Energy secretary Amber Rudd plans to ‘unleash solar revolution’

Amber Rudd, the new energy secretary, says more households should have solar panels on their roofs

By Emily Gosden, Energy Editor

Millions more homes should have solar panels on their roofs, the new energy secretary has suggested, vowing to “unleash a new solar revolution” across Britain.

Amber Rudd, the former climate change minister, was promoted to lead the energy department in this week’s reshuffle, in a move that was welcomed by many green groups.

Ms Rudd indicated she would back the continued expansion of household solar panels, which are heavily subsidised by consumers through levies on energy bills.

“I want to unleash a new solar revolution – we have a million people living under roofs with solar panels and that number needs to increase,” she told her local newspaper, the Hastings & St Leonards Observer.

Read more » The Telegraph
Learn more » http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/solarpower/11606820/Energy-secretary-Amber-Rudd-plans-to-unleash-solar-revolution.html?utm_content=buffer41fce&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Russia-China deal: Even energy pivots East

By Patrick L Young

The thing about globalization is that it involves the whole world. Hence Russia exercises its option to pivot East when faced with an obdurate West.

Bubbles share a core attitude of mind: complete incapacity to recognize that the real world may not correspond to your immediate surroundings. Thus investors become absorbed by manias from tulip bulbs to the South Sea, the internet et al, and fail to realize that ‘asset’ values have fundamentally decoupled from reality.

Read more » http://rt.com/op-edge/160212-russia-china-gas-deal-east/

Russia: Historic 30-yr gas deal with China set to be signed next week

A historic, long-term deal for the delivery of Russian gas to China that has been 10 years in the making is 98 percent ready, Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky has said. All that’s needed are the two countries’ signatures, he added.

Read more » RT
http://rt.com/business/158396-gasprom-russia-china-cnpc/

Goodbye, Oil: US Navy Cracks New Renewable Energy Technology To Turn Seawater Into Fuel, Allowing Ships To Stay At Sea Longer

By Christopher Harress

After decades of experiments, U.S. Navy scientists believe they may have solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to turn seawater into fuel.

The development of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel could one day relieve the military’s dependence on oil-based fuels and is being heralded as a “game changer” because it could allow military ships to develop their own fuel and stay operational 100 percent of the time, rather than having to refuel at sea.

Read more » INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEWS
http://www.ibtimes.com/goodbye-oil-us-navy-cracks-new-renewable-energy-technology-turn-seawater-fuel-allowing-1568455

Battery advance could boost renewable energy take-up

By Paul Rincon, Science editor, BBC News website

US researchers have made an important step forward in the quest to store electricity from intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar.

A Harvard University team came up with a way to drive down the cost of flow battery technology, which is capable of storing energy on large scales – within an electrical power grid, for example. Grid-scale storage for renewables could be a game-changer – making wind and solar more economical and reliable.

Read more » BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25674738

Russia unveils ‘unique’ dual-screen YotaPhone

A Russian company has come up with a double sided smartphone which includes an electronic paper display on the back. Yota Devices hope the revolutionary technology will help it win market share in Europe and the Middle East.

The main feature of the gadget is a black-and-white electronic paper display on the reverse of the smartphone, which is always switched on. The screen on the back mirrors the information on the main screen, without wasting energy.

“It’s a new type of gadget. With smartphones it’s always one problem – its display is always black, it always sleeps, which we think is fundamentally wrong,” Vlad Martynov, Yota Device’s Chief Executive said Reuters. “If we really hit the mark, we’ll be happy because in two to three years everyone will be copying us.”

Read more » rt.com
http://rt.com/business/revolutionary-russian-smartphone-globe-plans-696/

Operation of Jhimpir wind turbines offers a ray of hope in power gloom

By Faiza Ilyas

JHIMPIR: Although the government seems to have no immediate solution to the on-going energy crisis, a ray of hope has emerged with the successful operation of the country’s first wind farm, which has been supplying 500 to 700 megawatt-hour of electricity daily to the national grid for over two months now while another wind power project is set to begin its commercial operation in a few days, a recent visit to the site in Jhimpir showed.

Read more » DAWN
http://dawn.com/news/1032576/operation-of-jhimpir-wind-turbines-offers-a-ray-of-hope-in-power-gloom

New gas reserves in Sindh

Pakistan discovers new gas reserves in Sindh

KARACHI: Huge reserves of natural gas have been discovered in Sindh as Pakistan struggles to overcome crippling energy crisis.

According to Geo News report, 39 million cubic feet gas reserves have been discovered during the drilling of wells in Sanghar. The report said 65 percent shares of the project are owned by the PPL. According to initial estimates, 106.8 million cubic feet natural gas would be produced.

70 percent of natural gas reserves in Pakistan are located in Sindh.

Courtesy: The News

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-105916-Pakistan-discovers-new-gas-reserves-in-Sindh

First Tests For Fusion-Powered Spaceship Propulsion Successful

By Mark Hoffman

University of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are currently building components of a fusion-powered rocket, which could enable astronauts to travel to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars within weeks instead of months, at speeds considerably faster than feasible until now. The current travel speeds using fuel rockets make Mars travel a journey of about four years but the new fusion technology being tested by researchers at the University of Washington promises that in 30 to 90 days.

The lab tests have proven to be successful on each part of the process and the scientists are now planning to combine the sections into a one final and overall test.

“Using existing rocket fuels, it’s nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth,” said lead researcher John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. “We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace.”

The team has developed a technology using a special type of plasma that will be encased in a magnetic field. When the plasma is compressed with high pressure by the magnetic field, nuclear fusion takes place.

Making energy from waste : 25 MW Rachna Power Plant on the cards

LAHORE: National Industrial Parks (NIP) Development and Management Company has decided to establish a 25 megawatt (MW) power generation plant based on municipal and agro waste besides local coal or combination of these fuels for the electricity requirement of the industries at the Rachna Industrial Park on the main Lahore-Sheikhupura Road.

The Rachna Power Plant will be the first-ever power unit to be developed on the basis of waste as a source of energy. The plant’s primary fuel will be Refused Derive Fuel (RDF) prepared from a mixture of municipal solid wastes and agro wastes, while the coal would be used as a backup fuel.

The technology of an integrated recovery of recyclable materials and production of the refused derive fuel will be adopted for this power plant.

The concept of the modern waste to energy plant has been proposed for the Rachna Power Plant, which is very different from the old incinerators due to the technological progress of the last decade.

Chief Executive Officer Mohsin Syed at NIP meeting in which investors of the Rechna Industrial Park were also present said the municipal solid waste of Lahore and surrounding area and the agro wastes, which including rice husk, corn and wood waste of the adjoining areas would be collected and transported to recycle it into a real fuel that could be easily stored, transported and efficiently burned at the plant site within the premises of the Rachna Industrial Park.

He said the power generation complex was proposed to consist of one unit of 6 MW and two units of 11 MW each with total gross capacity of the 28 MW and the net capacity at site would be 25.5 MW to provide operational flexibility and reliability in case of shut down of one or more units.

The power generation facility would be located within the premises of the Rachna Industrial Park located at 7.5 kilometers (km) Lahore-Sheikhupura Road on the Upper Chenab Canal. The site is at the distance of 18 km from the

Lahore-Shekhupura Motorway Interchange, 24 km from the Lahore city centre and 40 km from the Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore and an area of 10 acres has already been earmarked for the power generation complex at the Rachna Industrial Park, the NIP chief explained.

Pakistan to do what it deems fit, says Khar

By Mariana Baabar

ISLAMABAD: As Islamabad and Tehran set up a joint contracting company to complete the construction of the $7.5 billion IP gas pipeline project within the next 15 months, Pakistan does not appear apologetic and says that any other government would have done what the PPP-led government did.

“Pakistan continues to suffer from huge energy deficiency and this directly affects our industry and GDP growth. Gas is the cheapest commodity to generate electricity. We need to look at all possible sources of energy including the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi) gas pipeline. The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline will meet only half the shortfall of energy needs of Pakistan and not our full demand. Pakistan has to do what it deems fit and what is in its national interest. Lack of economic growth has also seen peace stalled in the region,” Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told ‘The News’.

President Asif Ali Zardari is also credited widely for improving bilateral relations with Iran, investing in the region, and desperately seeking energy from a country facing severe sanctions from the West because of its nuclear policy under the guidelines of the IAEA.

Chinese takeover of Gwadar port

President Zardari announces Chinese takeover of Gwadar port

By: AFP

ISLAMABAD: China took control of Pakistan’s Gwadar port on Monday as part of its drive to secure energy and maritime routes that also gives it a potential Arabian Sea naval base, sparking Indian concern. ….

Read more » DAWN

Link – http://dawn.com/2013/02/18/president-zardari-announces-chinese-takeover-of-gwadar-port/

Going nuclear-free: Germany smashes solar power world record

Germany’s solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy on Friday, equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear plants. The country is already a world-leader in solar power and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022.

The director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster, northeast Germany, said the solar power delivered to the national grid on Saturday met 50 per cent of the nation’s energy quota.

“Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity. Germany came close to the 20 gigawatt (GW) mark a few times in recent weeks. But this was the first time we made it over,” Norbert Allnoch told Reuters news agency.

The German government decided to turn its back on nuclear energy last year after the Fukushima disaster and plans to be nuclear-free by 2022. Critics have rounded on the initiative, skeptical that renewable sources can meet the nation’s growing energy needs.

“This shows Germany is capable of meeting a large share of its electricity needs with solar power. It also shows Germany can do with fewer coal-burning power plants, gas-burning plants and nuclear plants,” stressed Allmoch. ….

Read more » The Idealist Revolution
http://www.theidealistrevolution.com/going-nuclear-free-germany-smashes-solar-power-world-record/

Major gas field discovered in Sindh

Major gas field discovered in Pakistan

ROME: Italian energy major ENI said on Wednesday it had discovered a major reserve of between 300 billion and 400 billion cubic feet of gas some 350 kilometres north of Karachi in Pakistan.

The discovery was made in the Khirthar Fold Belt region close to the ENI-operated Bhit gas processing facility, the company said in a statement.

ENI said it “confirms the presence of significant exploration potential that can be exploited through the application of new geological models.”

The company said it had begun talks with Pakistani authorities on creating a joint venture, adding that it would “help to reduce the national gas deficit.”

ENI has been in Pakistan since 2000 and is the country’s largest producer, with average production of 54,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2011.

Pakistan has had an endemic energy crisis for years, characterised by frequent blackouts, which has crippled the economy.

The crisis is blamed on chronic mismanagement and corruption.

Courtesy: DAWN.COM

http://dawn.com/2012/09/19/major-gas-field-discovered-in-pakistan/

What The Energy Cartels Don’t Want You To See

Courtesy: YouTube

The missing link to renewable energy

What’s the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage — so we can have power on tap even when the sun’s not out and the wind’s not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: “We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big.

Courtesy: Ted.com » YouTube

A Sindhi Engineer succeeded to run the CAR by water instead of Petrol/Diesel.

– – – – – – – – – –

Govt to support Water Fuel Kit Project: Cabinet body

By: PPI

ISLAMABAD: A sub-committee of the Cabinet on Thursday reiterated the government’s commitment to support the Water Fuel Kit Project to tackle energy crisis in country.

The committee strongly encouraged the Water Fuel Kit Project, as the project designer presented a tremendous demonstration of car driving on the Water Fueling system.

The committee members highly appreciated the idea of Engineer Waqar Ahmad of introducing the Water Fueling system for automobiles in the country.

Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah, talking to media persons after having practical demonstration by Engineer Waqar, said that the government would provide full support to the Ministry of Science and Technology in the development of the system.

He asked the ministry and the Pakistan Engineering Council to float the feasibility of the project as soon as possible.

It is pertinent to mention that automobiles can be driven on Water Fueling system instead of consuming petrol or CNG fuels. Sukkur-based Engr Waqar had presented the idea before the Federal Religious Minister, who appreciated it and latter took it to the Cabinet, which made the sub-committee.

In today’s demonstration, the Federal Minister himself drove the car running on the water fuel.

Replying to a question, the minister maintained that the engineer would be provided with full security and the idea would also be kept secured.

The minister said that Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh had also highly valued the project.

“We own this project, we will provide full support and we are committed to successfully complete the project” said the minister.

Chinese bank pulls out of Pakistan-Iran pipeline project

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China won’t help finance the natural gas pipeline to Pakistan, apparently because of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

By Paul Richter and Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan—

China’s largest bank has backed out of a deal to finance a proposed Iran-to-Pakistan gas pipeline that is opposed by the United States, a potential sign of the lengthening reach of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran.

Pakistani officials confirmed Wednesday that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had withdrawn from plans to head a consortium that would finance the $1.6-billion Pakistani portion of the cross-border pipeline, apparently over concern that the bank could be excluded from the U.S. economy.

DAWN – “No peace in Balochistan without referendum” – Eddie Walsh

“The hearing showed that there will be no peace in the region without a referendum of self-determination. That cannot be ignored.”

As the sole witness of Baloch ethnicity to speak at the recent Balochistan hearing before the United States Congress, M. Hossein Bor disagrees with comments that he was not relevant to the proceedings.

Not only was he the only witness able to speak as a Baloch, he points out that he also was the only one with deep subject matter expertise in foreign trade and investment in Southwest Asia. From this perspective, he hoped his testimony would have shed light on the unrealised strategic and economic opportunities that an independent Balochistan would provide to Americans, including the ability to contain a rising China and an emerging Iran, prevent an adversarial Pakistan from achieving strategic depth in Afghanistan, and ensure Baloch-American economic prosperity through new energy and mineral resource agreements. However, with little time to prepare for the hearing and only five minutes of allotted time to provide oral testimony, many of these points were not expressed. Bor therefore looks to this post-hearing assessment as a mechanism to share publicly for the first time what he has shared privately with Baloch nationalists and their supporters. As one of the five witnesses called before Congress, it is assured that these remarks will be closely watched by all side to the Baloch debate.

Great Game 2.0

To understand Balochistan, Bor believes that one cannot look at Pakistan’s largest province through the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) box. In retrospect, this is perhaps one of the strongest contributions that he could have made at the hearing.

Sindh Agriculturalists and US Aid-supported highly efficient Tube-Well

USAID/Pakistan Highlights U.S. Commitment to Helping Mitigate the Pakistan Energy Crisis through Tube Well Efficiency Improvement Program (TWEIP) in Pakistan

USAID is working with Pakistani farmers to reduce peak electricity demand through a USAID program that helps farmers replace irrigation tube well pump sets with new energy efficient pump and motor sets

via » Sindhi Excellence Team, Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, November 1, 2011.

Electric motor made from a single molecule

By Jason Palmer, Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Researchers have created the smallest electric motor ever devised.

The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology.

The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of energy can be put to efficient use.

Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

“People have found before that they can make motors driven by light or by chemical reactions, but the issue there is that you’re driving billions of them at a time – every single motor in your beaker,” said Charles Sykes, a chemist at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US.

“The exciting thing about the electrical one is that we can excite and watch the motion of just one, and we can see how that thing’s behaving in real time,” he told BBC News.

Miniature uses

The butyl methyl sulphide molecule was placed on a clean copper surface, where its single sulphur atom acted as a pivot.

The tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope – a tiny pyramid with a point just an atom or two across – was used to funnel electrical charge into the motor, as well as to take images of the molecule as it spun.

It spins in both directions, at a rate as high as 120 revolutions per second. ….

Read more → BBC

Discussion on political system of Pakistan

The language of the discussion is urdu (Hindi).

Courtesy: → ARY News Tv (Pakistan Tonight with Fahad Hussain and Maliha Lodhi, 21st July 2011 -3)

Via → Siasat.pk → YouTube

Nuclear CAN means catastrophe, especially in corruption prone countries like India and Pakistan

Nuclear power as the “shark attacks” of energy

I was at a coffee shop recently and a SWPL couple (woman had dreads to boot!) a number of tables away were reading a newspaper, and the husband expressed worry about the Fukushima disaster. The wife responded that “now other people will understand how dangerous nuclear power is,” with a sage nod. They then launched into twenty minutes of loud righteous gibberish about chemicals (I had a hard time making sense of it, despite the fact that I learned a lot about chemicals in the past due to my biochemistry background). Because they’d irritated me I was curious and I tailed them as they left. Naturally they had driven to get coffee in a S.U.V. of some sort (albeit, a modestly sized one which looked like it was more outfitted for the outdoors’ activities common in the Pacific Northwest; they’d probably done their cost vs. benefit about those chemicals!).

In terms of radiation fears, I suspect that if more people just automatically knew …

Read more : Discorver Magazine

Toledo-Hyderabad Sister City

The Honorable Michael. P. Bell, Mayor of Toledo, Ohio; Toledo Sister City International Organization and Toledo-Hyderabad Sister City Committee to celebrate the auspicious occasion of the signing of a Sister City agreement between the two great cities, Toledo, Ohio and Hyderabad, Sindh.

Sister City relationships involve cultural, economic, and educational partnerships. Members of the delegation from Hyderabad want to invest in medicine, alternative energy, media, and other industries in Toledo.

Read more : Toledo

The Perfect Government

Written by: Daniel Greenfield

Mankind has been searching for the perfect government, longer than it has been searching for the ability to transmute lead into gold. But while transmutation can turn lead into gold, no amount of energy in the world can make a government perfect. The atomic structures of every metal are a known quantity, but human beings are not. And never can be.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies not just to electrons, but even more so to the paired entanglement of government and the governed. No system that rules over men can ever work perfectly. Nor was it ever meant to. But that hasn’t stopped progressive ideologies and philosophies from trying over and over again in age after age. Their goal is to create a perfect government that can then turn out perfect men. …

Read more : Eurasiareview

Afghanistan: NATO’s mission impossible – by Shiraz Paracha

…. But in 1991, all that ended abruptly with the smooth and peaceful split of the Soviet Union. The West painted the Soviet demise as its victory. But in fact, it was the biggest shock for the huge Western military and propaganda machine.

The Cold War mindset was not ready to accept the new change. The mysterious attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’ filled the enemy vacuum for the Cold War warriors, but it did not help an organization like NATO that was created on the concept of traditional warfare.

In the post-1945 era, despite their technological superiority and military and economic power, Western countries did not fight directly against powerful states. Proxy wars were the West’s preferred method throughout the Cold War period.

Nevertheless, in the 1990s, the West opted for military interventions and regime changes. Western countries acted as a pack of wolves and attacked small and weak states. The strategy provided an opportunity to lightweights such as Bush and Blair to imitate Churchill and Roosevelt and appear strong and victorious.

But the US defeat in Iraq and the NATO’s failed mission in Afghanistan have proven that military occupations and interventions are counterproductive and expose weaknesses of occupiers and aggressors.

Today, NATO is disillusioned and disoriented. It is demanding from its member states to allocate at least two percent of their GDPs to defense budgets. In a desperate effort to keep its large and bureaucratic structures and huge budget, NATO has been adding vague, unrealistic and ambiguous aims and objectives to its mission. It has committed blunders like Afghanistan but its commanders did not seem to have learned any lessons.

Regardless of the Lisbon rhetoric, not all NATO member states can afford ever increasing military budgets to counter open-ended threats and fight unspecified enemies. Weakening European economies need trade and investment rather than wars. They rely on energy but the energy sources are out of Europe. Skilled labor and markets are beyond the geographical sphere of the most NATO states. And most NATO countries certainly do not have the will and capacity for missions impossible, like the one in Afghanistan.

To read full article : Criticalppp

Geothermal heating

News: Orly Airport, in France is embarking on a program to extract geothermal energy from underground to slash it’s heating bills. Two shafts will be drilled on the airports perimeter to access a water table warmed by the earth’s core. The water from these deep shafts will be drawn up by natural pressure; the water will emerge at the surface at 75 degrees C (165 F). The water will then be injected into the airports heating system; once the heat has been extracted the water will then be pumped back underground.

Mind!

Mind is a question-creating mechanism.Feed anything into it, out comes a question, and many questions follow. Give an answer to it, and immediately it converts it into many questions. You are here filled with many questions, your cup is already full. I have invited yo…u here – I will not give you any answers. All questions, all answers, are useless, just a wastage of energy. But I can transform you, and that is the only answer. And that one answer solves all questions. – Osho Aakash Krishna

SINDH COAL A SOURCE OF ENERGY

By Dr Ali AKbar Dhakan, Karachi, Sindh

The importance of coal has been tremendously realized in the present times of scant resources of energy throughout our country. The quality of coal found in Sindh is one of the best, and sindh is endowed with enormous potential of coal resources.Unfortunately, the coal has not been fully explored and exploited to meet energy requirements with the result that the Country is facing shortage of energy supplies.When Sindh is endowed with huge good quality lignite coal deposits suitable for electric power generation and other applications.It constitutes around 98% of total coal deposits of the country. Historically, coal has been used as a major source of energy since centuries.The industrial revolution and enhanced use of electricity was also due to coal.

Pakistan: No money, No energy, No government!

New intelligence report says Pakistan is ‘on the edge’
By Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott | McClatchy Newspapers
Courtesy and Thanks: McClatchy
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Severe economic crisis threatens Pakistan’s stability
Wave of violence worsens Pakistan’s security, economic crisis

WASHINGTON – A growing al Qaida-backed insurgency, combined with the Pakistani army’s reluctance to launch an all-out crackdown, political infighting and energy and food shortages are plunging America’s key ally in the war on terror deeper into turmoil and violence, says a soon-to-be completed U.S. intelligence assessment.
A U.S. official who participated in drafting the top secret National Intelligence Estimate said it portrays the situation in Pakistan as “very bad.” Another official called the draft “very bleak,” and said it describes Pakistan as being “on the edge.”
The first official summarized the estimate’s conclusions about the state of Pakistan as: “no money, no energy, no government.”
Six U.S. officials who helped draft or are aware of the document’s findings confirmed them to McClatchy on the condition of anonymity because NIEs are top secret and are restricted to the president, senior officials and members of Congress. An NIE’s conclusions reflect the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.