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Tag: Alternative Energy

  • What’s Next for Renewable Energy

    What’s Next for Renewable Energy

    While the 2020’s are off to a tumultuous start, the renewable energy market is expected to make great strides. By mid-decade, renewable energy is set to be a $1.5 trillion industry globally. At the end of the previous decade, renewables powered the equivalent of 43.5 million homes in the US alone. The two biggest sustainable energy sources (solar and wind) boasted $18.7 and $14 billion in respective investments as well as over a hundred thousand jobs each. 

    Government incentives may play a part in this spectacular growth, but demand is also high for renewable energy. In American, 3 in 4 citizens want to reduce pollution, 71% think clean energy should be a priority, and nearly half of consumers would pay more per month in energy bills if it meant they got their electricity from a sustainable source. Their main reasons for supporting clean energy are wanting to provide a better life for future generations and acknowledging that sustainable energy is less harmful to people’s health. 

    The main problem renewable energy companies will need to solve before they can meet demand is their battery. As of 2019,  less than 5% of behind-the-meter solar systems included a battery. Both wind and solar are intermittent in that both can only generate electricity under certain conditions. Electricity usage happens in any circumstance, so power needs to be stored for when it’s needed. The current system of net metering (in which residential solar users sell excess power to their utility company) is set to end soon in the US. Without batteries or net metering, residential solar will become less financially attractive across the nation.

    RIght now, batteries of all stripes fall under the category of lithium-ion. Invented in 1912, lithium-ion batteries have not changed much over the past century. By next year, lithium-ion batteries are expected to fuel 61% of demand for renewable energy. Unfortunately, this class of batteries has several limitations preventing it from being a sustainable choice. Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time and quickly lose storage capacity. Their material extraction, production, and disposal can cause toxic water contamination. Also, their recycling process is difficult and costly due to variance in materials. The point of switching to renewable energy is to decrease pollution, not perpetuate it. While lithium-ion batteries are still the best available choice for mobile applications, companies should consider other options for long duration, energy intensive, stationary applications like solar and wind systems.

    Given current technology, the best replacement for the lithium-ion battery is a vanadium flow battery. Vanadium flow batteries have several advantages over their predecessors: their useful lifespan is over 25 years, they can fully charge and discharge without degrading, and recycled vanadium is just as effective as freshly mined vanadium in batteries. With vanadium flow batteries, mining will only be necessary to bring new batteries online, not to replace old ones. Everything considered, vanadium flow batteries are the sustainable choice for renewable energy companies to use. Investing in a greener future goes beyond energy sources.

    The Modern Energy Market
  • Elon Musk Wants to Standardize Supercharger Market

    Elon Musk Wants to Standardize Supercharger Market

    Elon Musk, co-founder of companies such as PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX (and sometimes known as the modern-day Tony Stark, aka Iron Man), has has fulfilled his promise of “doing something fairly significant on this front which would be kind of controversial with respect to Tesla’s patents”.

    While he has not decided to release all the patents for his Tesla line of automobiles, Musk has decided to go through with a proposal which would drastically alter the future of electric vehicles for generations to come. At the UK launch of the Model S on Sunday, Musk announced his intentions to free the patents Tesla Motors currently holds on its supercharger systems, allowing any and all of his competitors access to the technology behind the world’s most successful electric vehicle.

    The news may not seem significant at first, but with Tesla’s recent surge in supercharging efficiency, the announcement could lead to many more electric vehicles on the road in the very near future.

    At the 2014 annual stockholders meeting, Musk delivered the answer to the mystery surrounding a quite vague and mysterious tweet he composed earlier last month:

    Musk plans to unveil this method on June 20th. If rumor is to be believed, however, Tesla has found a way to up the speed of a supercharger to a 120kw rate, much higher than the 50 kw rate of most fast-chargers available on the market today. If Tesla has succeeded, the rate of charging one’s electric vehicle would indeed be comparable to the rate of filling one’s tank.

    The opened patents would not come without a price, however. Barriers to entry for Tesla’s competitors would come in having to provide capital for the construction of multiple charging stations across the US, along with upping the price of one’s vehicles to include a lifetime of free chargers – a business model Tesla already practices.

    If Musk is able to convince his competitors to come onboard with the standardization of superchargers, odds are he will be able to vault Tesla to the top of the electric car industry for many years to come. One can only hope for this to become true as Musk has several intriguing projects on the table at the moment, including the Hyperloop, a supersonic air travel system, new space shuttles developed by SpaceX, and even flying and underwater vehicles.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Shines Solar Power On Homeowners

    Perhaps the “G” in “Google” should stand for “green” because it’s clear the company is a big supporter of the environmental movement. The Google Green site/FAQ is an obvious indicator of said support. More recently, news about one of Google’s latest investments demonstrates the commitment. This time, however, in a more specific manner, as opposed to simply issuing a manifesto of the company’s goals.

    Another way to look at it, now that Google has functional maps of the world, the oceans, the moon and the stars, they are turning their attention to harnessing the power of the most prominent star in our collective lives, the Death Star the sun, of course. No, Google isn’t buying Britain’s ever-popular gossip mag/newspaper, although, the contextual ads for Page 3 would be fun. Instead, Google is investing in a company that specializes in harnessing the power of the sun, as they further the drive to reduce the footprint, as well as the cost of living, for homeowners who are actively seeking alternate methods of providing power to their dwelling.

    To facilitate the push for cleaner energy, Google has partnered with SolarCity, a company that, like the name suggests, focuses on bringing solar power to the people. Google’s contribution comes in the way of financial support, to the tune of $280 million. For comparison’s sake, President Obama pledged $250 million to the smart grid project, 30 million less than Google’s investment into solar power. Do with that knowledge what you will.

    Google’s blog entry has more on their partnership with SolarCity:

    Today, we’re announcing that we’ve investing $280 million to create a fund that will help SolarCity finance more solar installations across the country. This is our largest clean energy project investment to date and brings our total invested in the clean energy sector to more than $680 million. We’ve also launched a partnership to offer SolarCity services to Googlers at a discount.

    A Google engineer, Michael Flaster, was apparently the inspiration for Google’s interest into SolarCity. According to the information provided, Flaster, an active solar power user/SolarCity customer, stands to save $100 a month on his energy bills. Over the life of Flaster’s lease of SolarCity’s equipment, he could save an estimated $16,000, an idea I’m sure most homeowners would get behind.

    As indicated, SolarCity offers an equipment leasing program, of which, Google has more details:

    In SolarCity’s innovative financing model, the company covers installation and maintenance of the system over the life of the lease. You can prepay, or pay nothing upfront after which you make monthly solar lease payments.

    There’s also a promotional video leading this post, highlighting some of the benefits of solar energy. Does anyone think it’s telling that Google invested more in this particular project than the U.S. Government did in updating the country’s aging energy grid?