Solar Trackers: Facing the sun
Solar Trackers: Facing the Sun
The use of tracking technology allowing solar modules to follow the course of the sun (and so optimize the incident angle of sunlight on their surface) can increase electricity production by around a third, and some claim by as much as 40% in some regions, compared with modules at a fixed angle.
Generally, modules are fixed at the optimum angle for their specific latitude. However, this is the angle optimized over the course of a year, and (depending on latitude) can vary by 30° as the sun appears lower or higher in the sky. Fixing PV modules at the optimum angle typically yields an improvement of around 15% compared with simply laying them flat. Trackers, on the other hand, adapt to both the daily passage of the sun and potentially the changing seasons too. And in many concentrating solar technologies (PV and thermal), tracking is an essential component.
Revealed: Rudd’s $500m coal compo reserve
Revealed: Rudd’s $500m coal compo reserve
Exports: AM has been told the Government has at least another $500 million in reserve for the coal industry (ABC TV News – file image)
In an effort to apply maximum pressure on the Coalition over emissions trading, the Government has warned industry the compensation package on the table is as good as it gets.
But AM has been told the Government has a reserve pool of funds – at least another $500 million – available to entice some of the scheme’s staunchest critics, coal exporters, to get on side.
The Government is not commenting other than to say the assistance currently being offered is substantial and appropriate.
This silent suffering
This silent suffering
Few doubt the science of climate change – but its impact on the world’s poor is largely ignored
-
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 May 2009 16.00 BST
- Article history
Science is now unequivocal as to the reality of climate change. However, one facet – its human face – has been dangerously neglected. Until now. Given what the science tells us about global warming, how many people around the world will be affected, in what way, and at what cost?
These are the questions that a major new report attempts to answer for the first time. Its findings indicate that hundreds of millions of people are already permanently or temporarily affected, and half a billion are at extreme risk now. Because of climate change, each year hundreds of thousands lose their lives. All these figures are set to increase rapidly in as little as 10-20 years.
China, Japan on collision course over rare-earth metals
China, Japan on collision course over rare-earth metals
Leo Lewis | May 28, 2009
JAPAN’S increasingly frantic efforts to lead the world in green technology have put it on a collision course with the ambitions of China and dragged both government and industry into the murky realm of large-scale mineral smuggling.
Rare-earth metals are crucial to the fututre of battery-powered cars Picture: Bloomberg
The robust international trade in illegally mined, quota-busting rare-earth metals highlights China’s near monopoly on the raw materials for environmental technology – a 95 per cent dominance of world supply that is likely to become more widely noticed as China tightens its grip.
The weight and magnetic properties of rare-earth metals have made them important for wind turbines, essential to hybrid cars, and indispensable if the world ever hopes to covert to fully electric vehicles.
Rudd’s target slammed at global meeting
Date: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 11:06 AM
Rudd’s target slammed at global meeting
Hobart, Tuesday 2 June 2009
The Rudd Government has been awarded a “Fossil of the Day” award at the
UN Climate meeting in Bonn for its “obnoxious” conditions for moving to
a still “inadequate” emissions reduction target.
“It is clear that nobody who wants an effective outcome from global
talks is impressed by the Rudd Government’s inadequate emissions
reduction offer,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine
Milne said.
“If Australia goes to Copenhagen having legislatively locked out the
option of accepting a target stronger than 24%, it can only lower the
level of ambition from other countries and undermine the chances of a
strong global agreement.
Mist over Uluru, but heat heralds another El Nino
Mist over Uluru, but heat heralds another El Nino
Asa Wahlquist, Rural writer | June 02, 2009
VICTORIA was parched, Perth was bone dry, southeast Queensland and northern NSW were soaking wet, and almost everywhere experienced a warmer autumn than normal.
But the dry, warm season came with a warning, as meteorologists forecast that another drought-producing El Nino was on the horizon.
The Bureau of Meteorology yesterday predicted that the predominantly dry conditions experienced in autumn would probably extend through winter, further exacerbating drought conditions across large swathes of Australia.
The bureau’s Blair Trewin said most of the models of the Pacific Ocean, “both ours and the international ones, are predicting substantial warming into the second half of the year”.