A new design of wind turbine has broken the world record for the most amount of power generated in a 24-hour period.
Siemens Gamesa said its 14-222 DD offshore prototype generated 359 megawatt-hours in just one day – enough to power 18,000 households or a Tesla Model 3 for more than a million miles.
The renewable energy breakthrough was achieved using a set of “revolutionary” blades that are cast in a single piece of recyclable resin.
Air pollution has got far worse in 46 future megacities in tropical Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the study reveals. The deterioration in air quality has led to 180,000 extra deaths due to the combination of city expansion and worsening air pollution between 2005 and 2018.
Agricultural burning from the areas around the cities is one of the main causes. But the deterioration is driven mostly by new sources such as fertiliser use in nearby farms and increased transport and industry. Problems with waste burning, including the burning of plastics, are widespread too. Cities in India are also being affected by new coal power stations that are being built in the country.
Canada has begun supplying the world with minerals critical to a greener economy with the country’s first rare earth mine delivering concentrated ore.
“Canada and its allies are gaining independence from the rare earth supply chain from China,” said David Connelly of Cheetah Resources, which owns the Nechalacho Mine southeast of Yellowknife.
Rare earths are a series of exotically named elements such as ytterbium, lanthanum and gadolinium. They are crucial to computers, LED displays, wind turbines, electric cars and many other products essential to a low-carbon world.
Fossil fuel companies have access to an obscure legal tool that could jeopardize worldwide efforts to protect the climate, and they’re starting to use it. The result could cost countries that press ahead with those efforts billions of dollars.
The treaties allow investors to sue governments for compensation in a process called investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. In short, investors could use ISDS clauses to demand compensation in response to government actions to limit fossil fuels, such as canceling pipelines and denying drilling permits. For example, TC Energy, a Canadian company, is currently seeking more than US$15 billion over U.S. President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
On March 29, wind turbines produced more electricity than coal and nuclear, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an agency that collects energy statistics for the government, says.
In the past, wind-powered electricity has gone beyond coal and nuclear on separate days, but this was the first time wind surpassed both on the same day. Natural gas is still the largest source of electricity generation in the country.
