This Week in News: August 7th
Olympics
The United Nations Environment Programme or UNEP has been working with China for the last several years to make the Olympic games more environmentally friendly. China has spent around $17 billion in order to make Beijing a much more environmentally friendly place. Many of the venues used for the Olympics will get some of their energy from renewable sources. Not all of the changes just for the Olympic games, but to improve the overall city for the long run. These changes include enhancing Beijing’s public transportation system, building a wall of solar panels and restricting harsher standards on emissions.
Hydrogen
MIT scientist have made a breakthrough discovery that would allow hydrogen to be separated from water simply by using solar power. The process only requires pressure and can be done at room temperature. A major concern to many is that the currently the process of separating hydrogen and oxygen from water relies on fossil fuels. This eliminates any of the environmental benefits gained by using hydrogen in fuel-cells. This new discovery therefore allow for hydrogen to be produced cheaply and remove any dependency on fossil fuel. I am excited by this finding as it really makes hydrogen a viable renewable resource.
Geothermal
TRUenergy and Petratherm have joined forces in Southern Australia to enter into the geothermal energy market. Under the venture, TRUenergy would acquire 30% of Petratherm’s Paralana project. The Paralana project is located in Flinders Ranges of South Australia and aims to be provide Australia with geothermal electricity by 2011. The hope is that the Paralana project can product up to 260 megawatts of electricity from geothermal energy by 2020.
