Coal is not coming back. Not because of government policies, not because of some evil plot by environmentalists — but because the economics are just not there. Alternative carbon-free energy systems are reaching the point where they are simply more cost-effective. Regardless of all the environmental concerns — the money alone is enough to justify them now. And that was before OPEC started trying to ramp oil prices again. While it may revive the fracking industry, alternative energy sources will get a boost as well.
Solar energy is going big. An energy farm growing in Morocco may someday help power Europe. BBC — Future has the story.
Hundreds of curved mirrors, each as big as a bus, are ranked in rows covering 1,400,000 sq m (15m sq ft) of desert, an area the size of 200 football fields. The massive complex sits on a sun-blasted site at the foot of the High Atlas mountains, 10km (6 miles) from Ouarzazate – a city nicknamed the door to the desert. With around 330 days of sunshine a year, it’s an ideal location.
As well as meeting domestic needs, Morocco hopes one day to export solar energy to Europe. This is a plant that could help define Africa's – and the world’s – energy future.
The technology is still developing — and improving. While weather is still a factor in energy capture, and energy storage is still improving, the project is already making a difference, both in reducing Morocco’s need for fossil fuels, and in other ways.
The country plans to generate 14% of its energy from solar by 2020 and by adding other renewable sources like wind and water into the mix, it is aiming to produce 52% of its own energy by 2030. This puts Morocco more or less in line with countries like the UK, which wants to generate 30% of its electricity from renewables by the end of the decade, and the US, where President Obama set a target of 20% by 2030. (Trump has threatened to dump renewables, but his actions may not have a huge impact. Many policies are controlled by individual states and big companies have already started to switch to cleaner and cheaper alternatives.)
Success breeds success. As projects like this succeed, others will follow. Meanwhile, Geothermal power is getting extreme in Iceland. Again BBC — Future has the story. (It’s a good site to bookmark to keep up with things.)
An attempt to drill a deep well to tap the Earth’s heat ran into a snag — they drilled into a pool of magma. But, they learned a few things:
Iceland is dotted with geothermal power plants, each consisting of multiple wells that tap into the country’s underground heat. But most of these are relatively shallow. To make the most of the abundant natural energy supply, you need to go deep. The extreme temperatures and pressures encountered near the magma chamber would have produced 36 megawatts of electricity, 10 times the amount most existing wells produce. A single deep well could match the output of an entire plant and provide energy to tens of thousands of homes.
Which is why, seven years later, IDDP is trying again – and they are close to completing what could be the hottest borehole ever made. Geothermal power is one of the big untapped clean energy resources in the world. But taming the extreme conditions in deep wells is an enormous challenge. Projects like IDDP – a joint venture between several Icelandic power companies – are pushing geothermal technology into new territory. And where it goes, the rest of the world may well follow.
emphasis added
Granted, geothermal has some constraints. Injecting water deep underground can lead to earthquakes in susceptible areas. (Odds are, if you have an area with really active geothermal zones, you may already be having earthquakes.) Another issue is the availability of hot rock to drill into — it’s not everywhere. But, drilling deep bores may be able to tap usable heat in places where shallower wells wouldn’t work. There’s also the problem that it’s still not possible to predict exactly how effective a well will be before drilling it.
Still, as the technology for deep bores develops, geothermal may be another alternative energy that can get us off fossil fuels — saving money while saving the planet. Now that’s what I call a HUUUUUGGGGE deal.