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Understanding Chinese Energy - Infographic

The information is a bit outdated, 2007, but still interesting nevertheless...

Understanding Chinese Energy 

Infographic

by Charlie Hilton on February 23, 2011

As the world looks to a more energy efficient future, it is economic and population powerhouses such as China that will come under the most intense scrutiny. By carefully examining the Chinese energy policy (in fields such as wind and solar), and conjoining this with surveys on popular opinion, WellHome have managed to compile this interesting infographic.
However, the source of energy use are left largely unexplored yet a brilliant piece on Chinese energy gives us a clearer indication of the forces at play (the PDF is worthy of downloading): 

What’s driving demand: An explanation of the internal dynamics fueling China’s energy needs. Our key point: It’s not air conditioners and automobiles that are driving China’s current energy demand but rather heavy industry, and the mix of what China makes for itself and what it buys abroad. Consumption-led demand is China’s future energy challenge. [Source: China Energy: A Guide for the Perplexed (PDF)]

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Google Invests in World’s Largest Solar Power Tower Plant

  6 hours ago by Jolie O'Dell 8

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Google has just sealed a deal to invest $168 million in a Mojave Desert solar energy plant.
The investment is going to BrightSource Energy, a company that developes and operates large-scale solar power plants, specifically to fund its Ivanpah project.
Ivanpah is a solar electric generating system that uses solar thermal technology and “an environmentally responsible design,” according to the project’s website, to deliver reliable, clean and low-cost power to Californians.
The plant will generate energy with a technology called power towers. Mirrors, called heliostats, are arranged in an array and aim the sun’s rays at a receiver atop a tower. The receiver generates steam; the steam causes a turbine to rotate; the rotation causes a generator to generate electricity. Because such large quantities of solar energy are being directed to such a small area, the power towers are very efficient.
The power tower at Ivanpah will be around 450 feet tall. The plant will use 173,000 heliostats, and each heliostat will have two mirrors, making Ivanpah the largest project of its kind.
Construction at Ivanpah should be completed in 2013. Here’s a video from the plant’s groundbreaking ceremony:
Google’s been on something of a clean energy investment kick over the past year or so. The company was granted the ability to buy and sell energy as a public utility last February, ostensibly to find better ways to power its own massive data centers.
A short time later, Google began making significant investments in green energy technologies. The company sealed a $38 million wind farm investment in May, bought 20 years’ worth of wind farm energy in July, and provided a substantial investment for a huge offshore wind farm in October.
Rick Needham is Google’s Director of Green Business Operations. On the company blog, writes, “We hope that investing in Ivanpah spurs continued development and deployment of this promising technology while encouraging other companies to make similar investments in renewable energy.”

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The greening of Israel

Water-short, energy-challenged and traffic-congested, Israel is a land of environmental experiments

The greening of Israel

Water-short, energy-challenged and traffic-congested, Israel is a land of environmental experiments, reports freelance writer CHRISTINE H. O'TOOLE

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Sunday, February 20, 2011

NETANYA, Israel

On the coastal highway to Haifa, the sunlit Mediterranean Sea is mirrored by miles of glittering rooftop solar panels, providing residents with home-cooked hot water. It's common sense to harvest solar radiation here at the latitudes where it's strongest. But can a crowded, drought-prone country, packed with cars and poor in plant life, oil and water, really go green?

Israel has no choice. The constraints posed by climate, geology and rapid growth have forced the country to experiment with untested ideas in environmental sustainability.

From a landfill-turned-city park, to a national network of charging stations for battery-powered sedans, to wetlands reclaimed from agriculture, examples are everywhere. Touring the country through the sandstorms that battered it in December, I saw projects with both grit and promise.

A 60-meter hill of trash along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway -- it looks like a mountain on the board-flat landscape -- grew over Israel's first 50 years to become the rank centerpiece of a noxious eyesore. But the Hiraya garbage dump now is being transformed into Ariel Sharon-Ayalon Park, which will repurpose the 2,000-acre landfill for recreation.

In a city with a heavily used beachfront but no green space, the site, double the size of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, looks like an urban mesa, with cycling paths and public spaces. Fed by trickles of water -- here called rivers -- its cedars, figs and olive trees will act as a 'green lung' to mitigate airborne pollutants along the busy Route 1 corridor through which a half-million commuter cars pass daily.

Israeli traffic, particularly on the northern highways, is an intractable 24-7 snarl. Despite rail service connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with Ben Gurion Airport, intra-city mass transit options are limited. In Tel Aviv, where a third of the country works, a light rail/subway plan has been stalled for years, and a promised city bike-share program has yet to debut.

Meanwhile, gasoline costs nearly $7 per gallon in a nation completely dependent on foreign oil. That prompted young entrepreneur Shai Agassi to ask: 'How do you run an entire country without oil, with no new science, in a time frame that's fast enough to get off oil before we run out of planet?'

Israel’s clean-tech megaproject

Photo by: AP Israel’s clean-tech megaproject By AMIRAM BARKAT 12/02/2011 Bid to become a leader in renewable-energy technologies aims to help wean world off oil.

‘The global interest in Israel’s energy R&D and technology is out of all proportion to the size of the country,” says Dr. Eli Opper, a former chief scientist who is now the chairman of the Eureka High Level Group. Israel holds the chairmanship of Eureka, the European R&D program, of which more than 40 countries are members. According to Opper, Israel’s technological achievements were an important consideration in the award of the chairmanship. “The world looks for two things in Israel: R&D and technology,” he says. “Our manufacturing and marketing capabilities are of far less interest to it.” Opper says Israel has an impressive record in developing breakthrough energy technologies. “Israel was a world pioneer in developing water-desalination and solar-energy technologies,” he says. “Unfortunately, in Spain and California there are solar installations that operate using Israeli technologies, but in Israel itself we have missed the opportunity to implement them, among other things, for political reasons. “Another reason is the small size of the Israeli market. On this point, Israel has a great deal to gain from cooperation with the large European market. Moreover, Israelis have a lot to learn from the Europeans when it comes to environmental protection. This is an area in which Israel considerably lags behind European countries. Up to now, Israelis have preferred to deal with more urgent issues on the agenda.” This highlights the importance of the conference organized by the European Friends of Israel in Jerusalem last week, in collaboration with Globes. The conference was attended by about 500 of the European Parliament’s 736 members. Over the course of the conference, the European parliamentarians visited Israel’s leading industrial plants. This is no small thing, given that they represent a market of 375 million consumers who could help promote Israeli technology. OPPER defines clean-tech as comprising three sub-fields: water, environment and renewable energy. One of the most interesting Israel developments, he says, is in water. “The hot topic in water technologies these days is prevention of leaks from water pipes,” he says. “There are some very interesting Israeli developments in this area that could be especially relevant to large European cities with antiquated water infrastructure. In cities like London and Paris, the rate of water loss can be counted in tens of percents. “The Israeli technology is twostage: The first stage is locating the leak, using sophisticated control systems; the second is blocking the leak, by introducing special, nontoxic materials.” A few years ago, one of the technology incubators operating in Israel, Kinrot, decided to become a dedicated water-technologies incubator. Another incubator, L.N. Innovative Technologies, based near Haifa, has declared itself an “environmental incubator.” More clean-tech technologies are at various stages of development in more than 26 incubators that operate in Israel under the aegis of the Chief Scientist’s Office in the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry. Opper, who was chief scientist from 2002 to 2010, says there are eight to 10 companies that have been in the incubators for an average of two years, and altogether, the state supports about 200 startup companies. Opper says the past three years have seen substantial change in the scope of activity and investment in clean-tech R&D in Israel. “Energy has expanded in recent years because the market understood that money could be made from it,” he says. “The figures are dramatic and indicate a very clear trend: Investment in clean-tech is growing steadily from year to year.” In 2007, applications received in the Chief Scientist’s Office for research projects in clean-tech were worth a total of NIS 150 million. By 2010, the amount had jumped to NIS 380m., representing a rise of more than 250 percent in three years. The amount of grants and the number of applications approved have grown by similar rates. At the same time, it must be remembered that cleantech still accounts for only a small proportion of the total of R&D projects approved by the Chief Scientist’s Office, which are worth about NIS 5 billion annually.