Monthly Archives: February 2008

would you lend us your vote?

Posted on February 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

The 14 grand challenges identified by a most distinguished panel assembled by The US National Academy of Engineering will require your tax dollars. The Innovation Appraisal Group at The School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University solicits the public input into the ‘allocation challenge’ of our national resources. We ask you to compare any two challenges on the list in terms of resource allocation. This “Wisdom of the Crowd” will be BiPSA integrated to report the summary allocation opinion, reflecting what we, the stakeholders for these challenges, think of their relative significance. Would You Lend Us Your Vote?:——–>

http://wennovate.net/techglobal.htm

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Posted in Technologies, Thoughts

THE FIRST HUGE INVESTMENTS IN SOLAR ENERGY FOR 2008….

Posted on February 12, 2008 | 1 Comment

* Dish/Stirling is back?? —– TechCrunch reported yesterday that Infinia raised a $50 million US, led by British hedge fund GLG partners. Infinia is creating a 14-foot diameter solar dishes that can generate 3.5 kilowatts of energy apiece. “Gang together 50 or 100 (at about $20,000 a pop) and you have the energy producing capacity of a small power plant”, says Tech Crunch. Existing investors are Equus, Khosla Ventures, Bill Gross’ Idealab, and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital – also participated in the round (after putting in $9.5 million US just last June).

 With more than 5700USD per KW – could they be competitive? 

* Investors believe in PV: Atlanta-based Suniva said last week that it has raised $50 million US to commercialize its solar-cell technology, which it says will be as cheap as conventional electricity. Investors are New Enterprise Associations and H.I.G. Ventures, according to the company’s Web site. Suniva says that by reducing wafer thickness (~100 microns) while achieving high efficiency (~20%) with low cost processes, dramatic cost reductions are possible.  Suniva is now building a large manufacturing facility.

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Posted in Technologies, U.S.

Nuclear slowing us down from developing new technologies for clean energy….

Posted on February 11, 2008 | 1 Comment

 Jeremy Rifkin, economist, told EurActiv France: “In order to fulfill the world’s energy needs through nuclear energy you have to put under construction a new nuclear power plant every 30 days for the next 50 years. That’s 2,500 new power plants. This is not realistic…investments in this area are keeping us from getting the third industrial revolution”.

**What do you think?

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Posted in Politics, Technologies, Thoughts

Israel to publish tender for 250MW solar power plants

Posted on February 10, 2008 | 1 Comment
TEL AVIV, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Israel will publish a tender at the end of February to build two solar power plants in the southern Negev desert, the National Infrastructure Ministry said on Sunday.
Several international companies have expressed interest in participating in the tender, in which two bidders will be awarded contracts on a build, operate and transfer basis, the ministry said.

The two solar energy plants  will supply 250 megawatts of electricity, equal to 2.5  percent of Israel’s current electricity generation capacity.

“According to the progress of projects until now, we will be able to meet our target of producing 600 megawatts of electricty from renewable energies by 2011-2012,” National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said in a statement. This will include 300 megawatts from solar energy and 300 from wind power, he said.

for more details:  info@CleanEnergy.co.il

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Posted in Israel