500 People for Israel Plant Trees in the Galilee

Over people have come on this trip from all parts of this trip from all parts of the United States. As Christians, we came to Israel to say – we're with you! Israel's fight is our fight, especially now. More than 70% of the American people stand solidly behind Israel, and we want the people of Israel to know that we support them," said Pastor John Hagee, the founder and national chairman of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), in a phone interview on Thursday, September 11. 

 

At exactly the same time, his followers, members of CUFI, were planting at the KKL-JNF Golani tree planting center in the Lower Galilee. The members of the mission, many of whom were visiting Israel for the first time, arrived in ten busloads, each of which was accompanied by a spiritual guide and a tour guide who described KKL-JNF's work on behalf of Israel and the environment during their trip in the north of Israel.  

Hagee is also the president and CEO of John Hagee Ministries. His national radio and television ministry is broadcast in the United States on ten television networks and reaches more than 150 million households. He has been to Israel more than two dozen times and has met with every Israeli prime minister since Menachem Begin. 

"If you take away the Jewish contribution from Christianity, there's no Christianity. God promised Israel to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For us, support for Israel is a religious imperative, not a political issue. God has an everlasting covenant with the Jewish people, and forever means forever – right now, and a thousand years from now." 

SunPower has Produced 1 Billion Solar Cells

California-based solar cell manufacturer, solar module manufacturer, and solar power developer SunPower said recently that it had produced its one billionth solar cell. The company started making them 11 years ago. SunPower solar cells are high efficiency compared to other commercially available cells, currently achieving about 24.2% efficiency. When the company started making them in 2003, the efficiency was 20%.

Regarding the news, CEO Tom Werner said: “SunPower is proud of the role we’ve played to help the global adoption of solar, which, over the past 11 years has experienced a 45 percent annual growth rate resulting in nearly 155 gigawatts of installed power capacity today. This is enough to offset the electricity needs of over 25 million homes.”

SunPower is adding more fabrication capacity. A new 350 MW facility is expected to start producing in early 2015. This one will be in the Philippines, but might not reach full production capacity until the year after 2015. However, a 1.8 GW factory is being planned for construction in 2017.

If SunPower’s average annual solar cell production was about 90,000 solar cells, it appears that SunPower will go well beyond this output. So the next billion solar cells they produce will probably occur in just a handful of years.

Werner remarked: “The SunPower team has worked continually to improve our manufacturing and cost reduction processes in concert with advancements in research and development, always raising our own innovation bar. Solar is now more affordable, with demand for the residential, commercial and utility scale power plant markets at historic highs.”

SunPower’s solar cells are known for efficiency and reliability. It will be fascinating to see what happens in the solar industry over the next two years. If prices continue dropping, it appears that both consumer and commercial demand will rise.

Tesla’s gigafactory may become operational by 2017, and there could be a SunPower gigafactory coming online not long afterwards. How long will it take for SunPower to get its next billion solar cells?

Sunpower’s headquarters are in San Jose but the company also has offices in other North American locations, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe. Founded in 1985, it has about 5,200 employees.

Maruti Suzuki aims to make hybrids affordable

Maruti Suzuki is working on a low-cost hybrid technology to make its cheap-to-own cars even more frugal. Maruti is aiming to make hybrids affordable and wants to offer the technology on cars right from the Alto, the cheapest in its product portfolio, to the Swift premium hatchback over the next three to four years, said people with knowledge of the carmaker's plans. In the process, it is taking the 'Kitna Deti Hai' (how many miles does it give) slogan to the next level.

 These people said Maruti's hybrid solution could deliver 20-30% more fuel economy. Hybrid vehicles usually have a non-conventional propulsion system, such as an electric motor, in addition to the engine that runs on conventional fuel. They also often include mechanisms to capture energy, such as while braking, to recharge the battery. While hybrid vehicles offer better fuel efficiency and are more environment friendly, heftier price compared with those running on conventional fuels has been the biggest hurdle for their wider adoption globally. 

Finland's Biggest Waste-to-Energy Plant Opens

Vantaan Energia officially opened a new waste-to-energy incinerator on Wednesday. The new plant is Finland’s biggest of its kind, and will produce half of the district heating demand and 30 percent of the electricity needed in the municipality of Vantaa, part of the greater Helsinki area.

The facility has been thoroughly tested, with the first waste entering the system this spring. It’s the biggest investment the local electricity company has ever made, replacing one unit at the company’s existing incinerator in Malminlaakso.

30 percent cut in carbon-dioxide footprint

Around 320,000 metric tons of rubbish will arrive at the plant every year, before it is sorted and incinerated to produce some 920 gigawatt-hours of heat and 600 gigawatt-hoursof electricity. That will reduce Vantaan Energia’s carbon output by 30 percent.

The plant’s emissions will be monitored continually, and the unit will be shut down if it exceeds a certain limit. Handling waste in this way is becoming more common in Finland, but the country still lags behind neighboring Sweden. About 90 percent of Swedish waste is recycled or used to produce energy, while in Finland the corresponding figure is just 40 percent.

The new plant will burn rubbish collected across the Uusimaa region of southern Finland.

1mn Tyres at Waste Management Facility

Besides treating 2,300 tonnes of domestic wastes, the Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre (DSWMC) is also home to 1mn old tyres occupying a certain area at the 300 hectare facility.

DSWMC general manager Oon Ee Heng said they had stopped taking more since the allotted lot has reached its maximum capacity.

He noted that it was safe to stock 1mn tyres at an open area, with appropriate measures to prevent fire.

He also disclosed that the area for tyres had rooms for expansion. However, the establishment of an 8-tonne per hour plant for recycling tyres will cost about $20mn. He estimates it as around 1.3mn tyres per year – an average of one tyre per person a year (benchmark).

Two other smaller (unlined) landfills also operate at Al Owaina and Rawdat Rasheed for disposal of construction and demolition wastes.

The DSWMC is operated by Singaporean company Keppel Seghers which was awarded two contracts by the Ministry of Municipality Affairs and Agriculture in Qatar (now known as the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning) to design and build four waste transfer stations and one integrated DSWMC and to maintain it for 20 years.

The facility is comprised of state-of-the-art waste sorting and recycling facilities, an Anaerobic Digestion composting plant, a 1,500-tonne-per-day incineration plant, and a sanitary landfill satisfying the most advanced standards in the world.

Keppel Seghers uses “dano drum” in treating mixed domestic wastes, separating recyclable materials from organic wastes.

The entire process of waste treatment can help recover 90% of metals and 50% plastics for recycling.

Organic waste is sent to the Anaerobic Digestion and Composting plant to produce soil enhancers for agriculture use and landscaping.

The remaining non-recyclable waste is sent to an advanced and fully controlled incineration process to generate clean energy.

Heng also expects wastes to grow due to the rapidly increasing population in Qatar.

“I know that the rate of population growth in this country is very fast, one can think what will happen in the next couple of years to come,” he added.

Waste Growth Rate is about 10% fuelled by rapid development, high GDP, rapid population growth and increasing living standards.

Domestic waste is collected by General Clean Project managed by Q-Kleen which sends it to the four transfer stations.

Indian Giants Bet on Renewable Energy Space

In mid-2014, Banmali Agrawala, president and CEO of GE South Asia, journeyed from the steel and chrome of his office building in Gurgaon to a village in Maharashtra's Satara district, some seven hours south of Mumbai. This wasn't an opportunity for the $146-billion GE to scout for some new business in the hinterland; instead, Agrawala, a former Tata Power executive, was visiting the wind farms of Greenko, a renewable energy developer. 

Since October 2011, when GE made a $50-million investment in Greenko, its wind energy capacity has increased from 65 MW to over 600 MW in 2014. Investors had flocked to the firm too, most recently in July this year when it raised $550 million in an overseas bond sale (the largest debt sale by a firm with low or sub-investment grade ratings). Greenko's order book is valued at over $1.4 billion.

Agrawala sees a spring in the step of renewable energy developers. "I think things have changed," he says. "Traditional energy sources have faced serious challenges for the past three or four years and this has pushed developers towards renewable energy." He contends that while the earlier phase was driven by tax breaks, this round will be more focused on building long-term businesses. "Now, we have a more serious set of players...their emphasis is not on that one-off tax break, but on building power projects that will run for a long time and operate efficiently and profitably," he adds.

Rush of Players

GE and Greenko are hardly the only two firms eyeing the renewable energy opportunity. Across the country, a raft of companies ranging from global conglomerates such as GE to Indian giants such as the Tatas, Aditya Birla Group, Adani Group, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Mahindra Group are all rushing to make investments and expand their renewable energy pipeline.

While some conglomerates are vocal about their ambitions, two of them are flying under the radar. Mukesh Ambani, India's richest person and promoter of RIL, has only made occasional statements of his interest in renewable energy. "We will transit from [a] hydrocarbon presence which is coal, oil and natural gas into a fully renewable, sustainable future over the next many decades and solar really will be at the heart of it," Ambani said in a TV interview last year. RIL's Reliance Solar has been quietly working on building both upstream clean energy products such as home lighting systems and solar lanterns as well as products used in building renewable energy plants.

Another ambitious billionaire, Gautam Adani, who plans to build over 20,000 MW capacity in power by 2020, is also considering expanding in this space. After unveiling his first solar project in 2012, as the economy has picked up and renewable energy norms improved, Adani is interested in renewable projects across the country, a spokesperson said without providing further details.

Joining these conglomerates is a clutch of start-up renewable energy firms such as Greenko, ReNew Power and Azure Power that have announced plans to expand. Investors too are jumping into the fray, with marquee names such as IFC (a World Bank company), KKR and speciality investors such as Berkeley Energy willing to provide financing. Add to this power gear makers frantically looking to keep pace — one wind energy equipment manufacturer was swamped with over a hundred enquiries in August — and this is an industry with a new sense of purpose. The rush for renewables is perhaps most evident with the deluge of orders power gear companies like ABB, Bhel and Alstom are racing to fulfil. ABB is seeing a strong rise in demand for power electronics for wind turbine manufacturers and plant engineering solutions and substations for wind farms that connect the facility to the main grid. In May this year, the state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) opened a Rs 3,000-crore solar fab unit in Maharashtra and in September commenced work on a 20-MW solar power plant in Odisha. French giant Alstom is a top provider of equipment for hydroelectric projects and is now looking to expand its presence.

Supply Issues

There is little doubt that India needs the power generated by renewable energy projects. The country has a peak power deficit of some 5% and the conventional power units expected to fill the breach are months, if not years, behind schedule. Renewable power project developers don't have to worry about issues such as fuel linkages and price escalations and their projects take a few months to get operational. Add to this falling power prices (wind power is today cheaper or comparable, per unit, to the power spluttered out by diesel gensets, for example). With the government making a firm push to promote renewable power — tax rebates, focused schemes, and possibly fixed tariffs instead of competitive bidding for solar power — the excitement in the sector is only expected to grow.

Suzlon Goes Large on blades for its Wind Turbines

Indian manufacturer Suzlon has produced the first 54.8-metre blade for its S111 2.1MW wind turbine.

The S111 evolved from the S88 and S97 2.1MW family and is engineered to deliver a 20% increase in annual energy production over the S97, the company said.

Project manager Laurens van der Sande said: “The first SB54 blade is the longest and cleanest aerodynamic profile Suzlon has ever produced.

“This milestone has been achieved due to an effective integration between the product design, production unit and the tool design. The result is reflected in a shorter production timeline with a high yield product.”

Suzlon Group chairman Tulsi Tanti added: “We believe in offering optimal energy solutions to our clients, which is why we continue to leverage on our technological edge and create products that derive maximum energy yield. The S111/SB54 blade is based on previous Suzlon designs with innovative and optimized improvements.”

The first S111 turbine prototypes are being assembled and will be erected and tested later this year in India and in the US. Certification is expected in the first half of 2015.