Nexamp launches fellowship program to bring renewable jobs to underserved Chicagoans https://solarpowerworldonline.com/2024/04/nexamp-launches-fellowship-program-renewable-jobs-underserved-chicagoans/ @Nexamp
BMW enters new era after forming partnership with cutting-edge battery tech company: 'It's a clear sign of the transition'
"The aim of the collaboration is to co-develop and co-produce innovative solutions in the field of high-voltage battery technology for selected battery-electric vehicles."
Danish utility @Orsted has inaugurated the Greater Changhua 1 and 2a projects in Taiwan, Asia-Pacific's largest offshore wind farms #windpower #offshorewind https://windpowermonthly.com/article/187039
Since the start of the year, there have been 75 half-hour stretches when fossil fuels met less than 5 percent of demand. The grid operator for Great Britain said it is close to reaching its goal of supplying zero-carbon power for short periods by 2025, a milestone on its way to
Elsewhere
EPA Announces Rules to Reduce Pollution from Power Plants
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a suite of final rules to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants for existing coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants control 90 percent of their carbon pollution.
- A final rule for existing coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants that would ensure that all coal-fired plants that plan to run in the long-term and all new baseload gas-fired plants control 90 percent of their carbon pollution.
- A final rule strengthening and updating the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for coal-fired power plants, tightening the emissions standard for toxic metals by 67 percent and finalizing a 70 percent reduction in the emissions standard for mercury from existing lignite-fired sources.
- A final rule to reduce pollutants discharged through wastewater from coal-fired power plants by more than 660 million pounds per year, ensuring cleaner water for affected communities, including communities with environmental justice concerns that are disproportionately impacted.
- A final rule that will require the safe management of coal ash that is placed in areas that were unregulated at the federal level until now, including at previously used disposal areas that may leak and contaminate groundwater.
This suite of standards will deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in net benefits providing health protections for all communities, including communities with environmental justice concerns.
Good News Network: Researchers create nanogenerator that can turn greenhouse gasses into electricity
University of Queensland scientists had a remarkable eureka moment when they accidentally turned the most common greenhouse gas into electricity.
By using positive and negative ions of different sizes, the team created electricity from CO2, and now believes that their ‘nanogenerators’ could help improve the reputation of the simple molecule.
Now thoroughly demonized, it pays to remember that carbon dioxide contains two oxygen molecules and one carbon molecule, which rank among the most fundamental building blocks of the universe and are used in human society for thousands of processes and purposes.
My comment:
The popular article referenced describes this in perpetual-motion machine terms. Here is the actual paper, which describes it in terms of real chemistry and physics.
Electricity generation from carbon dioxide adsorption by spatially nanoconfined ion separation
adsorption
Adsorption is the adhesion[1] of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface.[2] This process creates a film of the adsorbate on the surface of the adsorbent. This process differs from absorption, in which a fluid (the absorbate) is dissolved by or permeates a liquid or solid (the absorbent).
The CO2-surface interface in some CO2 capture systems has energy that can be harvested in the research system.
Deutsche Welle: Hydropower: Can it hold up against climate change?
27, 2024
Recent droughts in Colombia and Ecuador have severely hampered energy supplied by hydropower. Can the cheap, low-carbon renewable still thrive in an increasingly hot and dry world?
Waging Nonviolence: Climate activists in New England can finally celebrate the end of coal
On March 27, Granite Shore Power, or GSP, announced that it will “voluntarily” stop burning coal at its Merrimack and Schiller Stations in New Hampshire by 2028. Major news outlets have been hailing the news as the “end of coal in New England” and casting GSP as a leader in the transition to clean, renewable energy.
Insofar as media have acknowledged the role of outside pressure on GSP at all, they have mainly cited a lawsuit by the Sierra Club and Conservation Law Foundation for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act. But activists know better: Nonviolent direct action gets the goods.
Those of us who have participated in the No Coal No Gas campaign, or NCNG, have been anticipating Merrimack Station’s closure for some time. (Schiller Station has not run since May 2020.) In fact, in June 2023, we threw a festive retirement party outside Merrimack Station’s gates, complete with cake and surveillance by the New Hampshire Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Then, just three weeks before GSP’s own press release, we held a weekend retreat to reflect on everything our campaign has accomplished, plan for the future and strategize when, how and whether to declare victory.
From Daily Kos