Rooftop solar caught on camera exploiting a low-income household.
Image Credit: Ronald Brakels

The paper focuses on network charges which have increased dramatically in Australia over the past five years due to power companies expecting electricity demand to rise and investing heavily in distribution infrastructure, which turned out to be a bad idea when demand dropped instead due to improved efficiency and rooftop solar. But, strangely enough, rather than simply providing a space for ESAA members to apologise for their mistake and the unnecessary hardship they caused Australians, the paper instead decides to blame their customers for not buying enough electricity.

While I can understand that the ESAA’s members would prefer it if Australians bought more electricity, blaming the customer seems to show a profound lack of understanding of how markets work. If a business loses market share due to competition, they can either win back customers by improving their product or lowering prices, or they can accept that the market has changed and adapt to the new conditions. Blaming the customers for not buying enough may be cathartic if the business happens to be run by five year olds, but never results in a beneficial outcome.

The ESAA blames a very specific subset of customers for the increase in network charges, and these are people with rooftop solar. They say they’re acting unfairly because they buy less electricity from the grid and so contribute less to its upkeep. The paper states, and I quote, “Most solar households end up only paying a fraction of their fair share of the cost of maintaining the network.” That is a very interesting position to take, especially when one considers that fact that rooftop solar reduces the need for transmission infrastructure and thus reduces network charges. Australia’s peak electricity demand occurs on hot, cloudless, summer afternoons which is well matched with the output of solar power. Its ability to help meet peak demand was amply demonstrated during the horrid, record-breaking heatwave Australia experienced earlier this year. But for some reason, the ESAA mentions none of this. Nor do they mention the benefit rooftop solar provides consumers by pushing down wholesale electricity prices. Instead, they mention that “millions of dollars” have been spent on upgrades to deal with the inflow of electricity from rooftop solar, but neglect to mention that millions of dollars in upgrades are required whenever over two gigawatts of generating capacity of any sort is added to the grid. And it’s a pity they didn’t give an actual figure, as “millions of dollars” could be as little as 8.7 cents per Australian.

Justin Bieber via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com.

Cow with milk-providing teats poking out via Shutterstock.

So let’s say you start drinking less milk or you stop drinking it entirely. Perhaps you develop lactose intolerance, or maybe you suddenly freak out when you realise you’ve been drinking fluid from a cow’s breasts, or you just go off milk for some reason. (I’ve had milk go off on me, so I can understand if people go off it.) In this case, are you being unfair to other people who still drink milk? After all, if there is a fall in the total amount of milk drunk, then expensive milk-related capital will be used less and that will cause the unit price of milk to increase. There’s no way around that, unless of course the milk industry correctly predicted that there would be a decline in the amount of milk drunk. In that case, they could have run down some of their capital and kept selling milk at the same price as before.

Now, you might ask, how reasonable is it to expect companies to predict changes in the demand for their products? Well, I don’t know if it is reasonable, but I do know that we expect just about every business in Australia to do it, and if they get it wrong, they’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences. If the milk industry over-invested in cows, they wouldn’t get a lot of sympathy if they then blamed Australians for not drinking enough milk.

We shouldn’t make the mistake of pretending there is a free market for electricity, but in Australia, for better or worse, we’ve decided to base our economy on market prices. Now, maybe we could have come up with something better than this — after all, some countries don’t have market economies and they manage. Just look at North Korea. They haven’t had a market-based economy for almost 70 years, and according to their propaganda, they’re doing great! But the fact is, in Australia, market forces guide our economy, and it is a bit late now to suddenly cry that it’s not fair if things aren’t going to one’s advantage. This is especially true if it is coming from people who thought market forces were just dandy when they were acting in their favour.

The ESAA paper says, “Current arrangements are unfair and need to be changed. At the moment, low income households who cannot afford solar, renters and people in apartments pay more to underwrite those customers who can install their own solar system.” The solution they offer to their problem of customers not buying enough electricity is to increase fixed costs while decreasing variable costs. In other words, they want people to pay more simply to remain connected to the grid and pay less for each kilowatt-hour they buy. This proposal is simply environmentally irresponsible, as it decreases people’s incentive to conserve energy when most of Australia’s electricity is still generated by coal. It is also simply bizarre given their professed concern for low-income households, as it would hurt low-income households more than high-income ones because poor people use much less electricity than rich people! How could they possibly have missed this? It is almost as if they don’t really care about low-income households at all but are simply interested in reducing the incentive to install solar power. But I know this can’t be the case because they wrote in their paper that they’re concerned about fairness for low-income Australians. The only way this couldn’t be correct would be if they had developed some sort of way to make words say things that are not true.

Installing Rooftop Solar Is Unfair, Says Energy Group was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Who doesn’t love a “largest wind farm” or “largest solar farm” story? Here’s the latest I’m aware of, via CleanTechnica sister site Green Building Elements. Congrats to Siemens. (Note: if the article doesn’t load fully, simply refresh this page or click on through to Green Building Elements.)

Largest Federal Wind Farm to Be Built by Siemens (via Green Building Elements)

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has awarded a contract to Siemens Government Technologies, Inc. (Siemens) to construct the federal government’s largest wind farm. The Pantex wind farm is expected to save an average of $2.9 million annually over the 20-year contract term. The installation…

Largest Federal Wind Farm In US Contract Awarded To Siemens was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

This article was originally published on RenewEconomy.

Image Credit: Flag of China on Yangtze River via Shutterstock.

According to news reports from China, the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has proposed setting absolute caps that would divorce the growth on emissions from growth in the economy, and will also set a peak in its overall emissions in 2025, five years earlier than planned.

China has already pledged to cut its emissions intensity – the amount of Co2 it emits per economic unit – by up to 45 per cent by 2020. The significance of an absolute cap is that it promises to reign in emissions even if the economy grows faster than expected.

Furthermore, Point Carbon reports, at a recent NDRC meeting, its vice director Xie Zhenhua said China should set long-term emission targets for 2030 and 2050 in a bid to decarbonise its economy. China, like Australia is heavily dependent on carbon-intensive coal to generate electricity – just over 82 per cent. But it has also proposed a cap on coal consumption of 4 billion tonnes.

Lord Nicholas Stern, the chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, described it as “exciting news”, and said it should encourage all countries, the US in particular, to take stronger action.

“And it improves the prospects for a strong international treaty being agreed at the United Nations climate change summit in 2015,” he told The Independent in the UK.

Of course, the move has major implications for Australia, both in its policy development under a Coalition government, and for the hopes of mining magnates such as Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer to dig up large tracts of central Queensland in the hoping of exporting that coal to China.

As we reported on Tuesday, and previously, the Coalition is basing its plan to repeal the carbon price on the principal that China and other big polluters are doing little to address emissions.

Its climate change spokesman Greg Hunt is still peddling nonsense that China plans to lift coal consumption to 7 billion tonnes, and suggests that Tony Abbott, armed with a fig leaf of a policy that includes its $300 million emissions reduction fund and a 15,000 strong, litter collecting “Green Army”, can somehow encourage China and the US to intensify their efforts.

Such a scenario is laughable given that US moves to impose severe restrictions on coal emissions and China itself moves to a carbon trading mechanism, and imposes its own restrictions on big emitters.

Indeed, many argue that Australia should already be lifting its emissions reduction target. Ross Garnaut said last week it should be 17 per cent, instead of the current agreed target of 5 per cent. The problem with the Coalition’s Direct Action is that it is simply not scalable to meet such an effort.

The implications for Australian business in abandoning carbon pricing as its biggest trading partner embraces its own are enormous. And so is the move to limit coal production. Deutsche Bank, for instance, estimates that China will cease to be an importer of coal within a few years – reducing a major source of demand for Australian coal and causing a slump in international thermal coal prices that will make even these new investment uneconomic. Over half of Australia’s thermal coal mines are already losing money, according to a recent survey.

The UK’s Climate and Energy Change Secretary Ed Davey told The Independent that China’s changing attitude to climate change made him increasingly confident that a global deal on climate action can be reached in 2015.

“At the end of last year the Chinese leadership changed and started talking about creating an ‘ecological civilisation’. This doesn’t mean they have signed up to every bit of the climate change talks, but it means they recognise that their economic model has to take account of pollution and the environment and that damage that it’s doing to people’s health,” Mr Davey said.

“I’m really much more confident than many people about our ability to get an ambitious climate change deal done in 2015. Obama in his second term clearly wants to act on this and there has been a fantastic and dramatic change in America’s position. Taken together with China’s change, the tectonic plates of global climate change negotiations are really shifting,” Mr Davey added.

Interestingly, Davey said he wants the UK to take a leading part in the global climate change discussions as part of the European negotiating block. However, he said he was concerned that the rise of the climate sceptic Ukip party could drag members of the Tory right in that direction and damage Britain’s credibility in debate on global warming.

The same concerns could be said of the Australian Coalition, given that it is led by a man who owed his elevation to the conservative right that sought to prevent the introduction of a carbon price in 2009. This remains its policy position.

Erwin Jackson, the deputy CEO of the Climate Institute said it was clear that the timeline for the implementation of the Coalition’s promised repeal of the carbon price means it would be occuring just as China and South Korea are introducing their own emissions trading schemes, and an international agreement was being forged by the deadline of 2015.

He says there will be intense scrutiny on Australia which, unlike its decision to back out of Kyoto under the Howard government, would find itself without any powerful allies if it stood in the way of international progress.

“It is difficult to imagine that Australia could stand on the sidelines,” Jackson told RenewEconomy. “China’s emissions super tanker is starting to turn. So is Australia’s, but the reason China will continue to be successful is because that they can give investors confidence that they are serious about driving low carbon development. The lessons for developed countries like Australia is that we risk being left in its wake, and washed up against the rocks if we are not careful.”

China Announces 2016 Emissions Cap Proposal! was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

A new study from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) estimates that the US could support the production of up to 25 billion gallons of algae biofuel annually. That accounts for a whopping one-twelfth of the nation’s current needs and it could prove even more significant if electric vehicles replace liquid-fuel vehicles in greater numbers, which seems likely.

As always, though, there’s a catch. Although the PNNL estimate is based on available land and water resources, the booming natural gas industry is already sucking water from critical areas at an increasing rate. If you’ve ever seen the animated short Bambi Meets Godzilla, you’ll have some idea of what the nascent algae biofuel industry is up against.

Pond scum by STC4blues.

PNNL Algae Biofuel Study: The Good News

The new PNNL algae biofuel study focused primarily on the potential for growing algae in large-scale, shallow ponds in the open air, with the most promising areas being mainly along the Gulf Coast and the Southeastern Seaboard.

These areas already have a built-in fuel processing infrastructure, along with relatively abundant water resources and a warm, humid climate that mitigates water loss through evaporation.

Water resources in these areas, by the way, also include seawater as well as salty groundwater, which could help solve part of the water scarcity issue. Aside from salt-friendly strains of algae, solar powered desalination technology is beginning to make seawater-to-freshwater conversion a more cost effective option.

As PNNL sees it, the typical large-scale algae farm would consist of large numbers of shallow ponds, ranging in depth from about six to 15 inches.

More Good News For Algae Biofuel

Since PNNL is focused on regions ideally suited for open-pond algae farming, it’s also worth taking a look at broader opportunities.

UC-Davis, which has emerged as a hotbed of algae biofuel research, works from the estimate of a US annual liquid fuel consumption of 140 billion gallons per year to conclude that algae has the potential to fill 100 percent of the nation’s liquid fuel needs.

Based on a rule of thumb yield of about 3,000 gallons of liquid fuel per acre of algae per year, that translates into a need for about 45 million acres dedicated to algae production.

That’s a pretty daunting prospect, though if you factor in the potential to farm algae on brownfields and other unproductive lands, or within existing infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants, that doesn’t necessarily mean replacing 45 million acres of active farmland with algae ponds.

And Now For The Bad News!

One reason for PNNL’s optimistic outlook is the involvement of ExxonMobil in algae biofuel research leading to commercial development. Just four years ago, ExxonMobil invested a whopping $600 million in a company called Synthetic Genomics Inc.(SGI), about half of which was dedicated to algae biofuel research.

However, while PNNL mentioned the investment in a press release earlier this week, apparently the release was prepared before May 16, when SGI announced that it had entered into a new agreement with ExxonMobil that severs its involvement in the commercial development aspect of the project, leaving SGI to focus on foundational research.

According to these tea leaves, it looks like ExxonMobil is backing off its interest in bringing algae biofuel to market any time soon, especially when you add in the company’s interests in natural gas and its involvement in natural gas-to-gasoline conversion technology.

Also weighing in on the Debbie Downer side is the sustainable business group Ceres, which recently issued a study on the impact of fracking on water resources (for those of you new to the topic, hydrofracturing or fracking is an oil and gas drilling method that involves copious amounts of water).

Of the 25,450 oil and gas wells included in the report, almost half were located in areas with “high and extremely high water stress.”

To be clear, most of the highly stressed areas identified in the report do not overlap with PNNL’s target areas for algae farm development, except for the Gulf Coast area of Texas. However, the report does suggest that if large scale algae farming is going to be national in scope, the ongoing battle between the agriculture and fossil fuel industries for water resources is going to escalate exponentially.

As for national policy, although the Obama Administration has been aggressively pursuing algae biofuel commercialization, for now that pesky “all of the above” energy strategy has included a healthy dose of support for the gas industry, most recently in the form of opening up new natural gas export markets and providing new funding for research leading to the development of commercial gas-to-gasoline conversion technology.

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Harnessing The Power Of Pond Scum was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

The US Department of Agriculture announced their Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant application recently. These grants can pay for up to 25% of the eligible costs of a renewable energy project. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of funding and implement your renewable energy and/or energy efficiency projects. The deadline is now May 31, 2013.

The US Department of Agriculture announced their Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant application recently. These grants can pay for up to 25% of the eligible costs of a renewable energy project.

What’s available? USDA Rural Development has recently been made aware of access to additional funding for the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) which will increase the 2013 funding from approximately $20 million to $60 million.

What are the deadlines? The application deadline for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Improvement (REEI) and Feasibility Study grants has been extended from April 30, 2013 to May 31, 2013 to facilitate the spending of these additional funds. The application deadline for the REEI guaranteed loans is July 15, 2013. There will be no opportunity for the Energy Audits and REDA this year, due to the statutory application filing date of April 1.

Earlier is better: If you’re ready to submit your application, go ahead and get it in to USDA staff so they can review it and provide feedback on any missing information which will need to be submitted before the deadline. As the deadline approaches, applications will likely pile up making an advanced review of your application more difficult to complete.

How do you apply? For those interested in an application template, they can be found on the MN REAP webpage under their respective technology. The page also contains information on applicant eligibility, past awards and potential financial assistance.

Need more background? To learn more about applying, please see a recent blog post and an in-depth fact sheet about REAP from CERTs.

Looking for a simple project idea? A Mills Fleet Farm rebate for solar-powered electric fences expires, April 30th. Click here to learn more about that opportunity.

Grants From USDA Cover Up To 25% Of Renewable Energy Project Costs (Deadline Extended) was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

In the wake of the merger between Recargo and Xatori (press release below) which will “revolutionize vehicle software and information services for plug-mobility” comes this infographic compiled by PluginCars.com, PlugShare, and Recargo. 

Recargo and Xatori Merge, Furthering Leadership in Plug-In Tech

Two Companies Will Unify Mobile Products and Services Reaching World’s Largest Community of Plug-In Drivers

Recargo, Inc. and Xatori, Inc. today announced that the two companies are merging to revolutionize vehicle software and information services for plug-in mobility. The merger will expand the companies’ ability to offer guidance to drivers and industry and leverage combined teams and resources to better support the plug-in driving experience.

Both Recargo and Xatori have seen tremendous growth in 2013, doubling membership across their EV charging community properties including their charging locator apps, the Recargo Station Finder, and PlugShare. The combined company will bring these apps together into a single, comprehensive directory of over 20,000 electric vehicle charging stations under the PlugShare brand, with more than 30,000 station reviews and 14,000 photos to assist in last mile navigation.

The merger will also bring Xatori’s plug-in charging manager GreenCharge and fleet manager ChargeManager under the same roof as EV research panel PlugInsights and EV news and information portal PluginCars.com, to offer even more comprehensive information and utility to EV drivers and industry.

Brian Kariger will remain as CEO of the company, while Forrest North, CEO of Xatori, Inc., will become COO. All current Recargo and Xatori staff are staying on with Recargo after the merger, and the company will retain its offices in Venice, and Menlo Park, California, to continue to attract and retain talent and clientele in the hottest EV markets.

“We came together with the same goal in mind, to grow the EV market.” said Kariger. “This merger is the beginning of a powerful collaboration, doubling resources and fortifying our community.”

“This merger gives us more opportunities to work with larger companies, utilities, automakers, and fleets,” said North. “Best of all, our users will benefit from our combined talents and unified product. The strength and passion of our combined communities will really help accelerate the plug-in revolution.”

As part of the merger, the companies services, including charging station directories, will gradually integrate into one unified app with the combined location information, charging capabilities, driver reviews and photos of thousands of charging stations across the continent.

The complete suite of Recargo products now includes:

Consumer products and services:

• PluginCars – the web’s premier site for reviews, user forums and guides about purchasing and owning plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles
• PlugShare – a cause-based social network that allows users to find charging stations and connect with other plug-in vehicle owners
• Recargo Station Finder – finds electric vehicle charging stations, searches for food and activities via Yelp, and connects to news from PluginCars.com
• GreenCharge – displays driving patterns, charging costs, and environmental impact on iPhones and iPads

Industry products:

• PlugInsights – delivers opt-in surveys of behaviors and desires of potential and current plug-in buyers, catered to the plug-in industry
• Charging Station API – an industry-standard API to integrate and deliver charging station information on a variety of platforms
• ChargeManager – a web-based application to maintain plug-in electric and hybrid fleets by monitoring vehicles’ charging statuses and levels
• Reports and Dashboards – provides the plug-in industry with an inside view on charging stations and electric vehicles across North America

The Rise Of Electric Car Charging – Infographic was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

There are many ways to go solar, and they all haven’t yet been tried — people are continually coming up with new ideas. But there are now some options that are so good that cities are beginning to mandate solar power with all new homes. The latest such city (of which we know) is Sebastopol, California. But Sebastopol has taken it a step further.

Military solar power in Afghanistan courtesy of SEIA.

As did the Californian city of Lancaster, Sebastopol, city in Western Sonoma County, California, has approved an ordinance that now mandates that new homes be constructed with solar panels. Unlike Lancaster, however, Sebastopol mandated it for new commercial buildings as well.

In the words of the ordinance itself: “All new residential and commercial buildings, and residential additions, remodels, and alterations that exceed seventy five percent of the structure will be required to install a solar photovoltaic system at the time of construction. The Council may establish an in lieu fee for projects that cannot achieve full compliance.”

The power consumption of commercial buildings is just as important as that of homes, and sometimes far more important. Commercial buildings often use many times more power than houses, as some of them are factories or office buildings in which there are tens or hundreds of computers, many air conditioners, and all kinds of other electricity-needy machines. Many of these machines run all day and even throughout the night. So, this is a pretty big step forward from Lancaster’s mandate. If Lancaster is to really become the “solar energy capital of the world,” as Republican Mayor Rex Parris has envisioned, it looks like it might need to step up its mandate.

Solar Mandate Approved By Sebastopol, California was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Ah, the wonders of science. Though, I can’t yet say if I’m all that thrilled about bacteria being engineered to produce electricity. Would hate to see what would happen if it all got out of hand. Maybe we should just stick to the trustworthy and cheap renewables we have today. Here are more details on the news from the American Society for Microbiology.

Researchers have engineered a strain of electricity-producing bacteria that can grow using hydrogen gas as its sole electron donor and carbon dioxide as its sole source of carbon.  Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst report their findings at the 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

“This represents the first result of current production solely on hydrogen,” says Amit Kumar, a researcher on the study who, along with his co-authors are part of the Lovley Lab Group at the university.

Under the leadership of Derek Lovley the lab group has been studying Geobacter bacteria since Lovley first isolated Geobacter metallireducens in sand sediment from the Potomac River in 1987. Geobacter species are of interest because of their bioremediation, bioenergy potential, novel electron transfer capabilities, the ability to transfer electrons outside the cell and transport these electrons over long distances via conductive filaments known as microbial nanowires.

Kumar and his colleagues studied a relative of G. metallireducens called Geobacter sulfurreducens, which has the ability to produce electricity by reducing organic carbon compounds with a graphite electrode like iron oxide or gold to serve as the sole electron acceptor.  They genetically engineered a strain of the bacteria that did not need organic carbon to grow in a microbial fuel cell.

“The adapted strain readily produced electrical current in microbial fuel cells with hydrogen gas as the sole electron donor and no organic carbon source,” says Kumar, who notes that when the hydrogen supply to the microbial fuel cell was intermittently stopped electrical current dropped significantly and cells attached to the electrodes did not generate any significant current.

This research was supported by funding by the US Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research.

Electricity-Producing Bacteria From Massachusetts was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Solar Impulse, piloted by André Borschberg, took off today, Wednesday May 22^nd, at 4:45AM MST (UTC-7) from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to fly to Texas. Landing is scheduled sometime after 01:00AM CDT (UTC-5) at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Thursday May 23rd. Should there be any last minute changes, please consult Solar Impulse’s Dallas page on the Solar Impulse website.

Solar Impulse will be soaring in the early morning skies of Phoenix, Arizona on Wednesday May 22, on the second leg of the team’s Across America mission. We can watch the pre-flight preparations; the entire flight; and the landing live, via Solar Impulse TV. This is record-breaking flying. With a total distance of about 868 miles (1396.8 km), André is attempting to break his own solar aviation achievement that he set when he flew from Payerne, Switzerland to Madrid, Spain. More details are shown below.

AcrossAmerica_6th Test Flight from Moffett Field_Solar Impulse flies around the San Francisco Bay area_2013.04.23 Image Credit: © Solar Impulse | Revillard | Rezo.ch

The flight from Arizona to Texas via New Mexico will provide André with some spectacular desert landscapes as he flies over Roswell (NM), where Felix Baumgartner completed the famous Red Bull Stratos jump from the stratosphere, towards Hobbs (NM), and then, on his approach to Dallas, above Abilene (TX). The third leg of the Across America mission, connecting Dallas to St. Louis, will be flown by Bertrand.

If you would like to see the plane in flight, go to the butte on Arizona State University’s campus (in front of the Packard Drive bus stop at 6th street and Rio Salado Pkwy) – the plane will be visible with the naked eye.

Don’t forget that Solar Impulse always films the entire mission flights live. Just go directly to Solar Impulse TV and see the pilots (one from the cockpit and the other from the ground), see interviews with the people that make it happen, and watch footage from past events and flights. Also on the live page, and during all flights, there’s a moving map and virtual cockpit allowing you to feel what it’s like to be in the plane.

During the Dallas stopover, the Solar Impulse team will organize an Open House on Friday, May 24^th, from 1PM to 7PM. Sign up here if you want to see the plane with your own eyes! Changes might occur, so if you live in the Dallas area, stay tuned via the homepage or sign up to become a Supporter and get priority information about flights, events and more!

As part of Solar Impulse’s Clean Generation initiative, meant to inspire politicians, businesspeople, and others to invest in clean technologies, the first flag displaying the initiative’s slogan and the destination city’s name (Phoenix) was handed to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer as a token of appreciation for her State’s hospitality. A new custom-designed flag will be carried in the cockpit from Phoenix to Dallas together with a USB key. The key virtually carries the names of Solar Impulse supporters across the United States. If you would like your friends or family to be part of this pioneering adventure and cross the country with us, tell them to sign up today and become a friend of the project.

PS.  You can also follow André, Bertrand, or Solar Impulse directly on their Twitter pages.

–Solar Impulse Team

Author Note: It is inspiring to follow this airplane’s journey. I will be watching the pre-flight, the flight, and the landing. It makes a long day for me. It must be incredible for the pilots and the Solar Impulse team as they change aviation history with these flights. If you sign up as a supporter (it’s free), your name is carried with the pilots on each flight.

Solar Impulse In Midst Of Setting Another Solar Airplane Record was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

This article first appeared on RenewEconomy.

The construction of what could be Australia’s first stand alone solar thermal power station has not even been agreed, but it has been named.

The pro-renewable group Beyond Zero Emissions – which is pushing for the construction of solar towers at Port Augusta to replace the ageing and polluting brown coal generators in that town – is suggesting that the new facility be named after the town’s mayor, Joy Baluch, who died of lung cancer last week.

Baluch One?

As we reported earlier this month, Alinta is applying to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency for funds to conduct a detailed feasibility study – and to help it decide if its better going for a stand-alone CST plant with storage, or a hybrid facility. Solar tower technology is one of the options, along with parabolic troughs, or linear fresnel technology.

“We do realize that they have not actually agreed to build the plant yet,” said Matthew Grantham, from BZE. “But if they did finally replace Playford A and Playford B then we think that Baluch One and Baluch Two would be a fitting tribute to an incredible lady.”

RenewEconomy agrees. Baluch One and Baluch Two – it has a certain ring to it. We hope Alinta Energy agrees too. Perhaps it could be a condition of CEFC or ARENA financing!

Australia’s First Solar Towers Are Not Yet Built, But They Have A Name was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Battery swapping has been a somewhat contentious issue within the EV world. Basically, some people love the idea, some are more ‘meh’ about it. Israel-based Better Place and its many enthusiasts most hyped the idea, and it had some grand plans. As Chris DeMorro notes below, it has (for the time being, at least) folded on much of that. The market just didn’t seem ready for such a radical idea. But there are still some clear advantages, and it seems Tesla may see those as worth investing in. More details in the Gas2 repost below.

Even the most doubtful haters will soon have to admit that Tesla Motors has done the unthinkable; build a better electric car. While CEO Elon Musk has already hinted at what the future holds for his electric automaker, a recent filing with the SEC revealed a twist to Tesla’s plans; battery swapping.

The idea of fast-swapping the battery out of an electric car is not new, though so far the few large-scale experiments have not been successful. Most famously Project Better Place promoted a battery-swapping scheme that had ambitions of 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2016; currently they’re selling about 100 models a month in Israel and Denmark, after pulling out of America and Australia.

In their recent SEC filing, on page 38 outlining future plans, Tesla discusses what factors may affect the adoption of electric vehicles. Specifically, the filing says that the ability to “…rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack, and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist, but which we plan to introduce in the near future.”

What is Tesla thinking getting into battery swapping? Perhaps they are thinking that their Supercharger fast-charging stations just aren’t going to be enough. To truly compete with gas-powered vehicles, electric vehicles need a similar “refill” time. Battery swapping could make that possible, eliminating one of the biggest criticisms of EVs; their long recharge time.

As it stands, the Tesla Supercharger takes about 30 minutes to add 150 miles of range to the Model S, and can fully charge the 85 kWh model in just over an hour. While that is faster than any other method on the market, it is still longer than many people want to wait, and is limited by access to Superchargers.

But if battery-swapping stations were to become more prevalent around major metro areas, well, that could change the whole EV dynamic, and perhaps make battery leasing another option for Model S owners.

Elon has already taken a lot of risks with Tesla, and most of them have paid off. Can he make battery swapping work too?

Tesla Battery Swap? was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Forget about that chest wax thing you’ve been thinking about, when it comes to exfoliation a team of researchers at Northwestern Engineering has everybody beat. The team has figured out a way to peel a layer of graphene, the “miracle material of the new millennium,” from a chunk of graphite quicker than you can say “ouch!” and that’s just the beginning. The graphene is being used to develop a low cost, highly conductive ink that can be used to print electronic circuits on flexible material, leading to the next generation of tiny, foldable, mobile electronic devices.

Ink pen by janoma.cl.

Getting The Goods On Graphene

Graphene is an ultra-strong carbon material only one atom thick. It was discovered in 2004 by researchers who literally used sticky tape to peel a layer of graphene from a chunk of graphite. Ever since then, the challenge has been to come up with more sophisticated, reliable and commercially scalable ways to obtain sufficient quantities of the finicky material.

One method in current use is to exfoliate graphite through oxidation or with the use of solvents, but both of those techniques interfere with the superior conductive properties of graphene.

The Northwestern graphene team (that’s the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, to be precise) developed a conductivity-preserving method that can be carried out at room temperature.

Temperature is a key parameter for commercialization because it translates directly into energy costs, with room or ambient temperature being the most promising. Another potential cost savings is in the team’s choice of solvents, ethanol and ethyl cellulose (ethyl cellulose is a polymer that can be used as a food additive among many other things).

The result  of the process is a powder consisting of a high concentration of nanoscale graphene flakes. Now mix the flakes with another solvent to form a liquid “ink” and Bob’s your uncle.

One layer of the graphene ink is about 14 nanometers thick, and the researchers found that it takes several layers to make a good circuit. Once laid down on a substrate, the circuits retain their conductivity even when the substrate is bent at extreme angles.

A Printable Graphene Ink

As with printable solar cells, printable electronic circuits open up a whole new array of possibilities. Come to think of it, printable solar cells and printable electronics would pack a colossal one-two punch in the context of the rapidly falling price of solar power.

Part of the excitement over printability is due to the fact that inkjet printing is a standard, ubiquitous fabrication method that can be modified with relative ease to accommodate new materials, which means that printable electronics (and solar cells, for that matter) will not require the development of a whole new manufacturing platform.

Inkjet printing can also be applied to a wide variety of materials, including extremely thin films.

We Built This Graphene-a-Palooza!

This is the third major piece of hot graphene news to cross our radar within the past week, the other two being the unlocking of the Hofstadter butterfly mystery and the discovery of magnetic properties in graphene.

For McCormick’s contribution to the field, we can thank the Office of Naval Research, which supported the work.

If that funding source sounds a little odd, consider that the Air Force Office of Scientific Research is among the supporters of another graphene harvesting process that involves dry ice and steel balls (disco, much?).

Needless to say, our favorite pesky meddling government research agency, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is also hot on the tail of next-generation electronics based on graphene film, and of course the Department of Energy is all about graphene these days.

What was my point? Oh, right, when the graphene assisted world of the future comes into being, don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back for contributing some of your tax dollars to make it happen. Yeah, we built this.

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New Printable Graphene Ink Made Possible By Exfoliation was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Check out the super gearhead in this video below laughing with excitement about the ridiculous amount of torque in the BMW M3 EV. If anyone thought EVs meant “low power,” this should wake you up. Thanks to Chris DeMorro of CleanTechnica sister site Gas2 for the find and article.

With major automakers now churning out EVs of their own, electric car conversion shops have taken a backseat in the news. Well, most shops at least. EV West has continued to crank out some incredible electric cars, including the Pikes Peak-dominated BMW M3 EV. At the behest of the fellows at Drive, EV West put their electric Bimmer on the dyno, and you won’t believe the results.

Unlike conventional cars, EVs are rated in kilowatts rather than horsepower and torque. But what does the 400 kilowatts translate into on the dyno? Not as much horsepower as you might expect, but a ton of torque; 850 ft-lbs of torque, in fact, and 342 horsepower at just 600 rpm. Host Matt Farrah compares it to a Ford Super Duty pickup with a tune, and he’s not far off.

All that torque has trashed more than a few parts on the EV West Bimmer, losing parts like a clutch and differential to all that torque. Even on the dyno the beefed-up Powerglide transmission may have thrown a gear.

Building EVs doesn’t always have to be about going green; sometimes it is just about all that torque. Even so, host Matt Farrah seems skeptical about the future of electric racing. And that’s his right.

But after seeing a car like the EV West BMW M3 EV in action, I have to wonder how he can have any doubts that the future of racing is electric. Sure, the sound of conventional race cars is awesome, but the potential for performance in EVs hasn’t even been tapped yet. Just wait until the Formula E series hits streets and see what I mean.

BMW M3 EV From EV West On The Dyno (Video) was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

Net zero energy = awesome. And homes or buildings that use no energy from other locations (net, not gross) are certainly a growing trend. Check out this post below from the National Institute of Standards and Technology regarding a new report on this subject.

The Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility sits on the campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. The facility allows researchers to test various high-efficiency and alternative energy systems, materials, and designs.
Image Credit: Young/NIST
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Chances are you know how many miles your car logs for each gallon or tankful of gas, but you probably have only a foggy idea of how much energy your house consumes, even though home energy expenditures often account for a larger share of the household budget.

This disparity in useful energy data is just one of several information gaps that must be bridged as the United States transitions towards residences that generate as much energy as they use over the course of a year—so-called net-zero houses.

Gaps—and strategies to overcome them—are summarized in Strategies to Achieve Net-Zero Energy Homes: A Framework for Future Guidelines, a new publication* from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) based on the discussions at a 2011 workshop convened by the agency.

One such strategy, proffered by experts who attended the workshop, is to require that energy costs be listed in all real-estate transactions.

“This means incorporating energy in the appraisal process, and the valuation of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI), so that it incorporates energy cost considerations to become the valuation of principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and energy cost considerations (PITIE),” the report says.

The report breaks out three categories of challenges: design, technology and equipment, and the needs and behaviors of homeowners and the building industry.

With regard to design, one workshop recommendation is to establish a scoring system for new and used homes so that prospective buyers can “compare energy, durability, indoor air quality, accessibility, and other factors relative to their needs.”

In net-zero energy homes, energy loads will be substantially lower than current heating and cooling equipment is built to deliver and existing product performance standards are designed to test. According to the report, manufacturers will need new guidelines and underlying data that will help them size their equipment offerings appropriately and align performance with the conditions and requirements of net-zero energy homes.

The behaviors and requirements of homeowners and builders may provide the most complex set of challenges. One clear need, the report says, is to help designers, builders and occupants understand how best to collect and analyze home energy data.

“Consumers require information that is useful, timely and understandable to be able to make the energy purchase and consumption decisions necessary to achieve net-zero energy for new and existing homes,” the report says.

To obtain the 41-page summary report, go to: www.nist.gov/manuscript-publication-search.cfm?pub_id=911717 or http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1140.

* N.A. McNabb. Strategies to Achieve Net-Zero Energy Homes: A Framework for Future Guidelines Workshop Summary Report. NIST Special Publication 1140, April 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1140

How To Create A Net-Zero-Energy Home (New Report) was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).

A group of renewable energy investors plan to sue the government of Czech Republic over a controversial tax on solar energy projects. The investors say that they feel duped by the policies of the government which had initially attracted investments in the solar energy sector through supportive policies.

Czech Republic Flag
Credit: Arz | Public Domain

Eight international investors associated with the International PhotoVoltaic Investors Club (IPVIC) have announced that they will file a notice of arbitration against the Czech government. The investors will seek monetary compensation against the introduction of “retroactive and discriminatory measures, such as a solar levy of 26% on the revenues of solar installations.”

The group had challenged the tax measure at the Czech Constitutional Court but did not get the desired result. Frank Schulte, IPVIC’s General Secretary, claims that the group is left with no choice but to sue the government for monetary compensation. The arbitration claim is based on specific stipulations in bilateral treaties on the promotion and protection of investments and the Energy Charter Treaty.

Everyone recognises that the cost of solar power generation has fallen significantly over the last few years. As a result, several governments in the developed and traditional markets, like Europe, have either reduced the subsidies or the feed-in tariffs for solar power projects. Even some new and developing markets, like India, have reduced the feed-in tariffs for power plants (India continues to offer substantial subsidies to power plants though).

While most of us would agree that solar power is now in a much better position to challenge the conventional power sources in terms of cost, governments across the world must ensure that they do not make substantial changes in their solar power policies as knee-jerk reactions to the continuously changing market conditions. Yes, the capital cost of installing a solar photovoltaic power plant has come down significantly over the last few years (mainly due to the sliding prices of raw materials), but the recent developments around anti-dumping investigations across the globe may have a substantial impact on the prices in the future.

The United States government has already implemented import duties on Chinese solar modules while the EU has proposed steep anti-dumping duties as well. These duties may be implemented retroactively and thus even the established solar power plants would not be spared. India has proposed limiting the capacity that can use imported equipment. The largest suppliers of solar modules, Chinese manufacturers, are in a very poor financial condition with several companies shut down and others defaulting on millions of dollars of loans.

Given these conditions, it would not be wise for the governments to withdraw support for the solar power project developers who are expected to face increased expenditure and limited choices. Additionally, the governments must also take a long-term view regarding the energy mix of the future. With a global emissions reduction treaty looming in the very near future, governments must look to support and expand renewable energy infrastructure instead of implementing policies and measures which could scare away  potential investors.

Investors Plan To Sue Czech Government Over Solar Power Revenue Tax was originally published on: CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 30,000 others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free!), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage (yep, free).