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Germany Sets Aside $130 Billion for Renewable
Energy
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on 30 May
that Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and Europe's
biggest, would shutter all of its 17 nuclear power plants between
2015 and 2022, an extraordinary commitment, given that they
currently produce about 28 percent of the country's electricity.It
is by any yardstick an extraordinary (and expensive) commitment that
may well have the collateral benefit of unlocking similar funding
worldwide for renewable energy projects.
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The White Hat Guide to Tidal Power in AustraliaThe tides, generated by planetary motion and gravitational pull between heavenly bodies would seem to offer a vast amount of untapped power. Of course, like all energies labelled as 'renewable', it is not. You keep taking energy out of the system and it slows down and runs out. However when the amounts of energy extracted are miniscule compared with the total 'system', then 'renewable' is not too misleading and appeals to the science-challenged, so we'll stick with that. Australia would seem to offer great potential for tidal power. The tidal variations around Broome and the north west are some of the largest in the world. One method of harnessing this tidal power is to trap the high tidesbehind some form of dam or barrage and then release it through turbines at low tide. However, this can have significant environmental impacts. Another approach is to place turbines in an existing natural feature that has strong tidal flows. For instance, current industry studies have indicated that about one cubic kilometre of water flows through the Port Phillip Heads in Victoria at each tidal change. This is massive volume of water through such a relatively narrow opening, so surely this should be capable of generating large amounts of electricity. However things aren't quite as simple as that. The Next White Hat Environment & Sustainability Newsletter will be looking at the current state of tidal power and wave power in Australia and how it potentially impacts on Australia's power requirements.
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