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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 16 Feb 2016 05:23pm
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I thought this was interesting. The article caught my eye because the headline indicated that the world's first net carbon-zero town has failed and I wanted to know more about that and what technologies didn't work out.
But as I read, I was astonished to see that the richest country and one of the biggest oil producers in the world -- the United Arab Emirates -- has been transitioning far away from oil/fossil fuels for a while now. Here's a quote:
The UAE spent $20bn on a nuclear power plant, still under construction, projected to produce close to 25% of its electricity by 2020. The country is also building what has been billed as the world's biggest solar farm in Dubai, and to install rooftop solar on every home in the emirate by 2030.
The first 25 families have moved into a net-zero emissions residential neighbourhood in Dubai, with plans for a solar-powered hotel and school. "Whether we are an oil state or not, we need to take care of the Earth and future generations," said Emil Samarah, one of the developers.
With the downward pressure from oil prices, the UAE has stepped up its efforts to wean itself off oil, lifting fossil fuel subsidies and billing Emiratis – not just expatriates – for water and electricity.
The future of energy is green technology. Even the major oil-producers see that. If the US clings to oil/natural gas and doesn't become a major player in green technology development and production, then we will once again be late to the party and reliant on other countries for our energy technology/products. We need to wake up.
Here's the article link, if anyone is interested in reading more. I thought it was interesting that these oil-producing countries are quite keen on electric cars and public transport.
For our purposes, I think that it's important to invest in our off-grid technologies, especially wind and solar, as soon as possible before countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE enter the market and prices go up. Clearly, they're doing the research.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/masdars-zero-carbon-dream-could-become-world%e2%8 0%99s-first-green-ghost-town/ar-BBpznZI?ocid=spartanntp
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Coyote Flats
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# Posted: 17 Feb 2016 11:07am
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In the past couple of decades the research was on the off grid systems but that's changing now as the research is going to focus on the on grid systems because that's where people are installing it more and more. One improvement coming up in next couple of years will be batteries. The number of charge cycles are going to more than double making a well maintained battery last twice as long.
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 17 Feb 2016 06:47pm
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Coyote Flats
Yeah, I've been keeping a close eye on battery technology and availability! But, alas, I'm running out of time and will be moving within the next few months so I will have to commit and make that initial investment.
There's another interesting possibility, one that is worrying the electric providers. We're fast getting to the point where new subdivisions can be built with their own micro solar power plants to serve a number of homes. I read an article about this recently. Each home buyer would contribute X amount of dollars toward its cost as part of the price of the home and the homes themselves would be energy-efficient, built to accommodate/maximize the solar use.
With the price of oil and natural gas very low (and, clearly, the Gulf Nations not interested in cutting output that would raise the price of oil because they really don't have to do that), the UAE, China, and who knows what other countries developing solar power components and green technologies, we'd better get with it and manufacture our OWN products for our use and export. The US is turning into an energy dinosaur. 
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