Offshore in Britain , The UK's Crown Estate is looking to create up to 25 GW of offshore wind in the next dozen years. Okay. What is the Crown Estate? It is the British monarchy's real property and enterprises, and it is managed separately from government properties. Here's the story from CarbonFree. The Crown Estate will help its partners get the sites identified and approved, but the developers "will remain wholly responsible for construction and operation of windfarm sites." Also, here is the story from the Crown Estate itself.
Marine Power , A story from Reuters tells us that serious marine power is about to explode into greater use. They note that the "ethical" bank Triodos thinks that "wave and tidal power lags maturer wind power schemes by just five years and will catch up rapidly." Pourquoi pas?!
Envisioning the Future for US Wind , I noted here an important new report from the DOE last month saying that the US could move from its current wind generating capacity of 16.8 gigawatts to 304 GW in 2030, accounting for 20% of US electrical capacity. This was a big part of the buzz at the recent American Wind Energy Association's "Windpower 2008" conference on the technical, political and financial issues facing the US wind industry. There were over 13,000 attendees and 776 exhibitors in Houston for this. Here is an interesting, fact-filled podcast: a selection of interviews by RenewableEnergyWorld.com from the conference. See RenewableEnergyWorld.com for a host of terrific stories on wind and other renewables. If you go to the bottom of the page, there are eight links to "Renewable Energy Technology Basics."
Energy Efficiency and Renewables in Asia , The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has made a commitment to financing $1 billion a year for clean energy. See this from AFP via the WBCSD. See also the ADB recent "Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) 2008" in which more than 500 experts met in Manila last week.
Thermoelectric Generators , Finally, here's another interesting story from CarbonFree about thermoelectric generators that convert the heat from car exhaust fumes into electricity. I mentioned cogeneration at my recent post on the carbon finance conference I attended, and had some useful comment in response. This technology is cogeneration for your car. Again, pourquoi pas?! One of the researchers estimates that the TEGs would "cut gas consumption by between five and seven percent." (See also my rave review from April of the Nova special, Car of the Future.)
