solar energy research institutes
The Germans have been so successful when it comes to renewable energy sources, and have become major players in the alternative energy game. Under the aegis of the nation's electricity feed laws, the German people set a world record in 2006, investing more than $ 10 million dollars (U.S.) in research, development and implementation of wind turbines, biogas power plants and solar collection cells.
Germany dietary laws permit the German homeowners to connect to an electrical grid through some source of renewable energy and then sell it back to the power company any excess energy produced at retail prices. This economic incentive has catapulted Germany into the position number one among all nations with respect to the number of operational solar arrays, biogas plants and wind turbines.
The 50-terawatt hours electricity generated by these renewable energy sources account for 10% of total energy production in Germany per year. In 2006 alone, Germany installed Systems 100,000 solar energy collection.
More in the U.S., BP has created an Institute of Energy Biosciences (EBI) to spearhead extensive new research and development efforts in the burning clean sources of renewable energy, most prominently biofuels for ground vehicles. Investment BP reaches $ 50 million (U.S.) per year over the course of the next decade.
This EBI will be physically located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The University is in partnership with BP, and is responsible for research and development of new biofuel crops, biofuel-delivering the agricultural systems and machines to produce renewable fuels in liquid form for automobile consumption. The University, particularly the efforts of the spearhead in the field of genetic engineering with regard to the creation of more advanced biofuel crops.
The EBI will also have as a focal point major technological innovations for converting heavy hydrocarbons into pollution-free and highly efficient fuels.
Also in the U.S., the fierceness of the battle between Congress and the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA). The GEA Executive Director Karl Gawell wrote recently in Congress and the Department of Energy, the only way to ensure that DOE and OMB do not simply return to their irrational insistence on terminating the research program Geothermal is to schedule a congressional hearing specifically on geothermal energy, its potential, and the role of the federal investigation.
Moreover, Gawell going to say that recent studies of the National Research Council, the Western Governors Association clean energy Task Force and the Institute of Technology Massachusetts all support expanding geothermal research funding to develop the technology necessary to utilize this vast, untapped resources national renewable energy.
Supporters of geothermal energy, as this writer, is astonished at the minuscule amount of awareness that the public has about the huge benefits that research and development of alternative renewable energy source that provided the U.S., both practically and economically. Geothermal energy is already less expensive to produce, in terms of kilowatt hours that the U.S. coal keeps mining.
Geothermal energy is readily available, sitting just a few miles below our feet and easily accessible through drilling. One company, Ormat, which is the third largest geothermal energy producer in the U.S. and has plants in several different countries, and is one billion dollars per year energy business geothermal energy is certainly economically viable.
