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.
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.