The tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho is to harness the power of wind and water in a $15bn (£9bn) green energy project, the biggest of its kind in Africa.
The Lesotho highlands power project (LHPP) will generate 6,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power and 4,000MW of hydropower, equivalent to about 5% of neighbouring South Africa’s electricity needs.
With 42.3 GW of wind power installed, China has now become the new world leader in wind power, having overtaken the US, with 40.2 GW, which itself bypassed the longtime world leader Germany in 2008.
After four years of doubling its installed wind power capacity annually between 2006 and 2009, China added a record 16.5 GW in 2010. According to a detailed report(pdf) from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, nearly 20% of all net additional power generation capacity in China is now wind power, nearly on par with its hydro. China now leads the world in large-scale hydropower with 21% of global production.
Skipark 360°, the world’s most complete indoor ski resort, will soon rise up from the forests outside of Stockholm. The resort will be a man-made ski hill with a vertical drop of 160 meters (525 ft) and will be the only facility of its kind to meet the requirements of the World Cup. In addition to the downhill run, the complex will contain a 3.5 km cross-country skiing tunnel, an arena for biathlons, ice hockey, bandy and figure skating, a snow park for snowboarding and a resort and spa. The fun doesn’t stop there though. Designed by C.F. Møller, the entire resort will be powered by geothermal, solar, wind and hydropower and when it is completed it could be the greenest ski resort in the world.
From Vincent Callebaut Architects, this impressive project is meant to navigate through the rivers in Europe in order to clean water and make it drinkable. Its name comes from “Physalia physalis”, meaning “water bubble”. It is a project whose idea came from a major global issue which is the fact that one billion people nowadays don’t have access to drinking water. The giant bubble will actually be a floating garden, completely independent in terms of energy. It is said that the prototype will even make more energy than that consumed. Solar cells and a double pneumatic membrane will form the roof of the construction and similar technologies will be used in order to reach its energy goal. Inside there will be four amazing gardens called “Water”, “Earth”, “Fire” and “Air”. The giant Eco gadget, once built, will be present on the waters of Seine, Thames, Volga, Danube, Escaut. We do not know when this incredible looking structure will be let lose, however we are looking forward to it.
According to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the consumption of engery from renewable sources recently topped both the current and the historical consumption levels for nuclear energy. The shift was immediately caused by nuclear outages that coincided with the high-water season for hydropower generation.
But there’s a long-term upward trend in renewables which can be seen here, too, thanks to the increased consumption of biofuels and wind capacity additions.
In an odd fusion of dirty energy and clean energy, a Texas company is devising a way to generate hydropower from the effluent stream of water emitted from traditional power plants following cooling cycles.
Gulfstream Technologies has successfully run a pilot project for a year and a half at a power plant by a lake in Texas, generating electricity with a hydrokinetic turbine that harnesses the flow of water that regularly and consistently comes out of the plant.
Not only coal plants’ discharges are involved. Nuclear plants also discharge waste water. The devices invented by Todd and Phillip Janca, the brains behind Gulfstream Technologies, can harness the flows from any kind of municipal pipes and commercial discharge canals, as well as natural flows from rivers or ocean currents.
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