Storing the wind. Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage: Fantasy or Reality? - Renewable Energy World. JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf. The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust. From where I'm standing, the city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge. Best of 2015 Our top stories Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a torrent of thick, black, chemical waste from the refineries that surround the lake.
The smell of sulphur and the roar of the pipes invades my senses. Welcome to Baotou, the largest industrial city in Inner Mongolia. You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. Element of success Rare earth minerals have played a key role in the transformation and explosive growth of China's world-beating economy over the last few decades. In 1950, before rare earth mining started in earnest, the city had a population of 97,000. Quiet plant. Corporate Wind Power. Renewable energy investment heats up worldwide. From China to Mexico, renewable energy investments are hot. Global investment in renewable power and fuels reached $270.2 billion last year, nearly 17% higher than in 2013, according to a new study on renewable energy investment from the United Nations Environment Programme. This figure marks the first increase in three years. Together, wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-power, geothermal, small hydro and marine power are estimated to have generated 9.1% of the world's electricity in 2014, compared to 8.5% in 2013.
China led the pack as the location of the biggest renewable energy investments last year, with $83.3 billion, followed by the U.S. at $38.3 billion and then Japan with $35.7 billion. While solar installation boomed in China and Japan, and offshore wind projects in Europe garnered $18.6 billion, some of the most notable renewable investment increases came from developing countries. The total investment in these markets was $131.3 billion in 2014, up 36% from the previous year.
The Economist explains: What has gone wrong with Germany's energy policy. ON DECEMBER 3rd the German government announced plans to redouble its Energiewende, or “energy transition”, and accelerate progress so that the country can meet its goal of a 40% cut in greenhouse gases (from 1990 levels) by 2020. The same week, E.ON, a big German utility, announced its decision to split into two companies.
One will focus on traditional nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity generation, and the other on renewable energy, electricity distribution and “energy services” for cost- and climate-conscious customers. Both decisions have been seen as evidence that the Energiewende has failed. But what has gone wrong? The Energiewende has two main policy tools: generous support for renewable sources of energy, and an exit from nuclear power by 2022.
The above-market prices meant that many Germans rushed into renewables, from installing solar panels on barn roofs to buying shares in wind farms. At the same time, the prices paid by consumers have been rising. Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages | Environment | The Guardian. From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.
The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing. The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths.
China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou. Renewable Energy Growth in Perspective | Energy Matters. Guest post: Roger Andrews Renewable energy, particularly wind and solar, continues to set records for electicity generation and installed capacity in many parts of the world, and as shown in Figure 1 wind and solar growth in recent years has indeed been quite spectacular (the data used to construct this and following Figures are from the 2014 BP Statistical Review of World Energy): Figure 1: Electricity Generated from Solar and Wind, 1965-2013 But Figure 1 doesn’t tell the whole story because solar and wind are only two of the four main sources of renewable energy. Adding the other two – biomass and hydro – puts the solar and wind contributions in better perspective (Figure 2). Figure 2: Electricity Generated from All Renewables, 1965-2013 Figure 3: Percentage of Global Electricity Generated by Renewables, 1965-2013 And because electricity supplies only about 40% of world energy consumption the percentage of world energy consumption supplied by renewables is correspondingly lower.