Science and Technology:
¶ This year will be the hottest on record and 2016 could be even hotter due to the El Niño weather pattern, the World Meteorological Organization said. WMO director-general Michel Jarraud rejected climate sceptics’ arguments, saying, “It’s not about believing or not. It’s a matter of seeing the facts. The facts are there.” [Free Malaysia Today]
How long will it last?
¶ One significant challenge to lithium-ion EV battery technology is coming from the lithium-sulfur field. A lithium-sulfur battery research project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has had sufficient success that Oak Ridge announced that it has signed an exclusive lithium-sulfur battery agreement with a startup called Solid Power. [CleanTechnica]
¶ Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson has analyzed what it would take for each of the 50 states to go fully renewable. Normally, intermittency issues are expected to be handled by fossil fuel power and batteries. But the new analysis suggests we don’t need any of that, and we don’t need biofuels or nuclear, either. [Ars Technica UK]
World:
¶ German household-scale battery maker Sonnenbatterie will soon provide buyers of the company’s household-scale electricity storage batteries, most of whom also have solar photovoltaic panels mounted on their rooftops, to automatically buy and sell energy from each other directly through a shared online platform. [Deutsche Welle]
German rooftops.
¶ According to a recent report, soon to be released by Dodge Data & Analytics, green building continues to double every three years, with strongest acceleration in emerging economies, and clients and tenants worldwide are increasingly demanding sustainability, for both energy efficiency and occupant benefit. [CleanTechnica]
¶ Early this year, France’s state energy and environment agency was set to publish a study showing the country could actually abandon nuclear power and rely entirely on renewable power in decades to come. But the presentation was scrapped under political pressure, illustrating tensions surrounding French energy policy. [Reuters]
¶ The UK Department of Energy issued a new analysis of energy and emissions projections in 2015. An analysis of the projections by Carbon Brief, shows that the government now expects 22 GW of new renewable capacity to be installed by 2025, down by more than a third from the 34 GW forecast last year. [SeeNews Renewables]
Wind farm in England. Author: stephen jones. License: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic
¶ Renewable energy is rapidly becoming the world’s preferred choice for new electricity generation, according to a Climate Council report. “A Whole New World: Tracking the renewables boom from Copenhagen to Paris” reveals how the world is in the midst of a dramatic energy revolution which could still accelerate. [Climate Control News]
¶ A competition to identify the “best value small modular reactor design for the UK” will be launched next year, to “pave the way towards building one of the world’s first small modular reactors in the UK in the 2020s,” the Treasury said. Support for the technology will come through a £250 million research package. [Yahoo Finance UK]
US:
¶ New rules could make it possible to develop more renewable energy in Alaska, by making it easier for independent projects to sell their power to the grid. After two years of hearings, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska issued new rules saying utilities should buy renewable power if it is least expensive. [Alaska Public Radio Network]
Alaska Environmental Power workers and contractors prepare to hoist the hub of a rotor and the three large blades to a hub. Photo: Tim Ellis/KUAC
¶ The energy storage market is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting spaces in all of renewables. Two major developments highlight this. First, even that the most dysfunctional of American institutions, the Congress, is getting interested in energy storage. Second, Wall Street is putting money into energy storage. [OilPrice.com]
¶ Fred Costello, a free-market Republican member of Florida’s House of Representatives, filed a bill last week to open the state’s energy market to solar energy competition by allowing homeowners and businesses to lease their rooftops to companies that generate solar power and sell it back to the grid. [Government Technology]
¶ North Dakota regulators have approved a 100.4-MW community-initiated wind project in Rolette County. The Public Service Commission voted unanimously to grant a certificate of site compatibility authorizing construction of up to 59 turbines. The project is located on a 14,000-acre site in north-central North Dakota [reNews]
Image: G114 (Gamesa)
¶ Developer Cape Wind has urged a US court to dismiss opponents’ appeal of its 468-MW offshore wind project in Nantucket Sound. The appeal is the latest in the plaintiffs “14-year crusade” against the project, which includes more than 30 administrative and court challenges, Cape Wind told a federal Court of Appeals. [reNews]
¶ Biodico announced its new facility in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The plant is purportedly the world’s first biofuel production facility operating entirely on renewable heat and power generated on-site. It will go online the first week of December, to produce 20 million gallons of biodiesel fuel each year. [Renewable Energy Magazine]
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