NATO & Renewable Energy

NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which is an intergovernmental military alliance. The organization works by using collective defense, crisis-management and cooperative security. A recent article I saw by Russia Today was titled "Green War Games: NATO to Test Renewable Energy For Battlefield, Humanitarian Ops." The article talked about how NATO is testing renewable energy(mainly solar and wind) for battlefields and humanitarian operations. In Hungary in the month of June 1,000 NATO soldiers will spend a week and a half testing renewable energy.  U.S, French, Austria, and German companies are helping to support the project. Some of the projects they are going to focus on are small flower solar plants, battery chargers powered by the sun, and insulated tents.

A big problem for U.S soldiers is transporting non-renewable sources mainly oil. "According to NATO, the test comes after 3,000 US soldiers were killed or wounded in attacks on water and fuel convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq." For transporting solar cells they do not explode if shot at. Over the week and a half NATO is going to test the renewable equipment through war-game scenarios like power outages and floods.The US. Army is planning other projects for using clean energy. In Afghanistan alone NATO spends 5 gallons of fuel to deliver one gallon.
I think it is really strange how the military is using renewable energy. We were fighting over oil a lot in the Middle East, but now it is weird we are fighting using clean energy. This is actually a really good idea because bombs and other weaponry can cause a lot of pollution into the air, so this helps fight that. But I feel like they are trying to make warfare sound better. Warfare is still killing innocent people and I really hate wars. But maybe this new technology can help us win the wars faster. I feel like the world should be moving towards renewable energy, so I think it is a good plan.

Geothermal Energy

08 April 2015
It is a start of a new year, and there is one energy I want to talk about that dramatically increased in 2014. It is called geothermal energy and it increased 5% last year. Geothermal energy is just heat coming from the Earth. Starting in the 1970s different countries started using it for energy. Most geothermal systems go 10,000 meters into the ground. The temperature underground for most of it is 65-75 degrees. There are many pros of geothermal like how it is green because it releases barely any emissions, zero carbon, does not take much land, and can be used mostly everywhere. But of course there are negatives to every energy. Geothermal energy usually are faraway from people, long transmission, water usage, and high construction costs. I do like how geothermal is one of the cleaner type of energies, but I think it definitely needs improvement. It seems really dangerous digging into the ground because I feel like it could lead to water pollution. I also do not like how it usually has to be away from people because you lose so much electricity and money that way. Most people are familiar with Yellowstone National Park's geysers. but those are not used for electricity.

The U.S. is the biggest produce of geothermal energy and we generate 15 billion kilowatt hours of geothermal power per year which is 0.41% of  U.S. energy. There was an article I read called "The Dream Becomes Real: Touring the Newberry Enhanced Geothermal Site" by Renewable Energy World. I really liked this article because it talked about how they are determined to get the plant up and running, but with everything there are some complications. In Bend, Oregon they are building the Newberry geothermal project. It has 5 GW of potential. The U.S. has a potential of 345,100 more MW of power, which could help the environment by moving away from coal. Most geothermal plants use existing reservoirs, but this project is creating its own by drilling into dry rock and injecting liquid to make the reservoir. This project's opening has been postponed two years now because there was a leak which released 10 million gallons of water! This could have been very dangerous because it could have caused an earthquake. It should be ready in spring of this year and reach almost 10,000 feet.
I think this project is amazing. I love how they figured out new ways to get the energy. It is not really damaging the landscape and it provides a lot of clean energy. We should really try to do more projects like this in the future, so that we could move away from. We still need to improve our technology because it has been delayed so much time, and we waste so much water getting the heat. I hope that when they do start running the project, that nothing will go wrong like polluting the water supply. But this project is great news to the environmental community!

The Growth of Renewable Energy

I was going through Washington Post articles and one caught my eye. It is called "Renewable Energy is Growing Very, Very Fast. It's Just Still Not Fast Enough." It says how renewable energy production increased by a big amount from last year. The worldwide investment in renewables in 2014 was $270.2 billion which was a 17% increase from 2013. There were many solar projects in Japan and China and offshore wind farms in Europe. Surprisingly half of the investment was in developing countries.Solar and wind were the two many sources for the new energy; taking 92% of the investment. About $150 million investment was in solar and $100 million in wind. Since countries are investing more in renewables, the price of solar and other technologies has gone down. The new technologies are more energy-efficient which means we are investing more in renewable energy, but are now making a lot more money on it. China was the biggest investor with $83 billion than the U.S. with $38 billion and then Japan with $35.7 billion. Renewable energy is now 9.1% of the world's energy consumption which is a 0.6% increase.

This article made me happy that renewable energy is growing fast, but it is still kind of slow if that makes sense. Just like the article title says it is just not fast enough. Billions of dollars are going into renewables, but renewable energy is only 9.1% of energy production. That number is so low! It is not even in double digits yet. I know renewable energy technology is expensive, but it getting cheaper now so hopefully more countries invest. Maybe if people stop buying their stupid SUVs and we can get cheaper solar panels that would help by a huge amount. In college I want to major in sustainable energy management so this information gives me confidence that I will get a job after graduation. The U.S. is the second biggest investor in renewables, but of course we are behind China like everything else in the world. Hopefully every country in the world invests in renewable energy so that the world can be a sustainable, healthy place to live.