Energy storage commercially viable, 900 MW expected in 2016

20.01.2016

The energy storage market is shifting from R&D demonstration projects to a commercially viable market, states IHS, Inc. Q4 2015 saw a 45% increase in the global project pipeline, while 900 MW of projects are expected to be installed this year. The final quarter of 2015 saw a significant increase in planned global energy storage projects, up 45% on the previous quarter, to reach nearly 400 MW. The overall pipeline of planned battery and flywheel projects now stands at 1.6 GW.

The majority 45% are planned for the U.S., although Japan is expected to comprise around 20%. Several large-scale projects bolstered the Q4 pipeline, says IHS, including LG Chem’s 90 MW contract with Steag to supply six large-scale lithium ion batteries for what will become the largest energy storage system project of its kind, when complete, in 2017; and Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s 75 MW of awarded energy storage contracts under the California Public Utilities Commission’s Energy Storage Decision program, which is targeting 1.32 GW of storage by investor-owned utilities by 2020.

Driving the energy storage uptake are several factors, says IHS, including continued battery cost reductions, government funding programs and utility tenders. It expects to see 900 MW projects come online in 2016, thus leading to a doubling in the global installed base of grid connected capacity.

Source: www.pv-magazine.com

Denmark Breaks Its Own World Record in Wind Energy

19.01.2016

Danish wind turbines set a new world record in 2015. Wind power is now counted for 42.1% of the total electricity consumption in Denmark, according to data published on Friday (15 January).

The percentage of wind power in Denmark’s overall electricity mix is the highest in the world. Last year, the share was 39.1%, which was a record, according to Energinet, which runs the power grids.

Out of the 8760 hours of 2015, the western part of the country produced wind power during 1460 of them, said Energinet’s Carsten Vittrup.

“It’s not unusual that we have hours where the wind production is greater than the actual consumption. But in the western part of the country, it has sometimes been 16% more, and that illustrates that with a volatile electricity production, we are able to import and export across our borders,” Vittrup said in a statement.

The new Danish wind power was exported to Norway, Sweden and Germany, while Denmark bought hydropower from Norway and solar power from Germany.

Power plants that run on coal and bio mass still play an important role as “buffer” in the power supply, Vittrup pointed out, when there’s no production of wind power or solar enegy.

The Danish parliament wants the Scandinavian country to get at least half of its electric power from wind by 2020. According to the forecast, this target looks to be met. By 2030, the country hopes that 90% of the electricity and heating supply will come from renewable energy.

In 2005, wind energy counted for 18.7% of the total electricity consumption. In 2010, the share had increased to 22%, and in 2012, the share was 30%.

In the UK, wind power likewise had a record-breaking year. According to figures from the National Grid, 11% of the UK’s electricity was sourced from wind power in 2015 – up from 9.5% the previous year.

Overall, wind provided enough electricity to meet the demands of more than 8.25 million homes – almost a third of UK households – compared to 6.7 million homes in 2014.

Source: www.euroactiv.com

Belgrade Has Regional Significance and the Duty To Be the Leader

19.01.2016

Secretariat for environmental protection presented the Action plan for adaptation to climate change on 19th November 2015. This is just one of the activities that is in accordance with the ambitions and plans of the conference COP 21 on which new international climate agreement was adopted. We spoke to Mr Goran Trivan, Secretary for environmental protection of Belgrade, about the importance of conference COP 21, and also about specific activities of Belgrade bearing in mind that increased temperatures are already predicted in Southeast Europe.

EP: COP 21 is the most ambitious and biggest conference ever organized, which gathered more than 50,000 participants and over 25,000 official delegates with the ambition to bring acts will be enforced in order to reduce global climate warming for 2 degrees Celsius. How is our country preparing for this conference and why is it important for Serbia and Belgrade as the capital to participate in this event? With which projects is Serbia planning to contribute to the reduction of climate changes?

Goran Trivan: Serbia is a state member of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which obliges it to regularly report on the status of climate change policies’ implementation. Accordingly, Serbia prepares reports for the UNFCCC, which are national reports (of communication) and biennial update reports. We are currently working on the Second National Communication (SNC) and the First Biennial Update Report (BuR) of the Republic of Serbia, which should be adopted by the Government in November 2015, before holding of the Conference COP 21, while the adoption of the Second National Communication is expected at the beginning of 2016.
These reports include climate scenarios, inventory of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), adaptation measures (adaptation) for changed measures climate conditions of key economic sectors, mitigation measures (mitigation), as well as capacity building needs, financial needs and technological needs, and also monitoring system, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emissions. Until the adoption of Strategy for fighting against climate changes (which is the project that should be financed from IPA funds), these reports are at the same time the key strategic documents in this area.
Serbia is currently working on the development of the first law on the reduction of GHG emissions, which should get into procedure by the end of the year.
In addition, we provided a number of publications on the impact of climate changes on agriculture, and National dialogue on the climate in Serbia was held just in the light of forthcoming conference in Paris. All mentioned activities were presented at the Conference COP 21.
As for the city of Belgrade, we have an active and very good cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, which is in charge of taking care of climate change on the state level. The city of Belgrade, which has a greater significance for the region, that has a significance of a region rather than a city, and according to all facts it has the obligation to be the leader in Serbia, recognises the importance of fighting against climate changes, which is why it is seriously engaged in this issue. The Action Plan on Adaptation to Climate Changes with the assessment of vulnerability, which represents a strategic document of the City in this field, was developed in accordance with this commitment.

EP: The Action Plan on Adaptation to Climate Changes of the City of Belgrade was adopted in October last year. Can you tell us what specific goals of the Action plan are and how it is planned to implement measures or their adaptation? Will Belgrade’s experience for the development of this Plan help other cities in Serbia to obtain or improve their plans and is this a step towards the creation of Sustainable cities’ systems?

Goran Trivan: High quality Working Group, consisted of thirty representatives of City Departments, Public Enterprises, Ministries, Medical Institutions responsible for public health, Republic Weather Biro and Non-governmental sector has been working on the Action Plan on Adaptation to Climate Changes with the assessment of vulnerability for more than a year. The Plan was adopted by the City Assembly of Belgrade. Precisely this multisectoral approach enabled the insight into needs for adaptation from the perspective of a large number of interested parties, whereby it was provided a high professional level of documents, to which foreign and domestic consultants contributed greatly. Secretariat for Environmental Protection, as a principal body in preparation of this document, is very proud of the fact that the City of Belgrade was the first in Serbia to adopt such document. We are also proud of the fact that next year we intend to start the implementation of adaptation measures that are envisaged by the Action Plan.
The document was developed within the project “Adaptation to Climate Change in the Western Balkans”, which was simultaneously implemented, in cooperation with German Society for International Cooperation GIZ, in Belgrade, Podgorica and Tirana.
The core of the Action Plan is the list of adaptation measures which need to be undertaken in the following 2, 5 or 10 years in the city of Belgrade. These measures are listed by priority, based on 4 criteria which include effects, urgency and territorial coverage.
The measures of highest priority on the territory of Belgrade are flood protection and construction of green infrastructure. Immediately after these measures are the following: advancement of the warning system, public awareness and information, urban planning due to flood protection, construction of retention basins, drainage, saving and reuse of water, as well as the creation and rehabilitation of green areas and streets.
It is important to note that the Action Plan refers to the entire administrative territory of the city of Belgrade, therefore all 17 municipalities. Having in mind previously expressed interest of the other cities and regions in Serbia for the development of their own Action Plans, it is important to underline that these documents should optimally be developed on regional level, in other words a few municipalities of cities, which are mutually dependant and share the same problems related to flood defense systems, water supply, infrastructure etc., should develop joint Action Plan. This is actually the recommendation of the city of Belgrade to the other units of local government and we are ready to pass on our experience.
Development and also implementation of the adaptation action plans across Serbia would significantly contribute to the development of systems of sustainable cities, and it would also achieve an enviable level of safety of citizens, nature and infrastructure. This naturally, requires significant funds, but the floods in 2014 showed us that the price of eliminating the consequence is much higher.

EP: Are the topics on global warming, energy efficiency and environmental protection sufficiently represented in public discourse, and do you think that the awareness of citizens and also the country is at the appropriate level concerning these topics?

Goran Trivan: These topics, which are mutually inseparable, have been present at great extent for more than 10 years. The need of each local home rule/self-government, public facility or households to reduce energy consumption, and thus the costs and environmental impact is immense. Energetic and transportation are areas in which negative impact on the environment is the highest, particularly on global warming and thus on climate change by releasing gases with greenhouse effects.
It is noticeable that the awareness of decision makers at the state and local level, as well as the awareness of citizens, has been changing in the direction of better understanding of the need for energy efficiency and environmental protection. Even though the considerable number of projects from this area has been implemented in Serbia, with the previous adaptation of certain legislations, it seems that it still hasn’t been done as much as it could have. The reasons for this partial success are lack of investment funds, the absence of a sufficient number of quality projects, absence of conventional technologies usage by public enterprises, poor standard and partial awareness of the citizens, etc.
Secretariat for Environmental Protection, as the competent body for taking care of environmental quality in Belgrade, has to reduce the negative impact of energetic and transportation and to reduce it to the lowest possible level. This is the reason why every year we implement the program of shutting down the boiler rooms in which the exceeding number of harmful emissions was recorded. So far under this Program 9 schools and 1 kindergarten have been connected to the district heating for the last three years.
In addition the Secretariat has just conducted a public call for funding the construction works on energy repairs of facilities of public enterprises and facilities for physical health. The construction works will be performed on 4 city facilities in 2016 based on the public call.
When it comes to traffic, the funds for the purchase of 5 electrical buses which do not emit carbon dioxide have been provided. This suggests the possible future direction of the development of Belgrade’s public transport.

Interview led by Vesna Vukajlović and Svetlana Jovanović

Can Germany reach its renewables target for the energy sector for 2020?

19.01.2016

In 2015, German energy consumption rose by 1.3 percent according to preliminary figures published just before Christmas by the AGEB, an independent group of economists and the sector experts (press release). The organization attributes this increase to three main factors: slightly colder weather, which increased demand for heat; 1.8 percent economic growth; and more than one percent population growth (more than 1 million refugees came to Germany last year).

Adjusted for the weather affect alone, energy consumption was down by 1.5-2.0 percent. Consumption of natural gas was up by 0.6 percentage points primarily because of greater demand for heat (its share fell in the power sector). Likewise, the share of nuclear fell by the same amount because a nuclear reactor was switched off. Otherwise, coal consumption remained practically unchanged, as did petroleum demand. But the share of renewables increased by 1.1 percentage points to reach 12.6 percent.

Germany has another five years to reach 18 percent renewable energy by 2020. From 2011-2015, the increase was a very modest 1.8 percentage points. Adding on that amount for the five remaining years up to 2020 only brings us to 14.4 percent, far short of the target. But there’s a problem with this calculation – it’s based on primary energy, whereas the EU targets for renewable energy are based on final energy. (Primary energy is a lump of coal or a tank of gas; final energy is the electricity from that coal or the motive energy from that gasoline.) When we adjust for this difference, we find a much different outcome. In terms of final energy, the share of renewables grew from 11.9 percent in 2011 to 15.3 percent in 2015, an increase of 3.4 percentage points over five years.

At that rate, Germany would overshoot its 2020 target to reach 18.7 percent renewables. However, no official estimate has yet been produced for final energy. The calculation is abstract; we know how much electricity was generated, but the calculation of final energy for all the heating systems around the country and for motor fuel used in the country’s more than 40 million vehicles is based on certain assumptions (such as the average efficiency of heating systems and vehicle gas mileage). It will be some time before that number is published, but as long as it does not drop below 15.0 percent, Germany will remain roughly on target for 2020. Still, some caveats remain.

The progress in 2015 – an increase of possibly 1.8 percentage points – would be the largest in history if our calculation proves accurate. (To produce our estimate, we merely took the ratio of final to primary energy from 2012-2014, in which no nuclear plants were shut down – any such change would affect the ratio, which we found to be fairly close to 2:3 for those years). It is not completely unprecedented, however. In 2007, the share rose by 1.6 percentage points, mainly because bioenergy grew strongly that year; in addition to growth in the power and heat sectors, biofuels were at at 47 TWh that year (they have since fallen to around 35 TWh).

The growth in 2015 clearly came from wind power in the power sector, and that is the only renewable energy source that will continue to grow by 2020. Solar now fails to reach the annual growth target, and the government has also slammed the brakes on bioenergy. The good news is that, thanks to a bumper year in 2015, the 2020 final energy target has moved back into reach. And with five years left, the country still has time to tweak policies so that the target is reached. More electric mobility would provide space for renewable power to grow in the transport sector, and electricity could be used as a heat source when renewables push conventional power plants down to low production levels. Unfortunately, not much is happening with either option. It will be a close race.

Source: www.energytransition.de

Turkish Solar Update

19.01.2016

Turkey’s energy regulator granted its first ever solar license in late 2015. It is a 49-year generation license granted to Turkish developer Solentegre Enerji Yatirimlari, for an 8 MW facility to be installed in the eastern province of Elazig.Turkish regulators held tenders for solar capacity in various regions of the country in 2014. and 2015. Where multiple applications were received for the same substation, a bidding process determined the winner. For the Elazig project the developer bid TL 827,000 (present equivalent of US$280,000) per MW for the license. The market generally believed the bid was very high, but it was not far off from other bids submitted in other regions of the country. Overall, interest in the tenders was very high, with a total of 9 GW of solar projects being proposed for the 600 MW of tendered capacity. The 600 MW capacities is actually a national cap, and total licensed solar production cannot exceed that capacity.

However, Turkish policy makers have set a target of 5 GW of solar capacity by 2023. This begs the question of when the 600 MW cap will be increased (or lifted), and when the next round of license tenders will take place. Some market players say the cap will be increased when the transmission system is ready. Others claim that Turkey has no grid concerns and that new tenders will follow in due course. After winning a tender for capacity, developers need to go through a permitting process before a generation license can be granted. During this pre-licensing period, developers must collect and submit measurement data for at least one year, submit a letter of guarantee in an amount calculated based on the installed capacity of the project, secure land rights, and obtain required permits to start construction (such as zoning permits and environmental clearances). This pre-licensing period is limited to 24 months, unless there is a force majeure event or it is otherwise extended by the regulator. During this period, any sale of the generator’s shares is not allowed. The main incentive for solar in Turkey is a $133 USD/MWh feed-in tariff, which is available for 10 years for projects that commence operations by December 31, 2020.

There is an incremental tariff of up to $67 USD/MWh for using domestic content. The local manufacturing sector is currently underdeveloped and generators are heavily dependent on imported products. Turkey does not provide tax credits, treasury grants, or loan guarantees for renewable energy generation. Nor does it have set-aside programs or solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs). However, renewable energy generators enjoy other incentives in addition to the feed-in tariff, including reduced licensing fees and permitting costs, and priority in grid connection. Various tax credits and exemptions, as well as support on interest payments, are available for eligible manufacturers of turbines, blades and generators used in hydro, wind, biomass and geothermal power projects. While similar incentives are not applicable for solar panels or other solar components, this may be an area for enhanced regulatory support of the industry. Another indirect regulatory support for solar may come in the form of privatization of state-owned generation assets.

While these assets are not in solar (they are mostly hydro and thermal plants), they are known to depress the market price as they still make up a large portion of the country’s generation capacity. Separate and apart from the licensed generation market discussed above, distributed generation (or so-called unlicensed generation in Turkey) is also gaining more interest in the market. Facilities with a capacity of up to 1 MW are exempted from the pre-licensing requirements summarized above. The Council of Ministers, without any legislative action, is authorized to raise this limit up to 5 MW. Each unlicensed facility is required by law to be connected to a consumption unit, and any excess power not consumed in this unit can be sold to the grid. It is not clear whether the same generator may set up multiple facilities (for instance 10 facilities each having an installed capacity of 1 MW each) within the same region, and sell the excess power to the grid. So what is next? Turkey has high solar capacity and needs the installed power capacity from solar. Turkey has an average annual total sunshine duration of 2,640 hours (a total of 7.2 hours per day), which gives it the largest potential among European countries after Spain. At the same time, Turkey is largely dependent on oil and natural gas imports to fuel its growing power generation needs, and needs to diversity its energy sources. The combination of these realities should see further solar licenses being issued.

Source: www.renewableenergyworld.com

Global warming could stave off next ice age for 100,000 years

14.01.2016

global-warming-1494965_960_720 — Photo: Pixabay

Global warming is likely to disrupt a natural cycle of ice ages and contribute to delaying the onset of the next big freeze until about 100,000 years from now, scientists said on Wednesday. In the past million years, the world has had about 10 ice ages before swinging back to warmer conditions like the present. In the last ice age that ended 12,000 years ago, ice sheets blanketed what is now Canada, northern Europe and Siberia.

In a new explanation for the long-lasting plunges in global temperatures that cause ice ages, scientists pointed to a combination of long-term shifts in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, together with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They said the planet seemed naturally on track to escape an ice age for the next 50,000 years, an unusually long period of warmth, according to the study led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. But rising man-made greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century could mean the balmy period will last for 100,000 years, they wrote in the journal Nature.

The findings suggest human influences “will make the initiation of the next ice age impossible over a time period comparable to the duration of previous glacial cycles,” they wrote. “Humans have the power to change the climate on geological timescales,” lead author Andrey Ganopolski told Reuters. He said the lingering impacts of greenhouse gases in a far distant future did not in any way affect the urgency of cutting emissions now that are blamed for causing downpours, heat waves and rising seas. “The earlier we stop, the better,” he said. Almost 200 governments agreed a deal in Paris last month to shift from fossil fuels to combat climate change. Last week, another group of scientists said humanity had become a force in shaping the planet’s geology and suggested an “Anthropocene epoch” began in the mid-20th century with factors such as nuclear tests and industrialization.

“Like no other force on the planet, ice ages have shaped the global environment,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute and an author of Wednesday’s study. He suggested a new epoch might instead be called the “Deglacial”. Some past studies have suggested that global warming can delay ice ages, but Thursday’s study laid down clear rules. It said the start of past ice ages coincided with low levels of solar energy reaching the Earth in northern summers, like in current times. But an ice age had not begun because of relatively high, apparently natural, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since before the Industrial Revolution.

Source: www.reuters.com

New development could lead to more effective light bulbs

13.01.2016

Sijalice, Sijalica, Struja — Photo: Pixabay

US researchers say they have developed a technique that can significantly improve the efficiency of the traditional incandescent light bulb. These older bulbs have been phased out in many countries because they waste huge amounts of energy as heat. But scientists at MIT have found a way of recycling the waste energy and focusing it back on the filament where it is re-emitted as visible light. The development has been reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Little has changed in the technology of the incandescent light bulb since they were commercially developed by Thomas Edison in the US in the 1880s.

They create light by using electricity to heat a thin tungsten wire filament to temperatures of around 2,700C. This causes the filament to glow and produce a broad-spectrum warm white light. However light bulbs of this type are hugely inefficient – they only convert around 2-3% of the energy they use into light – the rest is wasted as heat. They have long been a target for green campaigners, concerned about climate change.

Phased out

This has seen the bulbs banned in the European Union, Canada and their manufacture and importation has been phased out in the US. They’ve been replaced by more expensive compact fluorescent (CFL) and LED bulbs which are significantly more efficient at around 13%. Now researchers at MIT believe they have developed a technique that could turn the weakness of the traditional incandescent bulb into strength. Using nanotechnology, they’ve built a structure that surrounds the filament of the bulb and captures the leaking infrared radiation, reflecting it back to the filament where it is re-absorbed and then re-emitted as visible light. The structure is made from thin layers of a type of light-controlling crystal. A key aspect though is the way that these layers are stacked, with visible wavelengths allowed to pass through while infrared get reflected back to the filament as if in a mirror.

“It is not so much the material you make the surrounding structure from, it is how you arrange the material to create the optical filtering property that will recycle infra-red light and let the visible light through,” Ognjen Illić, the paper’s lead author told BBC News. In theory, the crystal structures could boost the efficiency of incandescent bulbs to 40%, making them three times more efficient than the best LED or CFL bulbs on the market. The researchers have built their first proof-of-concept units which reach an efficiency of 6.6%, but even that is almost three times the level of a standard incandescent bulb. So do the researchers think that they can build a better light bulb?

“I would not exclude the possibility,” said Prof Marin Soljačić, another author on the paper. “Thomas Edison was not the first one to work on the design of the light bulb, but what he did was figure out how to mass produce it cheaply and keep it stable longer than 10 hours, these are still the the two critical criteria. These are the questions we are trying to answer now,” he said.

The scientists point out that improving light bulbs is but one of the options that could spring from this development. The authors say it could have “dramatic implications” for the performance of other energy conversion technologies. “We have this huge challenge that the world is facing right now, global warming and energy efficiency and this gives you one more tool in the toolbox to meet that huge challenge,” said Prof Soljačić. “We are very excited about the potential though.”

Source: www.bbc.com

EU Sustainable Energy Awards – call for entries open!

12.01.2016

Are you working on an innovative and effective energy efficient or renewable energy project? Tell us about it and you could win an EU Sustainable Energy Award at the EU’s Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) and become Sustainable Energy Leader!

EUSEW takes place every year in June. It is a month-long series of activities – including conferences (from 13-17 June 2016), local sustainable energy events and the EU Sustainable Energy Awards – dedicated to building a secure energy future for Europe. The Awards aim to promote energy-saving and renewable energy projects and initiatives across Europe.
To be in with a chance of winning, your project must be based in the EU, Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Israel, Moldova, Switzerland, Faroe Islands or Ukraine.

There are several categories of award: ‘consumers’ – for actions that lead to the behavioral change of individual energy users, ‘public sector’ for exemplary initiatives lead by public and non-profit organizations, ‘businesses’ for forward-thinking businesses, and the ‘citizens’ award for the project which best captures the public imagination.

Projects should be innovative with original features likely to attract EU media, they should have a measurable impact in that they help reduce energy use or bring online renewable energy which will contribute to the EU’s climate and energy goals. They should also have a positive public opinion and be replicable across Europe.

Source: www.ec.europa.eu

Antic: 140 Million EUR To Be Invested in Kolubara This Year

12.01.2016

Aleksandar Antić — Foto: Ministarstvo rudarstva i energetike

Serbian Minister of Energy and Mining Aleksandar Antic announced that a total of 140 million EUR would be invested in an overhaul of the Kolubara mining complex.

Touring the Kolubara strip mines Antic said that he had received confirmation from the company management on his ministry’s stance that more needed to be invested in the mining sector.

“According to the business plan for 2016 we will have EUR140 million for investment and system maintenance, i.e. overhauls in Kolubara. This will be well placed money by the power utility company (EPS) in building up capabilities and strengthening the mining sector,” Antic said.

Antic recalled that in the previous period the thermal sector had helped increase power output, while thermal power plants accounted for 80 percent of the total energy produced for domestic users.

Recently, he said, an average of 70,000 tons of coal a day was shipped off to power plants.

“Those are big quantities, although not the maximum. When the weather settles we will go back to producing the maximum amount of 90,000 tons a day,” he said.

Stand with Chileans! Demand Protection for Chile’s Glaciers

12.01.2016

Chile is home to 82% of the glaciers in South America. These glaciers constitute one of the largest freshwater reserves in the world. They are also vital to the preservation of vulnerable local ecosystems and biodiversity, particularly in times of drought. In a warming planet, protecting all glaciers is essential.

However, Chilean law does not protect the glaciers and has allowed their destruction at a record pace at the hands of several mining projects. In fact, Chilean state-owned CODELCO (the world’s largest copper producer) has destroyed about 342 hectares of glaciers in the Andes in the past decades. Other mining projects from Barrick, Antofagasta Minerals and Anglo American continue to raze glacial areas and remain a direct threat to Chilean water reserves. This must stop, forever.

Source: www.act.greenpeace.org

Summon Your Tesla from Your Phone

12.01.2016

Last Fall, Tesla Version 7.0 software introduced a range of new Autopilot active safety and convenience features to give you more confidence behind the wheel, increase your safety on the road, and make highway driving more enjoyable. The release of Tesla Version 7.1 software continues our improvements to self-driving technology. This release expands Autopilot functionality and introduces the first iteration of Summon.

Using Summon, once you arrive home and exit Model S or Model X, you can prompt it to do the rest: open your garage door, enter your garage, park itself, and shut down. In the morning, you wake up, walk out the front door, and summon your car. It will open the garage door and come to greet you. More broadly, Summon also eliminates the burden of having to squeeze in and out of tight parking spots. During this Beta stage of Summon, we would like customers to become familiar with it on private property. Eventually, your Tesla will be able to drive anywhere across the country to meet you, charging itself along the way. It will sync with your calendar to know exactly when to arrive.

The release of Tesla Version 7.1 software is the next step toward developing fully autonomous driving capabilities and delivering them through over-the-air software updates, keeping our customers at the forefront of driving technology in the years ahead.

Source: www.teslamotors.com

Climate change: Cereal harvests across the world ‘fall by 10% in 50 years’

12.01.2016

Impact of droughts and heatwaves stronger in recent decades, especially in developed countries. Extreme weather has affected global cereal production.

Droughts and heatwaves have reduced cereal harvests by an average of about 10% globally over the past half century, and their impact has become stronger in recent decades especially in developed countries, a study has found.

Climate change is expected to increase the risk of severe drought and extreme heat and now the first detailed analysis of global cereal production has shown that harvests of wheat, maize and rice have suffered greater losses since the 1980s from drought and heat compared to previous decades.

The findings question whether increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are having a discernible “fertilising effect” on crop production that could outweigh the damaging effect on harvests caused by extreme weather events such as droughts and heatwaves exacerbated by global warming.

An analysis of national production of 16 different cereal crops in 177 countries, and a comparison with the effects of about 2,800 weather disasters between 1964 and 2007, has for the first time provided a detailed snapshot of how extreme weather has affected overall cereal production globally, scientists said.

The study found that drought and heatwaves reduced cereal harvests by between 9% and 10% on average in the affected countries. However, the technically advanced arable farms of North America, Europe and Australia were even more strongly affected than the developing world, with average production cuts of about 20%.

“We found that extreme weather disasters such as droughts and heatwaves substantially reduce crop production, and the impacts are worse in richer countries,” said Pedram Rowhani of Sussex University and a co-author of the study.

“The frequency and severity of these extreme weather events is expected to increase in the future. If we do not adapt our agricultural systems to become more resilient to these shocks we can anticipate even larger losses in the future,” Dr Rowhani said.

The analysis, published in the journal Nature, found that losses in average cereal producton caused by more recent droughts had increased in more recent years, with average reductions of about 13.7% compared to losses of about 6.7% prior to the mid-1980s. However, the analysis also showed that cereal production soon bounced back after a drought year.

“We have always known that extreme weather causes crop production losses. But until now we did not know exactly how much global production was lost to such extreme weather events, and how they varied by different regions of the world,” said Navin Ramankutty, professor of global food security and sustainability at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and senior author.

One of the most suprising findings was that advanced countries were apparently more susceptible to crop losses due to droughts and heatwaves compared to less advanced nations. This may reflect differences in scale and the farming methods employed in growing and harvesting cereals, the scientists said.

“Across the breadbaskets of North America, for example, the crops and methods of farming are very uniform across huge areas, so if a drought hits in a way that is damaging to those crops, they will all suffer,” said Corey Lesk of McGill University in Montreal, the study’s first author.

“By contrast, in much of the developing world, the cropping systems are a patchwork of small fields with diverse crops. If a drought hits, some of those crops may be damaged, but others may survive,” Mr Lesk said.

Farmers in wealthier countries rarely depend on harvests directly for food, and typically have dependable access to crop insurance in the event of bad weather, he said.

“So the optimal strategy for them may be to maximize yields rather than minimize the risk of weather-related crop damage.”

Source: www.independent.co.uk

Sensor network can detect exact location and size of ocean pollution

12.01.2016

In the future, when fossil fuels are no longer the leading source of energy around the world and oil platforms aren’t pumping oil from beneath the ocean floor, we won’t have to worry about oil spills, but unfortunately, ocean pollution from spills, leaks and other sources is still a reality.

There are many technologies that have been developed to clean up spills more effectively, but the first hurdle is quick and accurate detection of chemical pollutants in the ocean.

Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia have come up with a way to keep tabs on ocean pollution and keep it from spreading.

They designed an intelligent sensor system that can detect very small quantities of chemical pollution that might come from oil leaks and other contaminants. It can detect the exact location of toxic waste, diesel and other hydrocarbons and how far they have spread through that part of the ocean.

The sensors are embedded in floating devices that can be deployed in any body of water and using clever algorithms move independently to find the perimeters of a pollution event like in an oil spill. The sensors communicate back to the researchers in real time so that a map can be created using their relative positions and what contaminants they’re detecting.

A system like this could make pollution clean up more effective because spills and other events could be detected much earlier before they spread.

“Different chemical pollutants require different techniques for their clean-up. But the single most important factor for minimising the impact and damages to the affected area is how quickly they is detected. This is particularly critical in the case of oil spills, where a full clean-up is virtually impossible if decontamination efforts don’t start immediately,” said Jaime Lloret from the UPV’s Research Institute for Integrated Management of Coastal Areas.

Quick identification and containing of ocean pollution is crucial for the health of ocean organisms and humans too.

Source: www.treehugger.com

Africa Renewable Energy Initiative to build 10,000 MW of renewables in Africa by 2020

12.01.2016

solar-panels- — Photo-ilustration: Pixabay

Solar for sunny Africa

The Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) aims at enabling the installation of large-scale renewable energy capacity on the African continent by 2020. The African-led plan has just received a big boost with over $10 billion worth of financial backing from various members of the international community at COP21 in Paris. Most of the $10 billion came from the European Union, Sweden and the G7 countries. In particular, Germany will contribute $3.25 billion, France $2.2 billion, Sweden $500 million and Canada $110 million. This will help provide clean power to millions across the continent.

This clean electricity is sorely needed: Approximately 600 million people have no access to electricity in Africa, with the figure expected to rise to 700 million by 2030 without further action, according to a 2015 UNEP report. As a result, many rely on wood or other biomass to cook and heat their homes, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from indoor air pollution.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said, “Africa’s renewable energy revolution will ensure access to clean, reliable and efficient energy, while ensuring we do not add to the greenhouse gas emissions we are gathered here in Paris to reduce. The Africa Renewable Energy Initiative aims to do just that. Such leadership from Africa, and the financial backing from the international community announced today, provides fresh hope that we can tackle the twin challenges of sustainable development and climate change.”

African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina said, “Africa is tired of being in the dark. The Lack of electricity has put the brakes on Africa’s industrialization. Through the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, we can sustain fast economic growth in Africa and on a low carbon development pathway.”

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/

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