[amor de cosmos]

Thailand Boosts Solar Target by 50% to 3,000 Megawatts
23 July 2013

July 23 (Bloomberg) — Thailand will build 3,000 megawatts of solar power capacity by 2021, 50 percent more than previously announced, after approving new subsidized rates for rooftop and village-based projects.

The government will work with the Village Fund, a state-run microcredit provider, to develop 800 megawatts of community-owned photovoltaic plants by the end of 2014, the Ministry of Energy said in a July 16 statement.

In addition, 200 megawatts of rooftop installations built by the end of the year will be eligible for the special rates, it said. Half must be built on residential homes.

Thailand follows Europe and Japan in offering feed-in tariffs, or fixed rates above the wholesale price of power, to attract investment into renewable energy. The country, which relies on fossil fuels for 80 percent of its energy consumption, seeks to build 13,927 megawatts of clean-energy capacity by 2021.

http://about.bnef.com/bnef-news/thai...000-megawatts/

Could Photosynthesis Be Our Best Defense Against Climate Change?
Some scientists think that biochar is the key to extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
—By Mark Hertsgaard
| Fri Jul. 19, 2013 12:24 PM PDT

This story first appeared in Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A gigantic, steaming-hot mound of compost is not the first place most people would search for a solution to climate change, but the hour is getting very late. "The world experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes during the 2001-2010 decade," declares a new report from the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization, which added that the decade was "the warmest since the start of modern measurements in 1850." Among those extreme events: the European heat wave of 2003, which in a mere six weeks caused 71,449 excess deaths, according to a study sponsored by the European Union. In the United States alone, 2012 brought the hottest summer on record, the worst drought in 50 years and Hurricane Sandy. Besides the loss of life, climate-related disasters cost the United States some $140 billion in 2012, a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded.

We can expect to see more climate-related catastrophes soon. In May scientists announced that carbon dioxide had reached 400 parts per million in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, humanity is raising the level by about 2 parts per million a year by burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and other activities.

At the moment, climate policy focuses overwhelmingly on the 2 ppm part of the problem while ignoring the 400 ppm part. Thus in his landmark climate speech on June 25, President Obama touted his administration's doubling of fuel efficiency standards for vehicles as a major advance in the fight to preserve a livable planet for our children. In Europe, Germany and Denmark are leaving coal behind in favor of generating electricity with wind and solar. But such mitigation measures aim only to limit new emissions of greenhouse gases.

That is no longer sufficient. The 2 ppm of annual emissions being targeted by conventional mitigation efforts are not what are causing the "unprecedented" number of extreme climate events. The bigger culprit by far are the 400 ppm of carbon dioxide that are already in the atmosphere. As long as those 400 ppm remain in place, the planet will keep warming and unleashing more extreme climate events. Even if we slashed annual emissions to zero overnight, the physical inertia of the climate system would keep global temperatures rising for 30 more years.

We need a new paradigm: If humanity is to avoid a future in which the deadly heat waves, floods, and droughts of recent years become normal, we must lower the existing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. To be sure, reducing additional annual emissions and adapting to climate change must remain vital priorities, but the extraction of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has now become an urgent necessity.

Under this new paradigm, one of the most promising means of extracting atmospheric carbon dioxide is also one of the most common processes on Earth: photosynthesis.

http://www.motherjones.com/environme...climate-change

Over 1 GW And 11,000 Jobs in Australian Solar Industry Over 2012
July 23, 2013 Joshua S Hill

The Australian Photovoltaic Association (APVA) announced last week that 2012 had been a great year for the Australian photovoltaic industry, installing over 1 GW of capacity (nearly half the nation’s current solar panel capacity of 2.6 GW) and employing approximately 11,000 people.

Furthermore, the APVA affirmed that the average price of installing a solar photovoltaic system has dropped to prices even lower than those seen in 2011.

Specifically, 1.038 GW of solar PV capacity was installed in 2012, more than any other year previously, including the 2010 and 2011 boom years. Of this 1.038 GW, 98% was from distributed systems across the grid, accounting for 4.5% of Australia’s total energy generation capacity and 70% of the new capacity installed in 2012.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/07/23/...try-over-2012/

Report: Central American Solar Markets Spurred On by High Electricity Prices
GTM Research publishes a new report on growth in unsubsidized Central American PV markets.
Nicholas Rinaldi: July 23, 2013

On the surface, Central America seems ripe for solar development. All seven countries -- Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, and Guatemala -- enjoy significant solar resources and nearly all are heavily reliant on thermal generation (primarily fuel oil and diesel) and hydroelectric resources, which can prove fickle in warmer months. With limited domestic fossil fuel resources, the cost of generation is typically very expensive in many of these countries.

However, as explored in a new report from GTM Research, differences in electricity market structure, available incentives, and local economies significantly affect whether or not PV is a tenable option for residential, commercial, and utility customers. The report also explores whether it is realistic to expect solar market growth in this region in the near future.

There have been a number of large-scale project announcements to come out of the region recently. Guatemala awarded two large-scale tenders for a total of 55 megawatts, and Costa Rica received a loan of US$30 million from the Chinese government for the construction of a 10-megawatt PV facility. Following a similar trend to other Latin American projects, this first round of large-scale PV development will likely be financed by national development banks and will not reach completion for a few more years. However, there is also opportunity in distributed PV markets in a number of countries.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...ctricity-Price

Bringing color to solar façades
Research News Jul 01, 2013

Until now, designers of buildings have no choice but to use black or bluish-gray colored solar panels. With the help of thin-film technologies, researchers have now been able to turn solar cells into colorful creations.

Covering a roof or a façade with standard solar cells to generate electricity will change a building’s original appearance – and not always for the better. At present only dark solar panels are widely available on the market. “Not enough work has been done so far on combining photovoltaics and design elements to really do the term ‘customized photovoltaics’ justice,” says Kevin Füchsel, project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Jena.

But things are changing. The IOF physicist has been focusing for the last four years on nanostructured solar cells suitable for mass production as part of a junior research group funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Together with a Fraunhofer team and scientists from the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, the group of optics specialists is looking for cost-effective techniques and manufacturing processes to increase both the efficiency of solar panels and the design flexibility they give architects and designers.

http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/re...r-facades.html

Off-grid sterilization with Rice U.’s ‘solar steam’
Solar-powered sterilization technology supported by Gates Foundation

HOUSTON – (July 22, 2013) – Rice University nanotechnology researchers have unveiled a solar-powered sterilization system that could be a boon for more than 2.5 billion people who lack adequate sanitation. The “solar steam” sterilization system uses nanomaterials to convert as much as 80 percent of the energy in sunlight into germ-killing heat.

The technology is described online in a July 8 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition. In the paper, researchers from Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) show two ways that solar steam can be used for sterilization — one setup to clean medical instruments and another to sanitize human waste.

“Sanitation and sterilization are enormous obstacles without reliable electricity,” said Rice photonics pioneer Naomi Halas, the director of LANP and lead researcher on the project, with senior co-author and Rice professor Peter Nordlander. “Solar steam’s efficiency at converting sunlight directly into steam opens up new possibilities for off-grid sterilization that simply aren’t available today.”

In a previous study last year, Halas and colleagues showed that “solar steam” was so effective at direct conversion of solar energy into heat that it could even produce steam from ice water.

“It makes steam directly from sunlight,” she said. “That means the steam forms immediately, even before the water boils.”

http://news.rice.edu/2013/07/22/off-...s-solar-steam/

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