Tick tock, tick tock… The ticking sound that our friends in Germany might be hearing is the countdown to 2022, the year in which the country has pledged to be completely nuclear free.

Meanwhile, halfway across the globe, Japan is still dealing with the aftermath of the meltdown at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. The disaster greatly damaged public confidence in the safety of nuclear power, leading many countries to question their own commitment to nuclear power.

As Germany, Japan, and other countries seek to phase out nuclear power, they need to design strategies for filling the “energy gap” created by nuclear power’s absence. Renewable energy sources provide the clearest, cleanest path for filling this gap, and many different forms of renewables currently exist as viable options.

Germany-based TimberTower develops massive, easily assembled wooden towers that can be used as the base for wind turbines, much the way wood was used as the foundation for windmills for many centuries. More flexible, renewable and easier to manufacture and produce than metal turbines, the wooden towers make sense for a forest-rich region.

Clean technology company SunPods Inc.—headquartered in San Jose, Calif.—designs and manufactures modular solar array units that help make solar power more accessible and affordable. Unlike conventional customized ground-mounted solar arrays that require extensive onsite assembly and construction, SunPods (which stands for “Sun Power on Demand”) are configured and built in a factory before being delivered to virtually any site — a process that reduces installation time by up to 85 percent, allowing sunny regions to readily harvest the solar power available to them.

Tidal power presents another option for renewable energy for countries with available coastline. IT Power—based in Bristol, UK—is developing an innovative tidal energy device that uses oscillating horizontal hydrofoils instead of traditional rotating blades to generate renewable energy. This pioneering approach offers many advantages over existing tidal stream technology by maximizing the area that can be swept—and hence the power captured—in a given depth of water.

Wind, solar, tidal power, and other renewables all have a role to play in helping countries seeking to move away from nuclear achieve their energy goals. How these countries fill “the energy gap” will be a bellwether for others working to diversify their energy mix.

Susan Gladwin leads the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program, which provides emerging clean tech companies powerful software and opportunities to help them develop solutions that address our most pressing environmental issues. In North America, Europe, Japan and Singapore, the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program offers $150,000 of Autodesk software for $50.

Related posts:

• Countries Shelve Nuclear Plans In Wake Of Accident
• France Invests €1B in Nuclear, Saying Moratorium ‘Makes No Sense’
• Nukes or Fossil Fuels? Germany Rejects False Choice
• Long-Term Renewable Energy Targets Must Be Set Now, Experts Say
• Germany Plans to Shut Down All of its Nuclear Reactors by 2022

International cooperation in clean tech innovation and diffusion is increasingly common. One of the trends in this regard is a country’s trade officials organizing an international tour of home grown clean tech companies, in many cases to the U.S., to promote their wares and explore business opportunities.

A recent case in point was the G’Day USA Australia Biofuels event last month.

The latest example of this is the delegation of UK clean tech companies visiting San Diego.

The UK Trade & Investment Roundtable, being hosted by DPR Construction, Inc. at 5010 Shoreham Place in San Diego on February 18th, will showcase several UK companies operating in and around the clean tech space.

For obvious reasons, one of the hottest clean tech sectors in the UK is wave and tidal power, including such players as Tidal Energy Limited, Pelamis, and Marine Current Turbines.

But the mini British Invasion of San Diego later this month represents a wide range of technologies from advanced batteries to green buildings.

According to James Cummings of the British Consulate in Los Angeles, the visiting companies include B&M Longworth (ultrasonic cleaning of industrial equipment), Breathing Buildings (green building ventilation systems), Ionotec (conductive ceramics for advanced batteries), Nanoflex (coating material for lighting), Securistyle (windows and doors), and the Carbon Trust (sustainable business and emissions reductions advisory services).

In some ways the UK has been at the forefront of green innovation policy. The UK Intellectual Property Office was one of the first national IP offices to initiate a fast track program for green patent applications.

So these and other UK clean tech companies were among the first to enjoy the opportunity of expedited examination of their patent applications. I hope they have taken advantage of it.

To RSVP or find out more information about this event, contact Mr. Cummings at james.cummings@fconet.fco.gov.uk.

Eric Lane is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and the author of Green Patent Blog. Mr. Lane can be reached at elane@luce.com.

Related posts:

• Are Women Greener Than Men?
• World’s Largest Wind Farm Opens Off British Coast in the North Sea
• Nearly Half of Electricity at UK Businesses Wasted During Off Hours
• Small Scale Renewable Energy Hits the Big Time in the UK
• Smaller, Cheaper, Greener: Renault’s New Plan For Electric Vehicles

As a country with enormous potential for both wind power and solar energy, India has been steadily working towards building up the respective technologies to establish their renewable energy reputation. One of the areas they have yet to consider, however, is tidal and wave based energies and India is about to make a change for the better in that department. With plans to have a tidal power station built in the country within the next couple of years, the nation is ready to grab the title of the first Asian nation to host tidal power.

The tidal power plant that is being planned for India is currently expected to provide a capacity of fifty megawatts of renewable energy with the potential to be expanded up to a larger 250 megawatt capacity. The plant is to be built by the Atlantis Resources Corporation, which is a London based renewable energy company, and located in the Gulf of Kutch in the Indian state of Gujarat. Atlantis believes that the plant, while currently expected to reach the 250 megawatt capacity, is capable of attaining a 300 megawatt maximum capacity. They also believe the area might be suitable for offshore wind power at some point in the future.

With the location and specifications decided, the tidal power plant that is to become the first commercial plant in Asia is to be part of a memorandum of understanding that will allow the company to build the plant and sell the electricity. The electricity purchased from the plant is going to be going to the Gujarat Power Corporation under a variety of tariffs that have not yet been fully determined. Currently, Atlantis and the local government are hoping that the plant will be fully operation come 2013.

Though the plant being built in India is the first commercial tidal power plant in Asia, it is not Atlantis Resources’ first bout with the technology. The company is currently working on projects off the coast of Scotland, where it is believed that immense tidal power potential is readily available, and in various locations in Australia. With the Indian venture added to their portfolio, Atlantis has plenty of chances to prove the worth of tidal power.

Given the exciting potential that tidal power holds, it is nice to see India ready to take the plunge and invest is what is one of the more expensive renewable energy ventures in the world. With any luck, however, the leap of faith will prove not only profitable, but beneficial on the green side, and convince neighboring nations to give it a try.

Article by Richard Cooke, appearing courtesy Justmeans.

Related posts:

• Solar Gains Steam in Asia and U.S.
• Piaggio Prepares Low-Polluting Car for Asia and Europe
• Why Tidal Power is Europe’s Best Near-Term Ocean Energy Technology
• Mass Water Shipment Planned From Alaska to India
• India’s Solar Power Revolution Could Have Global Effect

Tidal power, also called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides into electricity or other useful forms of power. The first large-scale tidal power plant (the Rance Tidal Power Station) started operation in 1966. Harnessing the power of ocean tides has long been imagined, but countries are only now putting it into practice. A demonstration project planned for Puget Sound will be the first tidal energy project on the west coast of the United States, and the first array of large-scale turbines to feed power from ocean tides into an electrical grid. University of Washington researchers are devising ways to site the tidal turbines and measure their environmental effects. Brian Polagye, UW research assistant professor of mechanical engineering, will present recent findings this week in an invited talk at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

Tidal power is the only form of energy which derives directly from the relative motions of the Earth—Moon system, and to a lesser extent from the Earth—Sun system. Tidal forces produced by the Moon and Sun, in combination with Earth’s rotation, are responsible for the generation of the tides. Other typical sources of energy originate directly or indirectly from the Sun, including fossil fuels, conventional hydroelectric, wind, biofuels, wave power and solar.

Polagye and colleagues are involved in environmental monitoring before and during a planned deployment of two 30-foot-wide turbines in Admiralty Inlet, the main entrance to Washington state’s Puget Sound.

Although European countries have more experience with tidal energy devices, they are not as far ahead on environmental monitoring, Polagye said. He believes the Pacific Northwest installation will have the most comprehensive environmental monitoring of any tidal project so far.

The Snohomish County Public Utility District, just north of Seattle, received a $10 million grant from the Energy Department for the tidal project now in the final phase of obtaining permits. The turbines would generate an average of 100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power 50-100 Washington homes during the pilot phase.

“We want to monitor the effects of this particular project, but also understand the processes so we can apply the findings to other potential tidal energy sites,” Polagye said.

“There’s surprisingly little known about the oceanography of these very fast waters,” said collaborator Jim Thomson, a UW assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and an oceanographer in the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “These kinds of tidal channels where water is going very fast only happen in a few areas, and have not been well studied. The currents are so fast that it’s hard to operate vehicles and maintain equipment. And it’s too deep for conventional scuba diving.”
The pilot site lies roughly 200 feet below the surface of Admiralty Inlet, where the UW team has measured currents of up to 8 knots, or 9 miles per hour.

One area of concern is how underwater noise generated by the turbines could affect marine mammals that use auditory cues to navigate and communicate with each other. Strong currents complicated the task of measuring how sound travels in the channel.

“When currents were more than about 2 knots the instruments are hearing considerable self-noise,” Polagye said. “It’s similar to when you’re bicycling downhill and the air rushes past your ears.” Chris Bassett, a UW doctoral student in mechanical engineering, is testing approaches that would allow underwater microphones to work in fast moving water.

UW researchers used sound from a Washington state ferry to learn how turbine noise would spread from the project site. The data suggest that Admiralty Inlet tends to lessen sound. This reduces the effect on animals’ hearing, which is good, but it also means less noise for marine mammals to detect turbines and avoid them.

The monitoring tripod that is to be used holds instruments to track water quality, ambient noise, currents, temperature and salinity, and to record marine mammal calls and electronic tags on passing fish. This observational data will help determine precisely where to put the tidal turbines, and establish potential environmental effects once they are in the water.

So far, researchers say, the data support the notion that the Admiralty Inlet is well suited for a tidal energy installation from an engineering perspective. Once the turbines are in the water, likely in 2013, researchers will monitor any potential environmental effects.

The Washington state deployment is among three U.S. tidal energy pilot projects now in the works (the others are in Maine and Alaska). An array of smaller turbines was operated during another pilot project in New York City’s East River.

The first tidal power site (Rance Tidal Power Station)is located on the estuary of the Rance River, in Brittany, France. It is currently operated by Électricité de France, and is the largest tidal power station in the world, in terms of installed capacity. With a peak rating of 240 Megawatts, it supplies 0.012% of the power demand of France. The annual output is approximately 600 GWh.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

Related posts:

• India Prepares to Become the King of Tidal Power in Asia
• Top Ten Cleantech Highlights of Iberdrola
• Why Tidal Power is Europe’s Best Near-Term Ocean Energy Technology
• Scotland Sets Itself Ambitious Renewable Energy Target
• In a Post-Fukushima Daichii World, Countries Work to Fill “the Energy Gap” Without Nuclear

Scotland has approved ten marine energy projects that leaders predict could provide electricity for one-third of the nation’s homes by 2020 and make Scotland the world leader in wave energy.

The government awarded leases to companies to construct six wave energy projects and four tidal project off the Scottish coast in what experts say would be the first developments of their kind on a large commercial scale.

Construction would cost £4 billion ($6.1 billion) and require another £1 billion ($1.53 billion) in government funding to upgrade the national electric grid. But First Minister Alex Salmond said tapping into the resources of Pentland Firth, a strait north of Scotland that is known for its strong tides, can make the country the “powerhouse of Europe.”
If successful, experts predict, the projects could power 750,000 of Scotland’s 2.3 million homes and generate four times as much electricity as a former Scottish nuclear power station in Caithness.

“Leading international energy companies and innovators continue to be drawn to Scottish waters, which boast as much as a quarter of Europe’s tidal and offshore wind resource and a tenth of the continent’s potential wave capacity,” Salmond said.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

photo: silverxraven

Related posts:

• World’s Largest Hydro-Electric Wave Energy Converter Launched (+Video)
• Wing Waves Show Promise for Wave Energy in the United States
• New Whiskey Biofuel Is Developed by Scottish Scientists
• New Scottish Recycling Programs Will Target Carbon Impact over Bulk
• Waste to Energy to be Powered by Thermal Energy

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.

Ocean energy advocates face a daunting task in the light of recent proposed cuts in federal government support. With the best ocean current resource in the world in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida, excellent tidal sites in California, Maine, Washington and Alaska and prime wave resources off the coasts of California and Oregon, the U.S. is well positioned to be a global leader.

With good tidal power sites in the San Francisco Bay, and the nation’s most viable wave resource all along the North Coast, there is much at stake here for the Golden State.

Consider these simple facts: waves, tides and ocean currents are 800 times more powerful than the thin air that is wind. Tides can be predicted decades in advance, while the wind resource shifts so suddenly, forecasts are good for only a few hours at a time. The sun never shines at night.

Despite these inherent advantages, the total installed capacity of these hydrokinetic resources – a category that includes wave, tidal stream, ocean current, and ocean thermal – was less than 10 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2008 (enough power for about 10,000 homes). It is expected that within the next five to eight years, these emerging technologies will become commercialized to the point that they can begin competing for a share of the burgeoning market for carbon-free and non-polluting renewable resources. By 2015, almost 3,000 MW could be on-line around the world. That figure could jump to 200,000 MW by 2025.

A recent surge in interest in these new renewable options has generated a buzz, particularly in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand…and the U.S.

So far, President Obama wins high marks for shifting priorities on energy policy in the U.S. But his recent proposal to trim R&D funding for the emerging sector of “marine renewables” – also often referred to as ocean power or hydrokinetic technologies – appears to be extremely short-sighted and misses the boat. Trimming the $40 million proposed for marine renewables in 2009 by 25 percent may allow the U.K. and Europe to take a commanding lead in the development of a potential “game changing” clean power that is much more powerful and predictable than either solar or wind, both big winners in Obama’s proposed R&D budgets for the federal Department of Energy.

Europe, particularly the U.K., Ireland and Portugal, are currently the best places to develop wave and tidal projects. Subsidy schemes there, as well as government funded test facilities, and streamlined permitting processes, will likely allow Europe to be the focal point of commercialization efforts in the near-term.

The U.S. has taken some promising steps recently resolving permitting issues for marine renewable technologies. But without more R&D, entrepreneurs already hit by the global economic meltdown may flounder and seek to do business on friendlier shores in Europe. While wave and tidal developers are offered lavish subsidies amounting to about 30 cents per kilowatt hour in Europe, the U.S. currently offers a measly 1 cent/kWh on top of wholesale rates, half of the subsidy currently being offered to wind power projects, a fully commercialized technology.

The ocean is a huge global resource that will ultimately have to be tapped to meet the energy needs of the world’s growing populations – without contributing to global climate change. If the U.S. wants to be part of the solution, and help economic development in regions decimated by the collapse of native fishing stocks, then strategic investments need to be made today. We need wind, we need solar, but we should also be smart and be in a good position to tap the immense power of our oceans.

[photo credit: martapiqs]

Related posts:

• Why Tidal Power is Europe’s Best Near-Term Ocean Energy Technology
• Florida University Seeks To Tap into Power of Gulf Stream
• Massive Turbines Eyed For Mississippi River Electricity Project
• Tech Breakthrough: Underwater Robot Runs on Ocean Thermal Energy
• France Investigates Producing Electricity from Ocean Tides