Community of green energy, renewable power, electrical machinery, automation, process control...

What's geothermal power (geothermal energy)? From geothermal, comes from the Greek roots geo, meaning earth. And thermos, meaning heat. That's the meaning of geothermal power. Geothermal power is energy generated from heat stored in our earth, or the collection of absorbed heat derived from underground.

The Philippines and Iceland are the only countries to generate a significant percentage of their electricity from geothermal power sources; in both countries 15-20% of power comes from geothermal plants.

As all of us know, China is currently in a phase of rapid industrialisation and integration into the world economy. But unfortunately this has come at a high price, putting great strain on the environment through extensive use of fossil fuels and other natural resources. The difference in living standards between urban and rural areas – and between the east and west of the country – has also widened, and unemployment is rising fast.

Many are concerned that China’s long-term prosperity could be harmed by increasing social inequality and conflicts resulting from environmental pressures and eco-system degradation.

Bioenergy development has become a top government priority, and China’s law on renewable energy (alternative energy, green energy) was implemented earlier (in January 2006).

The current focus is on electricity generation from surplus agricultural residues, which are estimated at 200 million tonnes yearly. The government has set up a long-term target of 30 gigawatts of electricity generated from biomass by 2020, which will require billions of US dollars in investment. And there is also a growing interest in the development of biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol, intended to reduce oil imports, which currently account for more than 46% of China’s total oil supply – a major energy security concern for the government.

As one kind of green energy (alternative energy, renewable energy) source, bioenergy will account for one percent of China's renewable energy (alternative energy) consumption by 2010, and four per cent by 2020, some officials predicted some year ago.
 
Bio-energy strategic development in rural China will help China meet the rising demands for energy (power). 

In fact developing bio-energy in rural China will promote the development of the agriculture, rural areas and the farmers in China. 

In our last article about wind power market in the US, the US wind energy market will see a surge in 2010. And some researches show that China could at least double its current wind energy (wind power) target for 2020.

A few years ago, Energy Bureau Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Xu Dingming said: “The development of renewable energy plays a crucial strategic role in the power supply of China. Wind energy growth in China is now on a fast track and globally we believe that wind power will become the primary alternative energy in the future.”

According to one report, China’s current wind energy (wind power) plan is to reach 20 Gigawatts (GW) by 2020. And we know that Germany, the world wind energy leader today, has just under 17GW. But the experts within the Chinese wind energy industry believe that 40 Gigawatts (GW) can be delivered in 2020; rising to ten times this by 2050. This scale of wind power would need 20,000 typical modern wind turbines by 2020. The investment generated could be worth USD 40 billion; putting China on track to become the world’s biggest wind energy market by 2020.

Let's put our eyes on China's total wind energy resources.

The capacity of wind potential in viable windy locations in China is large enough.
 

2009 wind energy (wind power) capacity additions in the USA could drop to 6.5 GW in 2009 – down 24% from the record year 2008, but that 2010 could see a re-bound of 9 GW of new wind additions, and another 11 GW in 2011.

And some analysts believe that by 2020 the US could see wind power (wind energy) growth of 15.5 GW.

"The US wind industry may post its strongest year ever in 2010 when the incentive-laced economic stimulus begins to show returns and transmission build-out reaches market,” says Emerging Energy Research (EER) Senior Analyst, Matthew Kaplan.

	1	<200	<5.6
	2	200-300	5.6-6.4
	3	300-400	6.4-7.0
	4	400-500	7.0-7.5
	5	500-600	7.5-8.0
	6	600-800	8.0-8.8
	7	>800	>8.8
	*Equivalent wind speed at sea level for a Rayleigh Distribution

We paid more attention to alternative energy (renewable energy) now. Because of many reasons, many of us focus on solar energy (solar power). But it was bad news for us that the cost for using solar power (solar energy) is high.

And now there’s good news on the horizon for everyone in the market for solar photovoltaic panels: currently, demand for the sustainable energy panels is almost twice what most analysts expected, and it’s still gaining momentum.

And its demand for solar panel is expected to be twice what it is now by 2010. To prepare for this, the industry of solar power is expected to start producing solar panels and other solar-based materials at an even higher exponential rate, which in turn will drop the consumer’s price drastically.

Now we know that solar energy (solar power) panel sales were up 48% to 5.6GW in 2008, but nowadays global economic crisis will result in newly installed solar capacity reaching only 7.1GW in 2009, equivalent to a global growth rate of 26 per cent, before the strong growth resumes in 2010.

This information is according to market research firm The Information Network, which added that production of those solar panels is predominantly done in Asia. In 2008 3.3GW or 60 per cent was produced in Asia, and 1.5GW produced in Europe, and just 750MW produced in the United States.

However, while production has grown, the downturn has affected the take up of alternative energy (green energy, renewable energy) and manufacturing capacity utilisation is below 50 per cent, and similar to the semiconductor-for-IT industry.

The biomass plant is expected to generate 150 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year by consuming 130,000 tons of hippophae rhamnoides and caragana. The plants are expected to replace 80,000 tons of coal annually.

Hippophae rhamnoides, which is more commonly known as sea buckthorn, is a rugged plant that reaches maturity in about four to five years. It has thorny branches and edible berries, which can be used to make medical oils. The mature plant can be cold-, wind-, salt-, and drought-tolerant.

Caragana, which is also called the Siberian peashrub, is also a fast-growing shrub tolerant of cold temperatures and drought.
 

1. biomass - including wood and wood waste, municipal solid waste, landfill and biogas, ethanol, and biodiesel
2. water (hydropower or hydro power)
3. geothermal
4. wind energy 
5. solar power

Today is 05 Jun 2006, a different day, World Environment Day.

We used to utilize crude oil, coal and other conventional energy. But now we know climate change effects will be increasingly felt by people from all walks of life. Although those conventional energy used by us only bring a part of these bad effects, the world will be better if the use of those conventional energy is reduced everyday.