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Imagine plugging in to your brick house. Red bricks — some of the world’s cheapest and most familiar building materials — can be converted into energy storage units that can be charged to hold electricity, like a battery, according to new research from Washington University in St... View full entry
Last week the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced its investment of $74 million "for 63 projects to research, develop, and test energy-efficient and flexible building technologies, systems, and construction practices to improve the energy performance of our Nation's buildings and electric... View full entry
After years of playing third fiddle to solar and wind power, geothermal energy is poised to start growing again in California. [...]
The new plants will be the first geothermal facilities built in California in nearly a decade — potentially marking a long-awaited turning point for a technology that could play a critical role in the state’s transition to cleaner energy sources.
— Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times on California's efforts to increase, potentially double, the share geothermal energy contributes to the state's electricity mix by adding new plants. Traditionally, the much higher upfront cost of geothermal plants (compared to solar or wind farms of comparable capacity)... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Architecture at Zero*Competition Update: Registration and Submission deadline is May 20, 2020 at 6pm PST The American Institute of Architects, California (AIACA) announces the launch of the ninth annual Architecture at Zero competition for zero net energy (ZNE)... View full entry
Denmark is developing plans to build “energy islands” – areas of reclaimed land that would host vast wind farms able to generate up to 10GW of electricity, 8.8GW more than the largest offshore wind farm now in existence.
The cost of the project or projects has been put at between $20bn and $45bn, most of which is expected to come from the private sector, with the government funding research and development.
— Global Construction Review
With 41% of its national energy mix already generated by wind turbines, Denmark leads the field in Europe in terms of percentage. A recently passed National Climate Act signals further commitment to set bold and legally binding emission reduction goals. View full entry
A Vinci-led consortium [...] completed civil engineering works on the high-spec building that will house the world’s largest fusion machine, called a “tokamak”, which scientists hope will start replicating the sun’s energy by the middle of the next decade. [...]
The 73-metre-high, 120-metre-wide structure required highly specific concretes. Teams developed about 10 formulations to shield staff and the environment from fusion-generated radiation.
— Global Construction Review
Building a tokamak machine to exploit fusion energy similar to our sun is no simple engineering feat: the building will house reactions that happen at extremely high temperatures, around 150 million degrees Celsius, fusing hydrogen nuclei when they reach the plasma state, thus releasing... View full entry
U.S. investors are beginning to smell an opportunity in the waste-to-energy market, where livestock dung and food garbage is traded. Interest is being fueled by new state laws and by demand from companies such as UPS Inc.
After a lull in investor interest stretching back a decade, attention to “anaerobic digestion” waste-to-energy is surging in the United States, developers in the sector have said.
— The Los Angeles Times
The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change. If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world. — The Guardian
Singapore is already considered to be one of the "greenest cities" in Asia and perhaps soon the world. With plans to have at least 80% of its buildings green by 2030, steps to make this goal a reality are well underway. Although obstacles like lack of cooperation from developers and investment... View full entry
Nearly 300 coal-fired power plants have been "retired" since 2010, according to the Sierra Club. It's a trend that continues despite President Trump's support for coal. That has left many communities worried that those now-idled places will simply be mothballed. — NPR
In an NPR segment, which aired in May, Jeff Brady discusses the Department of Community and Economic Development's plans to reuse and redevelop retired coal plants. Plans of action are listed in a "playbook" that outlines the attributes of listed coal plants and the pros and cons of each site... View full entry
This post is brought to you by The Land Art Generator Initiative What does the future of renewable energy look like? As the world comes together over the next decade to meet the challenge of global climate change, solar, wind, and other renewable energy installations will be distributed across... View full entry
The dream of nuclear fusion is on the brink of being realised, according to a major new US initiative that says it will put fusion power on the grid within 15 years.
The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source.
— The Guardian
Potentially an inexhaustible and carbon-free source of energy, the dream of making fusion power commercially viable appears to be getting a lot closer, according to a new announcement from researchers at MIT this morning. "Fusion is the true energy source of the future, as it is completely... View full entry
Britain’s homes could be lit and powered by windfarms surrounding an artificial island deep out in the North Sea, under advanced plans by a Dutch energy network.
The radical proposal envisages an island being built to act as a hub for vast offshore windfarms that would eclipse today’s facilities in scale. Dogger Bank, 125km (78 miles) off the East Yorkshire coast, has been identified as a potentially windy and shallow site.
— The Guardian
Plans by TenneT, the Dutch power grid, aim to build a power hub potentially at Dogger Bank, a site in the North Sea, at a scale that far surpasses current offshore sites. A long-distance cable would send energy to the UK and Netherlands, with other countries possibly added later. Early studies... View full entry
Permissive building codes, industry inertia, and market demands — like clients clamoring for floor-to-ceiling views — have widened the discrepancy between the kind of buildings cities say they want and what they actually allow. So while the industry inches towards better environmental performance, buildings in Boston and other cities still fall short of the sustainability goals that everyone claims to embrace. — The Boston Globe
Courtney Humphries of Boston Globe argues that the current trend for extensive use of glass in buildings contradicts today's strive for sustainability and "green building." When New York started tracking energy use by skyscrapers, the gleaming 7 World Trade Center — one of that city’s more... View full entry
Google parent Alphabet is spinning off a little-known unit working on geothermal power called Dandelion, which will begin offering residential energy services. [...]
Dandelion chief executive Kathy Hannun said her team had been working for several years "to make it easier and more affordable to heat and cool homes with the clean, free, abundant, and renewable energy source right under our feet," and that the efforts culminated with the creation of an independent company outside of Alphabet.
— phys.org
"In the U.S., buildings account for 39% of all carbon emissions, mostly from the combustion of fossil fuels for heating and cooling," Dandelion CEO Kathy Hannun explains on the company's blog. "In the Northeast, heating and cooling is particularly carbon-intensive due to the relatively high use of... View full entry
The days of having to purchase astonishingly expensive replacement charging plugs accidentally left behind on trips, or for that matter of lugging around charging plugs in general, may be over. At this year's CES in Las Vegas, licensing company Ossia is unveiling a drop ceiling tile that purports... View full entry
