The Orlando Utilities Commission has allocated $420 million to solar investments.

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During an event this week, the 2030 “Solar Pledge” was signed by Orange County Government, City of St. Cloud, Orlando City Soccer Club, Orlando Pride, UCF Downtown Campus and Correct Craft.
The pledge asks participants to invest at least 10% solar energy upon signing and requires 100% solar energy for all business facilities by 2030.
“What a great milestone (this is) for Central Florida and OUC,” OUC CEO Clint Bullock said.
The 2030 Solar Pledge came after the City of Orlando first joined OUC with a solar commitment in 2018.
“Solar energy is good for the economy. It’s a green job creator. It’s good for public health and it helps address climate change,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. “In total, we have 52 facilities that are powered by solar energy.”
According to Bullock, OUC has allocated $420 million to solar investments and committed $90 million to energy storage. He said the utility company will continue to encourage other businesses to commit to the solar pledge and encourage consumers to seek out alternative energy solutions.
“We know we will grow this program even further as we go out in the community and ask others to step up,” he said. “Ask others to join us as we invest solar in this community.”


Source: Mark Lehman, News6team, WKMGImage credit: News6team

Iceland (CNN) The windswept valleys surrounding the Hengill volcano in southwestern Iceland are dotted with hot springs and steam vents. Hikers from all over the world come here to witness its breath-taking scenery. Even the sheep are photogenic in the soft Nordic light.

Right in the middle of all that natural beauty sits a towering metal structure resembling four giant Lego bricks, with two rows of six whirring fans running across each one. It’s a contraption that looks truly futuristic, like something straight out of a sci-fi film.

Humans have emitted so much carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere that machines like this are being used to literally suck the gas back out, like giant vacuum cleaners, in an attempt to slow the climate crisis and prevent some of its most devastating consequences.

The Orca plant — its name derived from the Icelandic word for energy — is what is known as a “direct air carbon capture facility,” and its creators and operators, Swiss firm Climeworks and Icelandic company Carbfix, say it’s the world’s largest.

The aim of Orca is to help the world reach net zero emissions — where we remove as much greenhouse gas from the atmosphere as we emit. Scientists say that simply cutting back on our use of fossil fuels won’t be enough to avert catastrophe; we need to also clean up some of the mess we’ve been making for hundreds of years. Orca is a depressing symbol of just how bad things have become, but equally, it could be the tech that helps humanity claw its way out of the crisis.

“We, as humans, have disturbed the balance of the natural carbon cycle. So it’s our job to restore the balance,” said Edda Aradóttir, a chemical engineer and the CEO of Carbfix. “We are assisting the natural carbon cycle to find its previous balance, so for me, at least, this makes total sense — but we have to use it wisely,” she said.

It opened last month and currently removes about 10 metric tons of CO2 every day, which is roughly the the same amount of carbon emitted by 800 cars a day in the US. It’s also about the same amount of carbon 500 trees could soak up in a year.

It’s a fine start, but in the grand scheme of things, its impact so far is miniscule. Humans emit around 35 billion tons of greenhouse gas a year through the cars we drive and flights we take, the power we use to heat our homes and the food — in particular the meat — that we eat, among other activities.

All this CO2 accumulates in the in the air, where it acts like the glass of a greenhouse, trapping more heat in the atmosphere than Earth has evolved to tolerate. That’s where the technology used for Orca, called carbon capture and storage (CCS), comes in.

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“Carbon capture and storage is not going to be the solution to climate change,” Sandra Ósk Snæbjörnsdóttir, a Carbfix geologist, told CNN.

“But it is a solution. And it’s one of the many solutions that we need to implement to be able to achieve this big goal that we have to reach.” She added: “First and foremost, we have to stop emitting CO2 and we have to stop burning fossil fuels, the main source of CO2 emissions to our atmosphere.”

How the ‘magic’ happens:

The Orca machines use chemical filters to capture the heat-trapping gas. The “fans,” or metal collectors, suck in the surrounding air and filter out the CO2 so it can be stored.

Carbon dioxide’s concentration in Earth’s atmosphere has likely not been this high at any other point in the last 3 million years, according to NASA scientists. But at levels over 410 parts per million, to actually capture a meaningful amount of CO2, a huge amount of air needs to pass through these machines.

“What is happening is that CO2 in the air is an acid molecule and inside the collectors we have alkaline. Acids and alkaline neutralize each other,” Climeworks co-CEO Christoph Gebald told CNN. “That’s the magic that happens.”

In two to four hours, the surface of the filter is almost completely saturated with CO2 molecules — as if there are “no parking slots left,” as Gebald puts it. “Then we stop the airflow and we heat the internal structure to roughly 100 degrees Celsius, and at that temperature, the CO2 molecules are released again from the surface, they jump off back to the gas phase and we suck it out.”

Because of the high temperature that is needed for the process, the Orca plant requires a lot of energy. That’s a problem that’s easily solved in Iceland, where green geothermal power is abundant. But it could become a challenge to scale globally.

The machines at Orca are just one way to remove CO2 from the air. Other methods involve capturing the gas at source — like the chimney of a cement factory — or removing it from the fuel before combustion. That involves exposing the fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to oxygen or steam under high temperature and pressure to convert it into a mixture of hydrogen and CO2. The hydrogen is then separated and can be burned with much lower carbon emissions. However, methane emissions could be a problem when the process is used on natural gas.

The carbon that comes out of CCS can be used for other purposes, for example to make objects out of plastic instead of using oil, or in the food industry, which uses CO2 to put the fizz in drinks. But the amount that needs to be captured vastly exceeds the world’s demand for CO2 in other places, which means the majority of it will need to be “stored.”

At Orca, this happens just a few hundred meters away from its vacuum in several igloo-like structures where the gas is mixed with water and injected around 800 meters underground. There, the CO2 reacts with sponge-like volcanic rocks and mineralizes, while the water flows away.

Emissions crisis:

The latest state-of-the-science report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed that the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half over the next decade and achieve net zero by 2050 to have any chance of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The higher temperatures rise beyond 1.5 degrees, the more the world will experience an increase in extreme weather events — both in strength and frequency — like droughts, hurricanes, floods and heatwaves.

Atmospheric concentrations of CO₂

The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere has fluctuated over time, but human activity since the Industrial Revolution has pushed levels to unprecedented highs.

CCS technology sounds like the perfect solution, but it remains highly controversial, and not just because of the amount of energy it needs. Its critics say the world should be aiming for zero emissions, not net zero.

But scientific consensus is pretty clear: some level of carbon capture will soon become necessary. The IPCC estimated that even if emissions decline dramatically, to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees will require the removal of between 10 billion and 20 billion tonnes of CO2 every year until 2100.

“I don’t think carbon capture is a silver bullet, because there is no silver bullet,” said Nadine Mustafa, a researcher that specializes in carbon capture at the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and is not involved with Orca.

“It’s not that we are going to fix everything by using renewables, or that we’re going to use carbon capture and storage and we’re going to fix everything with that. We’re going to need everything, especially because we’re already behind on our goals.”

The oil and gas link:

Opponents of CCS argue the technology is simply another way for the fossil fuel industry to delay its inevitable demise.

While they are not involved in the Orca plant, fossil fuel giants dominate the sector. According to a database complied by the Global CCS Institute, a pro-CCS think tank, an overwhelming majority of the world’s 89 CCS projects that are currently in operation, being built or in advanced stages of development are operated by oil, gas and coal companies.

Oil companies have had and used the technology to capture carbon for decades, but they haven’t exactly done it to reduce emissions — ironically, their motivation has been to extract even more oil. That’s because the CO2 they remove can be re-injected into oil fields that are nearly depleted, and help squeeze out 30-60% more oil than with normal methods. The process is known as “enhanced oil recovery” and it is one of the main reasons why CCS remains controversial.

Fossil fuel companies are also investing in the newer carbon capture tech that removes CO2 from the air — like Orca’s machines do — so they can argue they are “offsetting” the emissions that they can’t capture in their usual processes. It’s one way to delay fossil fuels’ inevitable demise as the world transitions to renewable energy sources.

There is another way to look at it.

Fossil fuel companies have the big bucks to invest in this expensive tech, and considering fossil fuels are by far the main driver of climate change, it can be argued that they have a responsibility to foot the bill for what could be the biggest environmental disaster clean-up in human history.

The global fossil fuel industry is worth trillions of dollars. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, publicly listed fossil fuel companies raked in $250 billion in profits, according to data compiled for CNN by Refinitiv. That figure doesn’t include Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, which was not publicly listed until December 2019. On its own, the company made $88 billion that year.

“This is a group who could transition to providing this service to society at large,” said Graeme Sweeney, chairman of the Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP), which is one of the more powerful advocates for CCS in Europe. The group acts as an advisor to the European Commission, from which it also receives part of its funding, and comprises research groups, the European Trade Union Confederation, as well as many of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Shell, Total, Equinor, ExxonMobil and BP. The way Sweeney sees it, providing this tech could even be a chance for the fossil fuel industry to begin to atone for the climate crisis.

“It would be, in a sense, odd, if that was not the contribution that they made,” said Sweeney, who previously worked for Shell for three decades.

Asked whether CCS should be used to allow more fossil fuel production in the future — something climate activists worry about — Sweeney said: “If we regulate this appropriately, then it will produce an outcome which is compatible with net zero in 2050 … what’s the problem?”

One remaining risk in this technology is the impact that storing the carbon may have on the Earth, or at least its immediate environment. In its special report on carbon capture and storage, the IPCC said that by far the biggest risk comes from potential leaks. A sudden and large release of CO2 would be extremely dangerous. In the air, a CO2 concentration of around 10% is deadly, but even much lower levels can cause health issues.

It’s a massive risk to take.

But the idea of using deep sea storage is not new and it has been used for some time. At Sleipner, a gas field in Norway, CO2 has been injected underground since 1996. The site has been monitored closely, and apart from some issues during the first year, it has not shown any problems in its 25 years running.

Snæbjörnsdóttir, who heads the CO2 mineral storage at Carbfix for Orca, said the mineralization process they use in Iceland eliminates the risk of leaks. And the basalt — which is volcanic rock — around the plant makes for an ideal geological storage.

“These rocks are very permeable, so they are kind of like a sponge, and you have a lot of fractures for the CO2-charged fluid to flow through, so it mineralizes quite rapidly,” Snæbjörnsdóttir said.

Standing next to the injection site, Snæbjörnsdóttir grabbed a piece of crystallized calcium carbonate, known here as the Icelandic spar, and held it against the sunlight. “This is nature’s way of turning CO2 into stone, in its most beautiful way,” she said as tiny reflections of light from the rock danced on the walls around her.

“Once you have mineralized the CO2, it stays there forever.”

Source: Ivana Kottasová, CNN

Image credit: Temujin Doran, CNN

As those costs decrease, adoption becomes more common. 

In the first few months of his administration, one of President Joe Biden’s top policy priorities has been addressing the threat of climate change—while also improving infrastructure and creating jobs to generate economic growth. 
Biden has stated a goal of reaching 100% pollution-free electricity by 2035, which means dramatically scaling up renewable energy production in the U.S. To that end, Biden’s proposed American Jobs Plan would include investments in clean energy.One of the potential beneficiaries of this focus is the Solar Power Industry, which is seeing rapid growth as the costs associated with solar decline. 

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For many years, solar power was too expensive to be adopted at scale as a major source of energy production, but this has changed in recent years. One of the biggest reasons for the decline in costs has been technological innovation. Solar technology has become more reliable and more efficient over time, which lowers the cost of generating energy. As those costs decrease, adoption becomes more common, which allows solar cell manufacturers to achieve economies of scale and lower prices even further. 

Government support has also been a major factor:billions in federal investment for renewablesduring the Great Recession helped spur the technological advances seen in the last decade, and the federal government—along with many states and localities—has long offered incentives to subsidize household solar adoption. These factors reached an inflection point in the mid-2000s, and solar production in the U.S. has been growing exponentially ever since. 

In 2006, solar generated around 507,000 megawatt hours of energy and represented .01% of U.S. energy generated by the electric power industry. By 2019, solar thermal and photovoltaic accounted for 71,936,822 megawatt hours—around 140 times more than in 2006. 
Source: Muscatine Journal, Lattice Publishing 
Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo 

Built by the Israeli company Doral Energy in Indiana, the Mammoth Solar project will produce 1.3 gigawatts of clean, solar energy.

The construction of Mammoth Solar, an Israeli solar energy project that will become the largest solar field in the United States, has begun following its groundbreaking, attended by Israel’s Ambassador to the US and the UN Gilad Erdan.

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Built by the Israeli company Doral Energy in Indiana, the Mammoth Solar project will produce 1.3 gigawatts of clean, solar energy.

“The Mammoth Solar project is a milestone in the Israel-US relationship,” said Erdan in the groundbreaking of the project.

“This project is a shining example of the tremendous mutual benefits of our cooperation, not only for the people of Israel and the United States but for the entire world.”

“Mammoth Solar will create hundreds of jobs, and produce enough clean energy to power over one hundred and seventy thousand households annually,” the ambassador added.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, the Consul General of Israel to the Midwest Yinam Cohen and co-founders of Doral Energy Nick Cohen and Dori Davidovitz were also in attendance.

In addition to Israel’s 121 megawatt Ashalim Power Station in the Negev, which spans approximately 390 hectares, plans for a 300-megawatt solar farm were announced.

Source: THE JERUSALEM POST

Image credit: The groundbreaking of the Mammoth Solar project in Indiana (credit:MOSHE SHAI/FLASH90)

The mill in Canneto sull’Oglio is again generating green energy, over a century after Hermann Einstein made the village one of the first in its region with electric streetlamps.

Over a century ago, Hermann Einstein, father of the famous Nobel laureate physicist Albert Einstein, installed a hydraulic turbine and generator in the San Giuseppe mill in Canneto sull’Oglio, a small town in the northern Italian province of Mantua. The enhancement brought light to the village’s public streets for the first time.

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Last month, after a yearlong renovation, the old mill, on Molino Street alongside the banks of the Naviglio canal, reopened in all of its former glory. Now, the facility, which dates back to 1898, will once again provide energy to the town by making use of a small drop in elevation on Molino Street where the water flows down into the bed of the Oglio River.

“It was originally the idea of Hermann Einstein — Albert’s father — at the end of the 19th century to exploit the drop in the river,” said Paolo Magri, technical director of Garda Chiese, a consortium that protects waterways, deals with wastewater, and helps expand and maintain irrigation water networks. It was under Garda Chiese’s auspices that the restoration of the mill was performed.

“We invested 460,000 euros [roughly $531,000] to build a hydroelectric plant by installing a hydraulic auger, the screw invented by Archimedes. The great mathematician and inventor had designed the auger to lift liquids, but in this system it harnesses the force of the flowing water to produce a spinning motion — which, thanks to a generator, then produces electricity,” he said.

Hermann Einstein’s turbine had a maximum output of 16 kilowatts; the new system can reach 50. The plant will have an average annual production of 200,000 to 250,000 kilowatt-hours, enough to provide all the electricity needs for some 70 households in the town of nearly 4,400 people.

As part of an initiative to educate young people about the work of Hermann Einstein and keep his memory alive, the Canneto sull’Oglio municipality will build a pedestrian and cycling bridge geared toward local schools that will connect the Einstein mill with the Cartara mill, located a little further downstream.

Canneto sull’Oglio Mayor Nicolò Ficicchia called the project a winning mix of history, technology and environmental activism. “The San Giuseppe Mill is a building that has great historical value, and is now used to produce clean energy,” he said.

Hermann Einstein moved his family from Ulm to Munich at his brother Jakob’s urging in the summer of 1880. There, the brothers established an electrical engineering company, Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, which produced equipment for the then-cutting edge electric street lighting. With Hermann in charge of sales and Jakob acting as technician, the factory grew to employ about 300 workers, though competition from other companies eventually caused the firm to go bankrupt in 1893.

The following year, convinced by an Italian engineer, the brothers moved to Milan and built a factory in the town of Pavia, 25 kilometers (22 miles) south of the city, in record time. However, new financial issues forced this company out of business as well in 1896. Though the Einstein family had lost most of its money, Albert’s father ventured out on his own to establish yet another engineering company, this time in Milan, with the financial backing of some relatives.

Hermann Einstein arrived in Canneto sull’Oglio on February 6, 1898, with the goal of developing an innovative lighting system for the village. After conducting some local research, he presented town authorities with plans, which are still kept in the municipal archive.

“The proposal was submitted to the municipality a few days after Hermann Einstein’s arrival in the village,” said town councilman Gianluca Bottarelli, who oversees cultural affairs. “In September 1898, after complex negotiations, an agreement was reached. The German entrepreneur leased the municipal Madonna and San Giuseppe mills — which used the waters of the Naviglio canal to grind cereals — for a period of 25 years.”

In Canneto sull’Oglio, Hermann Einstein set out to radically modernize the mechanics of the San Giuseppe mill to create a real “electric light workshop” through the installation of a hydraulic turbine and generator, while ensuring that the grain milling continued.

The agreement also covered the construction, through the main streets of the town, of an electrical power grid for public and private use that was capable of powering 300 incandescent lamps. In September 1899 the project was completed and the new electric lights were switched on, making the town one of the first in the province of Mantua to boast street lamps.

Hermann Einstein’s stay in Canneto sull’Oglio was short-lived and, as early as March 1900, he sold the business to his cousin Rudolf while remaining its guarantor.

Even though his situation had improved, Hermann Einstein continued to be frustrated and concerned over finances. The stress had a strong impact, and his health suffered in his final years. On October 10, 1902, Hermann Einstein died of heart failure at the age of 55 in Milan.

Today, electricity is taken for granted, but at the turn of the 20th century it was a precious commodity. In Canneto sull’Oglio the legacy of Hermann Einstein will shine on as residents remember the extraordinary innovation he brought into the daily life of the small local community.

Source: GIOVANNI VIGNA ,The Times Of Israel

Image credits: Courtesy the San Giuseppe mill, The Times Of Israel, Public domain

In July 2020, SWACO (The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio) was proud to announce a partnership to lease the 173-acre property that once served as Franklin County’s sanitary landfill site on Jackson Pike for the purpose of turning it into productive reuse as a solar energy facility.

What was once a closed landfill, now is evolving into a renewable green-energy point of pride for our region – a highly visual symbol of our city’s commitment to sustainability and to providing a cleaner, more sustainable and prosperous future for generations to come.

Upon completion, which is scheduled December 2022, this will be the largest solar array on a closed landfill site in the country, producing enough clean energy to power 5,000 homes.

Through SWACO, the closed landfill ultimately belongs to residents in the region, so it’s been our intent from the beginning to ensure those same local residents and business owners, large and small, benefit from the energy produced on-site. We are thrilled that our vision has become a reality through our partnerships with the city of Columbus.

From Trash To Cash…. Waste Can Turn Into Green Energy!

Source: Ty Marsh, dispatch.com

Image credit: Unsplash

Two of Asia’s largest economies are racing to contain a worsening energy crunch.

China is trying to assuage concerns about skyrocketing prices as its major coal mining hubs grapple with heavy rains and deadly accidents, problems that are compounding efforts to address power shortages.

Some leaders in India, meanwhile, are warning that key regions including the capital, New Delhi, could face a “power crisis” as the cost of electricity rises, even as the central government says the country has enough coal supplies to meet demand.

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Energy demand is soaring worldwide as the global economy reopens. But supply isn’t keeping up.

Heavy rain and deadly accidents stir worry in China

In China, power shortages are the result of a combination of factors, from China’s post-pandemic construction boom, to its national push to reduce carbon emissions that led hundreds of coal mines to shut down or slash production earlier this year.

Restrictions on coal from key supplier Australia and weather woes have exacerbated the issue — and the latter issue has been acute this week, as heavy rains slammed Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, two key mining hubs that account for nearly half of the country’s coal output.

An incident involving a collapsed roof at a coal mine in Shaanxi’s Xianyang city has made matters worse. The incident — which killed four miners and seriously injured four others, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency — happened days after the provincial government warned all mines to boost safety checks. Xinhua said the local government is still investigating the cause of the collapse.

The price of thermal coal, which is primarily used to generate power, has continued to rise. Futures surged 11% Tuesday on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange to a new record of nearly 1,508 yuan ($234) per metric ton. That followed an 8% increase on Monday.

“We expect China’s coal and power supply crunch to persist into the winter,” Citi analysts wrote in a Tuesday research report, adding that the problem would “increase stagflation risks and growth pressures on the Chinese and global economy over the coming winter, [pushing] energy prices higher.”

The “extremely abnormal” weather forced 60 coal mines in Shanxi to shut down at the start of this month, according to an article posted Monday on the Ministry of Emergency Management’s website. Almost all of them have since resumed production, the Shanxi government said Tuesday, though four remain halted.

The National Reform and Development Commission — China’s top economic planner — has tried to calm concerns about the unfolding problem, reiterating Tuesday that the government is going to allow coal-fired power producers to charge more for energy.

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Starting Friday, all industrial and commercial energy users will have to buy electricity at “market-oriented” prices, the agency said. Beijing has already made clear that power prices will be allowed to rise by as much as 20% from current base levels, or benchmark prices set by the government. Right now, the limit is 10%. Residents and the agricultural industry will not be affected, the agency said.

Indian leaders warn of a potential ‘power crisis’

In India, meanwhile, state leaders are warning the central government about the risks of a coal shortage.

Over the weekend, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that the capital “could face a power crisis,” adding that he recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn him of energy shortages.

Kejriwal called on the government to divert supplies of coal and gas to utilities supplying the capital, saying it was “essential to maintain uninterrupted power in Delhi, which is catering to strategic and important installations of national importance.”

The chief minister of southern Andhra Pradesh, Jagan Mohan Reddy, also recently told Modi that the situation was “alarming.”

Coal stocks at most of India’s power plants have dropped to critically low levels.

As many as 61 of the 135 coal-fired power plants in Asia’s third largest economy have two days — or less — of coal supplies, India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) said in a Sunday report. Coal stocks at 16 of them have been run down to zero, it added. But the Indian government has maintained that it has enough supplies to meet demand.

The total fuel stock at coal-powered plants sits at about 7.2 million metric tons, which is sufficient for four days, the Ministry of Coal said in a Sunday statement. The agency added that government-owned mining giant Coal India has stock of more than 40 million metric tons.

“Any fear of disruption in power supply is entirely misplaced,” the ministry said.

Nonetheless, the situation in India “remains precarious,” analysts at ANZ Research wrote Tuesday. While Coal India says its daily supplies have risen, the analysts noted that some provinces are “getting less than half their contracted volumes” and that power shortages in Punjab and Jharkhand states are worsening.

Source:  Laura He and Manveena Suri, CNN Business

Image credit: Harvard Business Review, newsaffinity