed for jet engines could halve the cost of generating electricity from wind" - A Design for Cheaper Wind Power.

FloDesign Wind Turbine, a spin-off from the aerospace company FloDesign based in Wilbraham, MA, has developed a wind turbine that could generate electricity at half the cost of conventional turbines. The company recently raised $6 million in its first round of venture financing and has announced partnerships with wind-farm developers.

The company's design, which draws on technology developed for jet engines, circumvents a fundamental limit to conventional wind turbines. Typically, as wind approaches a turbine, almost half of the air is forced around the blades rather than through them, and the energy in that deflected wind is lost. At best, traditional wind turbines capture only 59.3 percent of the energy in wind, a value called the Betz limit.

FloDesign surrounds its wind-turbine blades with a shroud that directs air through the blades and speeds it up, which increases power production. The new design generates as much power as a conventional wind turbine with blades twice as big in diameter. The smaller blade size and other factors allow the new turbines to be packed closer together than conventional turbines, increasing the amount of power that can be generated per acre of land.

The idea of enshrouding wind-turbine blades isn't new. But earlier designs were too big to be practical, or they didn't perform well, in part because the blades had to be very closely aligned to the direction of the wind--within three or four degrees, says Stanley Kowalski, FloDesign's CEO. The new blades are smaller and can work at angles of up to 15 to 20 degrees away from the direction of the wind.

From the front, the wind turbine looks something like the air intake of a jet engine. As air approaches, it first encounters a set of fixed blades, called the stator, which redirect it onto a set of movable blades--the rotor. The air turns the rotor and emerges on the other side, moving more slowly now than the air flowing outside the turbine. The shroud is shaped so that it guides this relatively fast-moving outside air into the area just behind the rotors. The fast-moving air speeds up the slow-moving air, creating an area of low pressure behind the turbine blades that sucks more air through them.

It's plausible that such a design could double or triple a turbine's power output, says Paul Sclavounos, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. Part of the increase comes simply from guiding the air to the turbine with the shroud. But Sclavounos notes that it also helps to use the wind surrounding the turbine to speed up the airflow, because the power produced by a wind turbine increases with the cube of the wind speed. The key question is whether the new turbines can be built and maintained at a low-enough cost, Sclavounos says.

FloDesign has already built a small prototype for wind-tunnel tests. Its next step is to build a 12-foot diameter, 10-kilowatt system for field tests. The prototype will be finished by the end of next year or early in 2010, with commercial wind turbines to follow. Eventually the company plans to make turbines as large as one megawatt.

EcoGeek has a post on a sodium sulphur battery project in Minnesota for storing wind power - Is Cheap, Efficient Storage for Wind Power Finally Here ?.

With the rise of wind power, many critics have focused on its unreliability and how there's no efficient storage available. Other companies have worked on making the turbines themselves more efficient, but so far there hasn't been a low cost storage solution. Xcel Energy is hoping that their "Wind-to-Battery" project holds that solution.

The company is testing an 80-ton sodium-sulfur battery on a Minnesota wind farm and believes that it can power 500 homes for seven hours when fully charged. The battery consists of 20 50-KW modules that are together the size of two tractor trailers and can store 7.2 MWh.

The project is the first in the country to test the storage of wind power and while 500 homes isn't even a dent in the amount of homes that would need to be powered, it will give the company a good indication of how this type of storage could be expanded if the test is successful.

Alex Steffen at WorldChanging has a post on population trends that includes Kim Stanley Robinson's great line "empowering women is the best climate change technology" - Peak Population and Generation X.

The babies born between 1965 and 1970 were historic. They were part of the highest global population growth rate ever achieved, 2.1 percent a year. As Joel Cohen writes,

Human population never grew with such speed before the 20th century and is never again likely to grow with such speed. Our descendants will look back on the late 1960s peak as the most significant demographic event in the history of the human population even though those of us who lived through it did not recognize it at the time.

Put another way, you might say that the birth of Generation X (which more or less book-ends those years) was the beginning of our planet's era of peak human population.

It's easy to get blase about demographics; big, abstract numbers thought about over numbing time-periods, and recounted by people who love statistics. It would be a mistake, however, to fail to see peak population as a hugely important insight, because when we know that we are riding a wave of increasing numbers (and increasing longevity) that will crest sometime after the middle of this century, we can also see that

1) The longer population growth rates remain high, the more total people there will be on the planet when we reach peak population, so one of our biggest goals ought to be seeing to it by every ethical means possible that the wave of population growth crests sooner rather than later.

2) If we are successful in reaching peak population sooner, at a lower number of people, rather than later with more people, we will be much more able to confront the myriad interlocking crises we face -- a comparatively less crowded planet is an easier planet on which to build a bright green future.

3) Since we know the single best way of bringing down high birth rates is to empower women by giving them access to reproductive health choices (including contraception and abortion), education, economic opportunities, and legal protection of their rights, empowering women ought to be one of our highest priorities. (As Kim Stanley Robinson puts it, empowering women is the best climate change technology.)

4) Our other main task is to preserve natural systems and transform human economies in order to best withstand this wave of human beings, avoid catastrophe and leave behind as intact a world as we can -- to save the parts (including not just biodiversity but also the diversity of human cultures and histories) so that future generations have as many options as possible.

5) Our best hopes for both avoiding catastrophe and preserving our heritage all hinge on our actions over roughly the next two decades. In that time we have enormous work to do: create at least the model of a zero-carbon, zero-waste civilization; begin deep and widespread impact reduction here in the developed world; sustainably raise the prospects of those (especially women) living in the developing world; and preserve as many working parts of our planetary heritage as we possibly can. After that time, all of these jobs will grow progressively harder, trending quickly towards impossibility.

Add all of this information together, and a generational imperative emerges. Generation X can be seen as the beginning of peak population; many of us (born between roughly 1960 and 1980) may live to see population peak in the middle of this century; and much of the most important work to be done to see us through to the other side of that watershed will need to be done in the next twenty years, when Generation X'ers are in their professional prime. We did not cause the crisis we face -- unless you count us guilty at birth -- but if the crisis is solved, it'll have to be in large part through the leadership of people born in my generation. Our historic call is to save the planet during peak population.

The SMH has an article on a Climate Institute report on the investment required to create an Australian cleantech industry - Clean energy needs investment: report.

Creating a commercial-scale clean-energy industry in Australia will cost more than $5 billion annually over the next 10 years. That's the finding of a Climate Institute report that has costed what it will take to move to a low carbon economy.

The report says $5.4 billion a year until 2020 will be needed to build a commercial-scale clean-energy industry. It will also create thousands of new jobs and enable Australia to cut emissions by 25 per cent below 1990 levels, the report says.

Climate Institute CEO John Connor said the federal government's commitment to start an emissions trading scheme by 2010 was a good first step, but more is needed. "Building a clean energy economy requires significant, but not unrealistic levels of investment. The investment is significant, but not unrealistic," Mr Connor said.

A separate report, by international aid agency Oxfam, has also called on the Rudd government to do more to lower emissions. It warns that climate change will increase global poverty if governments fail to act at this week's climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland.