Hydroelectricity is a form of renewable energy. That means its source — water — is naturally renewing and doesn’t get used up in the process of generating power.
Other renewable energy sources include solar power, wind power, biomass, and increasingly, geothermal energy.
Hydropower is the single largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. Combined, renewable sources produce 17 percent of the United States’ energy, with 7 percent coming from hydropower.
Read more: earth911.com
Two U.S. wind farms with a total capacity of 119 MW, operated by TransAlta Corp., became operational in December 2019.
The 90-MW Big Level wind park in Pennsylvania started commercial operation on December 19. It sells power to technology giant Microsoft Corporation, under a 15-year contract.
The 29-MW Antrim wind facility in New Hampshire has been operational since December 24.
Read more: renewablesnow.com
Site preparation has begun on the 114-turbine Pryor Mountain Wind Project in Montana. At least four wind farms are in various stages of development and combined could deliver up to 480 megawatts of capacity, enough to power a large city.
Pryor Mountain Wind “is a 240-megawatt wind project with a 40% net capacity factor and will produce about 841,000 MWh/year, making it an excellent wind power generation site,” said Spencer Hall of PacifiCorp. “The facility will produce the power equivalent to the usage of more than 76,000 U.S. households on an annual basis.”
Read more: billingsgazette.com
New research from Energy Innovation and Vibrant Clean Energy (VCE) shows the U.S. has officially reached the coal cost crossover point, where fast-falling wind and solar prices make simply operating three-quarters of all existing coal generation plants more expensive than building new local renewable energy.
Read more: forbes.com
At a recent visit to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Gov. Jay Inslee said a low-carbon fuel policy would increase access to biofuels for the aviation industry.
The aviation industry is a portion of the economy that’s particularly challenging for reducing greenhouse gases.
Inslee thinks the policy’s financial incentives would push fuel suppliers to develop supply chains for biofuel.
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The world’s energy systems are inseparably linked to water. That is why engineers are working on harnessing the power of ocean energies and undammed river currents. Examples of ocean energies include wave energy, tidal energy, thermal energy and underwater energy created by ocean currents.
Although the process of capturing ocean energy has not yet reached maturity, it is extremely promising. Converters are able to capture the energy contained in waves by trapping air pockets to drive turbines, using wave motion and even generating energy from wave height differences.
The largest floating wind turbine to date just went online off the coast of Portugal.
One of the three platforms that will make up the WindFloat Atlantic off-shore wind farm was connected to the grid via a 20-kilometre (12.4-mile) long cable on New Year’s Eve.
Once the other two platforms come online, WindFloat will be able to provide enough clean energy for around 60,000 homes.
One of the top U.S. corporate solar power installers, Target completed its 500th rooftop solar installation in California, appropriately enough considering that it is the #1 state in the country for solar power.
The solar installations helped Target add more than 240 megawatts of solar across their buildings. This equals the power needed for nearly 46,000 homes in the U.S. Target chose solar because it wants to meet energy needs in a way that is good for the communities where it operates and the environment while also reducing the cost of its energy. One rooftop solar installation generates enough energy to offset between 15% and 40% of one of Target’s property’s energy needs.
Texas is known for its oil production, but it is increasingly a major player in wind energy. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the Lone Star State had more than 27 gigawatts of installed wind capacity and 14,198 wind turbines during the third quarter of 2019. The nearest rival in terms of installed capacity, Iowa, had less than half (8.965 GW) of Texas’ installed capacity during the same period. Capacity refers to the maximum amount that installations can theoretically produce.
Scientists have shown how using only water, iron, nickel and electricity can create hydrogen energy much more cheaply than before.
In research recently published in Nature Communications, scientists from UNSW Sydney, Griffith University and Swinburne University of Technology showed that capturing hydrogen by splitting it from oxygen in water can be achieved by using low-cost metals like iron and nickel as catalysts, which speed up this chemical reaction while requiring less energy.
Iron and nickel, which are found in abundance on Earth, would replace precious metals ruthenium, platinum, and iridium that up until now are regarded as benchmark catalysts in the ‘water-splitting’ process.