(Reuters) – A Web application that alerts wine grape farmers when their vines are thirsty has won first place in a competition to spur entrepreneurs in the investment-starved water sector, organizers said on Monday.

Fruition Sciences, which operates in both California and France, came first among 50 teams in Imagine H2O’s global competition aimed at building a “Silicon Valley” for water.

Water is a $500 billion business worldwide, but draws a mere 0.5 to 1.0 percent of venture capital and only a handful of investments per year despite growing demand for solutions to widespread water shortages. (more…)

An Irish university has launched the world’s largest hydro-electric wave energy converter off the coast of northern Scotland.

The so-called Oyster is a mechanically-hinged flap that is embedded into the sea floor — at a depth of about 32 feet (10 meters) — and moves with the motions of the waves. That wave energy pumps high-pressure water to a shore-based electric turbine.

Power will be fed into the national grid and provide electricity to homes in the Orkney islands. Researchers say a farm of 20 Oysters could eventually provide enough electricity to power 9,000 three-bedroom homes.

(more…)

A UK-based renewable energy company has received a $61 million grant from the Australian government to build the world’s first utility-scale wave power project.

Ocean Power Technologies will begin construction of the 19-megawatt project in the waters off Victoria in 2010. The project will provide enough electricity to power 10,000 homes.

Wave technology uses buoys riding up and down on waves to drive an electrical generator, and then sends the power ashore via underwater cable.

(more…)

Turkey’s alternative energy potential is huge, but it remains locked – at least so far. Earlier this month, Ankara hosted the International Energy Congress on Renewable Energy where the Turkish energy sector was the main discussion point. The congress attracted a record number of participants from public and private sectors, including the Turkish Minister of Energy and members of the country’s Parliament. It was once more observed that the potential of investments in Turkey is by far exceeding the enthusiasm of the bureaucrats and the readiness of the Turkish infrastructure.

(more…)

In spite of the Pacific Northwest’s reputation for environmental leadership, short-sighted opponents of hydroelectric power struck a blow last week when Oregon-based utility PacifiCorp agreed — under duress — to decommission a series of hydroelectric dams in the Upper Klamath River along the Oregon-California border.

Power from the dams is used to serve electrical load in Oregon and Northern California. Without the dams in operation (the licenses were extended to 2020 when they are to be shut down) PacifiCorp will have to find a way to replace the renewable, emissions-free energy that the dams provided.

Regulators were joined by dam protestors in contending that the quest for new power can be done in a way that does not damage the environment anymore or put too much of a dent in consumers’ pockets. And things are certainly expected to go swimmingly for the salmon populations that the dams threatened.

(more…)

The number of small hydropower projects in the U.S. is increasing as utilities try to avoid concerns about the environmental impact of large dams, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission now has applications for 14,000 megawatts of hydropower projects — enough to power 7 million to 14 million homes — and most are located on small rivers, streams, and creeks. That figure is a 20 percent increase from two years ago.

As the number of projects grows in states such as Washington, Colorado, and Montana, environmentalists are beginning to raise objections to the small dams, which critics say can still block fish runs, interfere with whitewater rafting trips, and carve up wilderness habitat with roads, power lines, and other infrastructure.
(more…)

For thousands of years, the native Aymara people have been harvesting scarcely fallen raindrops along the Andean foothills in northern Chile by capturing the rainwater in nets for irrigation and drinking purposes. The people in this region, in and around the Atacama desert, are accustomed to fragile ecosystems and an extremely dry climate. However, today, even in the fertile central and southern regions of Chile, there are noticeable tensions over water rights and water availability.

Presently, it is not as if there are times when nothing flows out of the tap here. Nor are the urban folks of Santiago running outside their homes with their own polypropylene mesh nets ready to catch any drop of rain that falls. However, a convergence of factors – an increase in population growth, perceptible changes in climate patterns, and competition for water resources between various industries and hydro power – have caused a national “war over water” of sorts to emerge at the forefront of national environmental, economic, and political discussions.
(more…)

The earth is the water planet, so it should come as no great surprise that forms of water power have been one of the world’s most popular “renewable” energy sources. Yet the largest water power source of all – the ocean that covers three-quarters of earth – has yet to be tapped in any major way for power generation. There are three primary reasons for this:

The first is the nature of the ocean itself, a powerful resource that cannot be privately owned like land that typically serves as the foundation for site control for terrestrial power plants of all kinds;

The second is funding. Hydropower was heavily subsidized during the Great Depression, but little public investment has since been steered toward marine renewables with the exception of ocean thermal technologies, which were perceived to be a failure.

The third reason why the ocean has not yet been industrialized on behalf of energy production is that the technologies, materials and construction techniques did not exist until now to harness this renewable energy resource in any meaningful and cost effective way.

(more…)

The Turkish government will revive a $1.6 billion dam project on the Tigris River despite concerns that it will displace tens of thousands of people, damage wildlife habitat, and destroy historic archaeological sites.

Preparations for the Ilisu hydroelectric dam were suspended for six months after financial institutions in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria announced that they were withholding financial support because of environmental concerns.

But Veysel Eroglu, Turkey’s environmental minister, said the financing would be made available for what the government considers an important part of a $32 billion plan to boost the economy in the nation’s southeastern corner, a region disrupted by armed conflict between the government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. Eroglu said improvements have been made to assure the project will meet international standards.

(more…)

The New York Times’ Kate Galbraith had an interesting piece on the internecine warfare in the green movement that pits renewable advocates and environmental groups against hydro dams — right now the country’s predominate renewable technology. This piece follows on several in the past few weeks talking about a nuclear resurgence and what that may mean in the green power and environmental advocacy communities.

Long story short, in spite of the fact that it is cost competitive, non-GHG emitting, renewable and technologically deployable, there is A LOT of resentment against hydro dams. (more…)