WORLD’S LARGEST 0FFSHORE WINDFARM TO START GENERATING OFF KENT COAST
14 September 2010
The windfarm near Thanet is poised to begin production with 100 turbines, producing 300MW of electricity, enough to supply heat and light for around 2000,000 homes.
The facility, which is 7.5.miles off Foreness Point, will be opened by the energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne on 23rd September.
Last week the National Grid revealed that over a certain 24 hour period 10% of the UK’s electricity had come from windfarms.U-TURN BY TOP CLIMATE-CHANGE SCEPTIC
31 August 2010
Bjorn Lomberg, high-profile climate sceptic is to declare in a book to be published shortly that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today”, and “a challenge humanity must confront”.
In the book he will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in climate-change, and suggests that $100bn annually would resolve the problem by the end of this century.
Interviewed by the Guardian newspaper, he said he would finance investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effect of climate change, by for example building better sea defences, and extra finance for global healthcare.‘ONE FOR THE ROAD’ - NEW WHISKY BIOFUEL
23 August 2010
By-products from the whisky distilling process are being used to develop a bio-fuel, which could be available in a few years’ time on garage forecourts.
Researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have produced the fuel by using the two main by-products "pot-ale", the liquid from the copper stills, and "draff" the spent grains.
The new method produced by the researchers produces butanol, which gives 30% more power output than the traditional biofuel ethanol.
Project director Professor Martin Tangney, said using the waste products was more environmentally sustainable than growing crops specifically for biofuels.
SCOTTISH FIRM WINS £4 M. TIDAL ENERGY CONTRACT
23 August 2010
Fife-based Burntisland Fabrictions (BiFab) has won a series of contracts to build ScottishPower’s first prototype device to be used for the 10MW tidal energy project, in the Sound of Islay. It intends to tender contracts in 2 years’ time for manufacture of the projects’ 10 1mw turbines. Scottish power has also been given a licence to develop a 95MW project in the Pentland Firth. According to a government report the currents of the Firth could eventually generate up to 4GW of electricity, more than enough to supply Glasgow and Edinburgh.
More than 7% of the world’s tidal energy resource is thought to be in Scottish waters, and the Scottish government has a target of generating 2GW (2,000MW) of electricity from tidal and wave power by 2020.
