QUICK NEWS, January 20: BOOMING SOLAR LOOKS BEYOND 2016; AMAZON BUYS BIG WIND; HOW HOME GEOTHERMAL WORKS
BOOMING SOLAR LOOKS BEYOND 2016 U.S. Solar Industry Sees Growth, But Also Some Uncertainty
Jeff Brady, January 19, 2015 (National Public Radio)
“The solar energy business is growing fast, thanks in part to a steep drop in panel prices…[P]rices dropped by more than half since 2010. But the industry's future looks a little hazy. Generous government subsidies expire soon and the price for natural gas — a competitor that's also used to generate electricity — keeps dropping…For now, though, the solar business is booming and the industry is hiring. More than 31,000 solar jobs were added in 2014…Experienced installers can earn a good wage of about $22 per hour…[Though it generates less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity, leaving enormous opportunity for growth, the solar industry already provides] nearly 174,000 solar jobs in the U.S., which is 22 percent more than last year and 86 percent more [2010, according to The Solar Foundation, which predicts solar will]… add another 36,000 jobs this year, but after that is a big question mark…Unless Congress extends [solar’s vital 30 percent federal investment tax credit], it will end in December 2016.” click here for more
AMAZON BUYS BIG WIND How AWS is powering up its wind farm plans for cloud datacenters
Toby Wolpe, January 20, 2015 (ZDNet)
“Amazon Web Services says a new [150MW] Indiana wind farm [being built by the Pattern Energy Group] could be helping power its datacenters by as early as January 2016…The power-purchase agreement with Pattern Energy will help increase the renewable energy [wind, hydro and solar] used to run AWS' US [datacenter] infrastructure…In November 2014, AWS set out plans to use only renewable energy for its global infrastructure. To date, the company has three carbon-neutral regions: the US GovCloud; US West in Oregon; and EU in Frankfurt am Main…AWS [also] has sites in Australia, Brazil, China, Ireland, Japan, and Singapore…[with a worldwide customer base] of more than a million organizations, which buy its cloud-based compute, storage, database, analytics, application, and deployment services…” click here for more
HOW HOME GEOTHERMAL WORKS Geothermal energy – does it make sense? Sounds like a good topic for Science Café
David Brooks, January 19, 2015 (The Telegraph)
“…[G]eothermal energy in New Hampshire, more accurately described as ground-source heat pumps…has been around for decades but has gained more prominence as part of the alternative-energy mix…At its simplest, geothermal pumps water underground, where temperature remains around 50 degrees, then brings it back above ground at that temperature and uses it to cool or heat buildings…Heat, of course, naturally moves from warm to cold. A heat pump uses a relatively small amount of energy to reverse the process, pulling heat out of a low-temperature area and moving it into a higher temperature area – from a ‘heat source,’ like the ground, into a ‘heat sink,’ like your home…The system involves a fluid with a very low boiling point, on the verge of being a gas at room temperature. The head pump shifts this substance back and forth between the liquid and gas states with compression, which makes it release or absorb large amounts of energy, due to the physics of phase change. That energy is how cold water can heat a house…” click here for more
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