A person's carb footprint (in Germany) is 10 tons/yr. It takes a (2MW) wind turbine 1 day to cancel it out.
MIT study says there's enough uranium for the nuke buildout. They don't like recycling fuel (breeder reactors). And want $700M/yr for R&D. Who doesn't. Industry exec says recycling is a solid case and will happen w/ or w/out gov when the market's right. MIT says eliminating financial risk premiums could keep cost under $4/W to build. I'm sure the gov would love to pick that up for the insurance industry. MIT still wants central spent fuel storage and staying with present light water reactor tech. France, Japan, UK, other nations are already recycling fuel. China's main nuke company plans to invest $160B to expand over next 10 yrs. Nuke Power Corp of India is ready to sell pressurized heavy water reactors of 220 & 540 MW capacity to other countries. Russia and China have fast breeders.
Calif approved construction of another 370MW solar thermal plant. 1 of 9 that will >double US solar gen capacity. Bright Source Energy. Mojave.
Sharp bought Calif's Recurrent Energy (solar) for $305M. 2GW pipeline. Recurrent has been using products from FSLR, STP, YGE.
Solar surge in Italy outpacing US, 2nd only to Germany. 2Q grew 127% over 1Q to dub capacity this yr at 2.5GW. '20 goal 8GW. FIT (feed-in tariffs) the biggest reason. Reducing now, but gradually. Several states in US considering FIT. Sacramento, Gainesville instituted them for their muni utilities. Bill intro'd in US House. Calif PUC proposing auction mechanism model for 1GW pilot program.
A solar-powered aircraft can stay aloft 5 yrs. Watch out satellite budgets. Probably has to come down for maintenance.
ENER's Uni Solar division working with home services comp in NJ on pilot program for installing solar roof shingles on new homes. Install, maintenance covered for homeowner. Owner leases system - avg 3kw - for $26/mo for 20 yrs. Avg savings $50/mo. US roofing market est. 4M homes/yr.
Solar PV industry global revenue increased 154% '09 v. '08. $17.2B 2Q '10 v. $6.2B '09.
US solar exec: part of problem here is we're 50 markets. Each state has own regs, policies, programs. Some states 99% coal, so too cheap to compete. Some places if you consume power at less efficiency you get bulk discounts. We need a tax on C and fed grants, tax credits in stimulus must be extended.
Green Fire Energy got a $2M DOE grant to try getting geothermal power with CO2 as the fluid instead of water at a natural CO2 dome in AZ. The region has 6 coal plants collectively emitting 90M tons CO2/yr. CO2 geo potentially the lowest combined capital and operational costs of any scalable power gen system.
Central America plans to tap volcanos for geothermal.
Sisters of Holy Wisdom Monastery in Wisconsin named the greenest new building in the country this year. Geo heat pump system, solar and efficiencies.
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