World News

1km Oz Solar Tower

EnviroMission Ltd is planning to build a giant 1km tall solar tower in Australia at a projected cost of Aus $670m. The reinforced concrete tower would generate 200 MW of electricity from a series of internal turbines driven by the 15metre/sec convection currents created inside the tower, as a result of solar heating of air in a large collector area at its base. Solar power tower technology has been tested in Manzanares, Spain, as the result of collaboration between the Spanish government and Schlaich Bergermann. The 50 kW plant operated for seven years until 1989, and

EnviroMission claims that it validated the technology and providing data for design modifications to achieve greater commercial and economic benefits associated with increased scale of economy. The solar tower can work into the night, with innovative heat storing materials under acres of collectors, continuing to heat air.

However, the chairman of the National Trust in Victoria State has called for the project to be halted until the government develops a master plan for the state’s energy industry. EnviroMission Ltd says Australia must proceed if the country is serious about solar energy. It recently formalized an agreement with the German engineering firm, Schlaich Bergermann, to consult on the solar tower. EnviroMission is looking at a number of sites in Australia where there is high solarisation, open spaces and access to the grid.

More info: http://www.enviromission.com.au/top-menu1.htm

Renewables in China

There are a lot of interesting development in renewable energy in China these days. The estimate for commercially exploitable renewable energy resource in China is over 400GW, including over 90GW of small hydropower, about 250GW of wind, approx 125GW of biomass energy, about 6.7GW of geothermal energy and an abundance of solar insolation. The current contribution is around 19GW, with most of this from small hydro. Wind looks like being the biggest growth area- it is expected to expand from 500MW as at present to 3GW by 2005 and 5GW by 2010. Small hydro is expected to rise to 22GW by 2005 and 25GW by 2010. By 2005, the total renewables would be around 26GW, rising to over 30GW by 2010.

See ‘Renewable Energy Development Strategy and Market Potential in China’ LIU Hongpeng (WREC VI, 2000 pp90-96). Interest has also been shown in attempts to introduce green power tariffs to boost development. See South-North Institute for Sustainable Development: www.snisd.org.cn/enhtm/en/index.htm

Russian Volcano power

Russia has launched a 25MW geothermal power plant in Kamchatka. The plant, which is later to be expanded to 50MW, is located on a slope of the Mutnovskiy volcano. The project cost $166m, of which $99.9m will be covered by credit granted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Shell- more scenarios

As we mentioned in Renew 136, and discuss in Renew 137, (see Reviews) Shell have produced two new energy scenarios for the period up to 2050, which revise their earlier pioneering 1995 attempts. But not content with that they have recently come up with two more for the period up to 2020 - which project a dramatic break-up of global trends towards globalisation following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, which could prevent multinational energy companies from accessing local markets, and force countries into greater reliance on oil rather than gas as a result.

Shell stresses that it is trying to stimulate thinking, rather than make any prophecies or predictions, in its two scenarios. One, labelled ‘Business Class’, has the international elite - led by the US - continuing to lead most of the world towards more efficient prosperity, but at the cost of greater social inequality and market volatility. The other views the world through a ‘Prism’, and foresees, as the FT put it, ‘the monochromatic world of global integration breaking up into more local cultures, rules and restraints’. Sounds fun. More on scenarios in Renew 139.