Henry Harrell"s Blog: December 17 Green Energy News

Headline News:

“Tesla vs. Tesla: The Juice In Your Car Will Increasingly Come Through HVDC, Edison’s Preferred Current” • This is partially a Thomas Edison vs Nikola Tesla story. Edison was committed to direct current, but Tesla liked alternating current. Edison did some ugly things to try to win the fight, but lost. Now the world is moving his way. [CleanTechnica]

Converter Transformers

Hundreds of US colleges and universities are taking action to combat global warming, but so far just one residential college has turned 100% to renewable energy: Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. The college has installed a 19-acre solar farm, with 15,000 panels and a capacity of about 4.7 MW of power. [Jefferson Public Radio]
The rate of new thyroid cancer cases in the four counties just north of New York City, which was 22% below the US rate in the late 1970s, is now 53% above the US rate, a study said. The Indian Point nuclear plant may be to blame. A study co-author said, “The only known cause of thyroid cancer is exposure to radioactivity.” [San Francisco Bay View]
In an attempt to revive aging farming communities and put clean energy on the local electric grid, two farms in northeastern Japan are growing cloud-ear mushrooms underneath arrays of solar panels. Together, the farms will produce a combined 4,000 kW of solar power and 40 tons of cloud-ear mushrooms every year. [GOOD Magazine]
Batteries plus solar energy could topple natural gas peaker plants. A GTM Research senior adviser said 10 GW of the 20 GW of the plants projected to be constructed between 2018 and 2017 could be taken over by energy storage. More aggressive estimates suggest the gas peaker plants may not even have a place after 2020. [Inhabitat]

Henry Harrell"s Blog