Posts Tagged ‘energy grids’
Japan’s Richest Man Unveils Scheme for $26 Billion Renewable Energy Supergrid
Son, who's known in Japan for his ballsy, high-risk ventures--he acquired a floundering mobile network and became the exclusive Japanese carrier for the iPhone and iPad--has already created a foundation for the "supergrid," which he says will eventually cost about $26 billion to create. He's already put about $13 million of his own money into the pot, and is pushing for partners to help create a whopping 1,200-mile-long grid that, he hopes, will deliver 60% of the country's energy needs from renewable sources.
The plan, unveiled Monday, was short on specifics, but would rely on both on- and offshore plants, mostly wind and geothermal energy. "Globally, wind power in particular has very good cost performance," he said at the announcement. The plan would also involve shutting down many of , which he says are a risk due to the country's high likelihood of earthquakes and tsunamis like the one that caused so much havoc .
Son promised that Softbank would chip in as much as $260 million, and is even looking beyond just Japan for this sort of grid--he says it could eventually be expanded to connect to mainland Asia, incorporating grids that cover China, Russia, and even India. According to , with frankly outrageous construction, Japan could achieve something like this, but it would mean constructing thousands of wind turbines and installing solar panels on basically every available surface. Still, there's no better time than now to embark on a massive infrastructure rebuild.
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Texas Town Installs a Monster Battery for Backup Power
The sodium sulfur battery is the largest of its type
The huge battery began charging up this week and can store up to four megawatts of power for up to eight hours. It represents the first NaS battery in Texas and the biggest in the U.S., and has already earned the local nickname of BOB (big-old battery).
Before BOB's arrival, the Texas town had an agreement with the Mexican government that allowed it to transfer the town's electrical load over to Mexico -- but that took time and left people without power for a certain period.
Similar room-sized sodium sulfur (NaS) batteries have already found growing use among U.S. utility companies that want to put off expensive or building new transmission lines. notes that the batteries, built by NGK Insulators of Japan, store energy and can help ease blackouts for cities.
Electric Transmission Texas helped put the battery project together for around $25 million. But the utility has also agreed to build a second 60-mile transmission line to Presidio for about $44 million by 2012.
Such a battery could also serve as a test bed for utility companies to see how the devices can help with energy storage regarding , such as wind power or solar power. That sounds good to us, as long as utility companies don't simply lean on the batteries as a technological crutch to avoid giving the power grid its much-needed makeover.
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