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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Solar Power to the People

yea, i wrote a song with that title a couple of decades back, and if i can find hte lyrics, i'll post them here

for now, here are the lyrics to the title track of my rock'n'reggae cd, Give U everything by Yuya

Give U Everything

Lyrics by Yuya Joseph and Music by Michael St. Clair


Back in the summer of twenty-o-five

We were fighting in the streets just 2 stay alive

U never knew what was coming next

Warfare and terror eatin’ brightest and best

People turning 2 religion 2 hide

From one another and all the reasons 2 cry

Nobody told me ‘bout the sun and the shade roles

I wanted your heart mind body and soul


I only wanted Everything

We were young and relentless

Our passions burned hot

I’m gonna give U everything

My story life world visions

Everything I’ve got!

I’m gonna give U everything

I’m gonna give U everything

I’m gonna give U everything

Gonna give U give U give U give U

Give U everything


‘Twas in the autumn of twenty-o-eight

Things were really looking up, Irie, jus feelin’ great

Two very long days since the birth of Iyasus

Cusp of a New Day, a Spirit a Muse

I couldn’t believe my good fortune 2 meet U

See your smiling face, hold your hands, and greet U

In Beijing and Addis and at home in Canada

We’re rockin the world from Athens 2 Asia!



I only wanted Everything

We were young and relentless

Our passions burned hot

I’m gonna give U everything

My story life world visions

Everything I’ve got!

I’m gonna give U everything

I’m gonna give U everything

I’m gonna give U everything

Gonna give U give U give U give U

Give U everything


Alternative Energy Investing Blog

Monday, October 22, 2007

Botswana heating water with solar thermal energy

article from: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1085826601986B213

By Ulrike Koltermann and Ralf E Krueger

What had been the star of the world summit on sustainable energy two years ago in Johannesburg can be seen next to the highway to Pretoria.

A huge solar collector gleams in the sun on the grounds of the South African Development Bank. But the hi-tech machine has a flaw: The round disc is rarely correctly positioned, so that it usually points Earthwards, rather than towards the sun as it is supposed to do.

The solar collector, looking like some kind of monument, actually could be seen as a symbol of the application of solar energy technology in Africa. Visitors often wonder why the rooftops on a continent so greatly bathed in sunshine don't have more solar cells.

Botswana is the leader in tapping solar energy in order to heat water
"Only those people who have a lot of money can afford it," is the explanation given by David Otieno of the Kenyan environmental group Solarnet in Kenya.

He says an estimated 200 000 households do use solar power. It costs at least €500 (600 dollars) for the investment in the equipment to convert sunshine into energy - about one-half a person's average annual income in Kenya.

Otieno reports than in the neighbouring country of Ethiopia, as much solar energy is delivered in one day than Germany uses in one and a half years.

"It is above all radios, TV sets and mobile phone rechargers which are operated on solar power," he said. "But the potential for this form of energy is far from being exhausted."

This is also the view of Beate Baethke, solar energy expert for the German investment and development company DEG.

'The politicians want to protect the old state monopolies'
"In southern Namibia there have been measurements showing that just through the sun's radiation alone 3 000 kilowatt-hours could be produced annually per one square metre," she said. "This is several times over the levels found in California."

It is no wonder, then, that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is pushing the use of solar energy in Africa. For three years UNEP has been gathering data in the research of the continent's solar and wind power potential.

In many parts of Africa, solar energy does not even have to compete against conventional power sources as is the case in Europe. Electricity networks often do not extend beyond a city's boundaries.

"The question here is not 'solar power or coal', but rather 'solar power or no electricity?'," commented UNEP energy expert Eric Usher. In Zambia, for example, only about five percent of the population has electricity, with solar power conversion the most widely-used source.

Botswana, by contrast, is the leader in tapping solar energy in order to heat water. "There is scarcely a public building there in which the warm water has not been heated by the sun," said Usher.

In South Africa, Germany is promoting the electrification of remote regions. Under a €15,8-million loan, work began in May 2002 to provide 27 000 households, schools and health clinics with solar power.

Prior to that, the European Union had invested €12,5-million in solar energy, the aim to provide 1,000 rural schools with electricity for the first time ever. But the project suffered a setback due to theft of equipment and above all vandalism.

Professor Linda Chisolm of South Africa's national research council HSRC cites a further reason for the difficult position of solar power in Africa.

"There are indications that solar facilities are regarded as a second-class source of electricity in many rural regions, and that they are seen as too weak and too expensive while blocking the greatly-desired access to electric power grids," she said.

Besides such problems of acceptance, many experts also regard the conventional power concerns as an obstacle, and the same applies to governments' unwillingness to try out alternative energy sources.

"The politicians want to protect the old state monopolies," says Otieno of Solarnet in Kenya. "For many governments in Africa, solar energy is something suspicious."

But he says there is some hope. In Kenya, solar collectors come tax-free, and further accessories are also soon to be made exempt from taxes.

Namibia is also going down some new paths, says Beate Baethke. "There, state-recognised technicians can make applications for their customers, and then they receive subsidies," she said.

Above all, farms with no link to the Namibian electricity grid are more and more augmenting their diesel-powered generators with photovoltaic facilities.

Massive solar power project for Pennsylvania

article from: http://www.nbc10.com/news/14018446/detail.html

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A $20 million solar power project that can provide electricity to as many as 400 homes will be built next to a landfill in suburban Philadelphia, officials said Thursday.

Epuron, a subsidiary of the Germany-based Conergy AG, will finance the project. The 16,500-panel facility, one of the largest in the country, will be designed by a Conergy sister company, SunTechnics Energy Systems Inc., on land leased from Waste Management Inc.

Waste Management's G.R.O.W.S. Landfill in Morrisville will be a neighbor to the 16.5-acre solar project along the Delaware River in Bucks County.

Chicago-based power company Exelon Corp., which owns the Philadelphia-based utility Peco Energy Inc., has agreed to buy power generated by the solar panels for 20 years.

Proponents say solar power will be particularly valuable on hot summer days when soaring air-conditioner use drives up electricity prices.

California solar project to cover over 4,000 acres

article from treehugger.com and Renewable Energy Access

Stirling Energy and Southern California Edison have announced they plan to construct a 4,500-acre solar generating station in Southern California. When completed, the proposed power station would be the world's largest solar facility, capable of producing more electricity than all other U.S. solar projects combined. They promise a cost of electricity of 0.06$/kWh.

The dish collectors are unique because they make no use of photovoltaics, instead they use mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a Stirling engine. This heats hydrogen gas inside the engine which expands.

The pressure created by the expanding gas drives a piston, crank shaft, and drive shaft assembly much like those found in internal combustion engines but without igniting the gas. The drive shaft turns a small electricity generator. The entire energy conversion process takes place within a canister the size of an oil barrel. The process requires no water and the engine is emission-free.

The 20-year power purchase agreement signed today, which is subject to California Public Utilities Commission approval, calls for development of a 500-MW solar project 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles using innovative Stirling dish technology. The agreement includes an option to expand the project to 850 MW. Initially, Stirling would build a one-MW test facility using 40 of the company's 37-foot-diameter dish assemblies. Subsequently, a 20,000-dish array would be constructed near Victorville, Calif., during a four-year period.

"At a time of rising fossil-fuel costs and increased concern about greenhouse-gas emissions, the Stirling project would provide enough clean power to serve 278,000 homes for an entire year," said SCE Chairman John Bryson.

Although Stirling dish technology has been successfully tested for 20 years, the SCE-Stirling project represents its first major application in the commercial electricity generation field. Experimental models of the Stirling dish technology have undergone more than 26,000 hours of successful solar operation. A six-dish model Stirling power project is currently operating at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

"We are especially pleased about the financial benefits of this agreement for our customers and the state," said Alan Fohrer, SCE chief executive officer. "The contract requires no state subsidy and provides favorable pricing for ratepayers because tests have shown the Stirling dish technology can produce electricity at significantly lower costs than other solar technologies."

Tests conducted by SCE and the Sandia National Laboratories have shown that the Stirling dish technology is almost twice as efficient as other solar technologies. These include parabolic troughs which use the sun's heat to create steam that drives turbines similar to those found in conventional power plants, and photovoltaic cells that rely on an expensive and increasingly limited raw material stock.

NZ money manager offers clean energy, climate change and water mutual funds

Like pure water for the parched investors

Gone are the days when you could lead an investor to water but not make him drink. Rob Stock of stuff.co.nz reports.

Fund manager Liontamer is calling it "blue gold". The rest of us call it water.

But whichever of the two designations you choose, heavyweight research suggests there's money to be made for investors sinking their cash into global water investments.

Liontamer, a home-grown fund manager purchased this year by Belgian bank KBC, has launched a capital-protected water fund that does just that.

The fund is just a toe in the water. Although the offer locks away investors' cash for three to five years, Liontamer plans to launch an "open-ended" water fund in November, allowing investors to invest and withdraw their money at will.

That fund heralds a new era for Liontamer as it launches two other funds which will have similarly planet-conscious mandates: an alternative energy fund and a climate change fund which will invest in, among other things, carbon credits.

The sudden greening of Liontamer, which has attracted over $200 million from Kiwi investors by focusing solely on capital-protected products, is related to its new owner, KBC, says Liontamer's Janine Starks, but is less about a save-the-planet ethos and more about generating hard investment returns.

KBC has one of only three water funds on the planet, run by a team of fund managers in Dublin led by Jens Peers, a team which also manages alternative energy and climate change funds.

"First and foremost, we believe in good investments," Starks says. "If there is an environmental overlay, then that's nice."

The investment story for water is based on the world's increasing "water stress". Water consumption globally is increasing faster than the world's population, and though there's lots of the stuff, much of it is in a form that is not usable, or requires new technologies and investment to get at.

For example, 97% of the world's water is in the seas and oceans, and much of the rest is unequally distributed. People in Asia, for example, represent 60% of the world's population, but have only 36% of the world's usable water.

Some countries, such as China, are polluting their supplies so fast their water stress levels are rising rapidly, and are committing hundreds of billions to investing in water treatment and delivery systems.

Water consumption grows faster than population for several reasons. The first is that to feed a growing population, agriculture must become more intensive. The second is that the world is urbanising, with people moving to cities and consuming more manufactured goods, which require large quantities of water to make.

Summit Global Management also says that many people are not paying enough for water, in many cases less than it actually costs to deliver it to them.

"We rage when our water bill increases slightly, and yet we are happy to pay exorbitant prices for non-essential products such as cable television," Summit's John Dickerson and Rob Anfuso wrote in their Case for Water Investing this year.

"This price-to-value inequality will most certainly correct itself," they said.

For those who believe in the water story, the next step is identifying the companies to invest in. Liontamer's capital-protected water fund gives investors exposure to 15 global water companies based in the US, Europe, Japan and the UK. While some treat and deliver water in markets such as the UK, others are involved in sea-water desalination plants in places that are rapidly drying out, such as China and Australia.

The fund has two kinds of units for investors. Booster units which have 100% capital protection, and super-booster units have 90% capital protection. The fund is invested in derivatives tracking an index of 15 water companies five British, four US, two French, and one each from Switzerland, Finland, Japan, and Spain.

The booster units give investors 130% exposure to rises in the index, which would equate to a 78% rise in the value of units, should the index rise by 60%. The super booster units provide 165% exposure, meaning a 60% rise in the index would result in a 99% rise in the units. Investors' cash is locked up for a term of between four and five years, though there is the chance of early redemption, should the fund do very well.

Liontamer is conscious that some might frown on making returns from access to water, which should be a basic human right. For that reason, Liontamer will donate 5c in every dollar raised by the closed-ended water fund to World Vision to help those in developing countries improve their access to water. Currently 1.1 billion people lack easy access to drinking water, according to investment bank UBS.

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