Posts by — Alexbenady

Kleidon: send climate science back to the drawing-board

Off-gridders love wind-power because it’s free, infinitely renewable and doesn’t damage the environment.

Right?

Er, wrong on all counts, says a new report by German scientists which challenges virtually all our assumptions about wind-power as a sustainable energy source, and questions wave-power for good measure.

According to the study carried out by the respected Max Planck Institute for Bio-geochemistry in Jena, Germany, wind and wave energies are not infinitely renewable after all. They can be ‘used up’ if there are too many turbines built.

Worse, says the study, the climate effects of using too much wind and wave energy could be comparable to doubling atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. So the environmental costs could be enormous.

The conclusions may sound nonsensical but they are based on the concept of ‘free’ or usable energy, says academic Axel Kleidon who led the research. (more…)

One in 138 million

In the developed world, folks tend to go off-grid for ideological reasons. But in the developing world the main reason people need off-grid electricity is to power their mobile phones, says a new report out this week.
The study by computer firm Cisco found that the explosion in mobile phone use is a prime factor driving tens of millions people in the developing world to set up off grid power, says the study. (more…)

i Pod sized Powertrekk

Time was, the phrase ‘water powered’ meant driven by the force of a river or torrent. Lately, it acquired a new resonance with the launch of a pocket-sized charger that needs just a few drops of the stuff to make it work.

The Powertrekk  from Swedish company myFC was launched at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, with the slogan ‘Instant Power Anywhere’.

On the down side, the Powertrekk only works with devices that use a USB, but it has the potential to make being off-grid easier. The company says it needs just a tablespoon of water to work. (more…)

The Rodriguez and their off-grid chicken coop

Ideology , security, solitude: there are many reasons why people move off-grid. Hitherto “cosmic rays” has not been one of them.

Yet fear of what has been called by NASA ‘a solar Katrina’ is precisely what prompted Larry Rodriguez, 54, and his wife Sandie to flee Florida for a former chicken coop in Pennsboro, West Virginia.

“The bad weather we are having in the world is because of the solar storms now happening because the sun is ramping up,” says Rodriguez. “We are the kind of people that want to be ready for anything and I’m hoping that it isn’t true but all of the signs are in place.”

Grid vulnerable to solar storms

It would be easy to dismiss his concerns as apocalyptic, But the ‘signs’ he refers to are detailed in a series of increasingly urgent statements by NASA, which reveal a very real possibility over the next three years of a solar storm that could knock out the entire power grid, crippling modern society for weeks or even months. (more…)

Sinha: the reds are greener

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Pieter Hoff

Forget geo-engineering and multi-lateral political accords. Could the answer to global warming –not to mention the impending global water and food crises, be found in a device that mimics the effects of bird droppings and is little more complicated than a bucket?

Earlier this year, after seven years and six million Euros in development, Dutch horticulturalist and inventor Pieter Hoff unveiled a gadget he calls the Groasis Waterboxx. It’s an incubator that works without power or irrigation and Hoff reckons it can help save the planet.

“Yes it is a bucket, but an intelligent bucket,” says Hoff. “My ambition is to use it to reforest five billion hectares of poor quality land, reducing levels of carbon in the atmosphere, increasing global food production and rebuilding depleted water tables around the world.” (more…)

Solar peaks can swamp the system

According to the Berliner Zeitung, the head of Germany’s energy agency DENA is warning that there is a real danger that solar power, could crash Gemany’s ageing electricity grid. (more…)

Power to the people

Life without mains power could become a little easier for billions in the developing world with the launch this week of a battery designed specifically for use off-grid.

The ReadySet is an ‘intelligent’ battery from newly formed social venture company Fenix International that can be charged in just a few minutes using a variety of renewable power sources including bicycle generators and solar panels. Fenix claims its ‘plug and go’ design means it can power most  applications  including lighting, communications, medical  and entertainment devices. (more…)

"I said NPower, not Empire!"

One of the UK’s biggest power companies has been caught with its hand in its customers pockets –again, and has been forced by regulators to pay back nearly $100m in refunds.

Electricity giant NPower which was fined nearly £2m last year for mis-selling contracts is to pay 1.8m customers an average of $50 each following a three year row over changes to its pricing structure. The internet is alive with furious customers telling the tales of their own rip-off, like this customer who calls the company  ”the devil’s own vomit.” (more…)