#Renewable energy

#Renewable energy

When I arrived in Reykjavík, Iceland, last March, a gravel barrier, almost thirty feet at its highest point, had been constructed to keep lava from the Reykjanes volcano from inundating a major geothermal power station not far from downtown. So far, it had worked, but daily volcano forecasts were being broadcast on a small television at the domestic airport where I was waiting to take a short flight to Akureyri.

Can you imagine someone giving you $170,000 (129,000)? What would you buy? Can you imagine getting another $170,000 one minute later? And the handouts then continuing every minute for years? If so, you have a feel for the colossal cash machine that is Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco, the world's biggest producer of oil and gas last year. That tidal wave of cash keeps the authoritarian kingdom afloat,

Hayley and Helaman Perry-Sanchez put off their move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as long as they could. Helaman was accepted to Harvard Business School in 2020, and though he was excited to pursue his MBA, the Perry-Sanchezes weren't as eager to relocate to the East Coast. After meeting and marrying while they were in college in Utah - and subsequently leaving the Mormon church together - Hayley, 27, and Helaman, 29, had found jobs and built a life in Seattle.

This £3.9 billion investment is a huge win for Britain. It will give businesses - from life sciences to high street banks - the ability to connect to thousands of other businesses across the world in an instant, powering our AI ambitions, boosting growth and creating hundreds of well-paid jobs,

Together with SambaNova and our strategic partners, we're building a sovereign AI infrastructure powered by renewable energy, demonstrating that sustainability and scale can go hand in hand. Our goal isn't just to make AI greener, but to make it competitive, compliant and cost-effective.

The Government has unveiled a national plan to create 400,000 green energy jobs within the next five years, in what ministers say will be one of the most significant workforce transitions in modern British history. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the programme aims to double the number of people working in the UK's low-carbon sector by 2030, with a sharp focus on equipping tradespeople, school leavers, ex-service personnel and workers leaving fossil fuel industries with the skills needed to support the transition to net zero.

It was meant to be the world's grand fix for the climate crisis: nations would make their economies greener by transitioning to renewable-energy technologies, electrifying transport and digitalizing the global economy to reduce material use. After years of fraught negotiations, countries agreed to this global transition at a momentous summit in Paris in 2015. But the fix has proved to be more complex.

A home battery system stores excess electricity generated by your solar panels during the day. Instead of sending unused solar energy back to the grid or letting it go to waste, your battery holds it for later-typically when the sun sets or during a power outage. Here's a simplified breakdown of how it works: Solar panels generate electricity during the day. Your home uses what it needs immediately. The surplus charges your battery. At night or during outages, your battery powers your home. This setup gives you more control over your electricity usage, reduces your dependence on energy companies, and offers peace of mind when the grid goes down.

But analysis from the Centre for Net Zero (CNZ) says it would cost 43 percent less to power a 120 MW data facility with renewables and a small amount of gas-generated energy, when compared with an SMR. It claims that a microgrid comprising offshore wind, solar, battery storage, and backed up by gas generation, would be significantly cheaper to run annually than procuring power sourced from a nuclear SMR.

Pledge to cut emissions by 7-10 percent does not go far enough, though renewables rollout a cause for hope, expert say.

China, the world's largest carbon polluting nation, has announced a new climate fighting goal to cut emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. In a video address to the United Nations high-level climate summit on Wednesday, Chinese president Xi Jinping told his fellow leaders that the world's second largest economy, which has long seen its carbon pollution soar, will finally reduce the emissions of the gases that cause global warming and extreme weather.

When you start thinking about it, the possibilities are endless. But how does it work? And how much power can it generate? Obviously one person wouldn't make much difference, but convert the teeming sidewalks of New York and you might really have something. Could we put this all over the world and stop using fossil fuels? Let's find out! Follow the Bouncing Ball