If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Readers and Friends,
During my week at Kauai, outside of the 1.21 MW ground mounted PV system on 5 acres on windward side of Kauai and solar panels on top of the roofs of Kauai Community College, I did not see as many solar installations as I hoped/expected, given its plentiful sunshine and all of the terrific incentives mentioned in March 30, 2012, post of http://sunisthefuture.net . So, in this post, I’d like to share one more factor/method to help reduce the cost of acquiring solar PV for individuals or businesses in Kauai, hoping this will help to encourage more people in Kauai to think of installing solar .
I understand that part of the cost of installing solar panels/PV is the actual installation. Some/many people may feel that this is still a rather new technology and may shy away from considering installing/maintaining the equipment themselves/yourselves or even considering getting it. So, now I would like to ask you, residents of Kauai and/or Hawaii, to consider taking some training courses locally to gain some understanding of what/how you may benefit from such installations. Case in point, Kauai Community College has offered a course, Solar Photovoltaic Entry Level-Understanding Photovoltaic System Design Basics. This course will cover: PV markets and applications;safety basics;electricity basics;solar energy fundamentals;PV module fundamentals;system components;PV system sizing principles;PV system electrical design;PV system mechanical design; performance analysis, maintenance & troubleshooting. Successful completion of this course will demonstrate that students achieved a basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of the design, application, installation and operation of grid-tied and stand-alone PV systems. Below is the contact information and location of Kauai Community College:
Kaua’i Community College, Office of Continuing Education & Training, 3-1901 Kaumualii Hwy., Lihu’e, HI 96766. For class registration: (808)245-8318 or (808)245-8336
Kauai Community College-Can you see the solar panels on top of the roof?-Photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Kauai Community College-Now you can really see those solar PV's-Photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
If you prefer to take online courses/workshops to gain better understanding about the solar PV, there are more and more courses available at different levels coming online. For example, the Solar Living Institute (at Ukiah, CA) offers solar training courses online, yearly internships, and hosts SolFest (the renewable energy festival that attracts more than 10,000 people each year). Here is a short demo of how The Solar Living Institute offers professional solar training options from the comfort of your home. This solar training course is highly interactive and is based on NABCEP (North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioner) learning objectives. Check out this demo, below:
There are many routes in obtaining better understanding of solar energy and how we can transition into our world of renewable energy age. Just look around ! Or, you can always email me at sunisthefuture@gmail.com . I’d be happy to help you out.
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Readers and Friends,
Recalling the March 29, 2012 post in http://sunisthefuture.net , Kauai Leading the Way For Solar in Hawaii, there is further development of Kauai’s solar energy projects in 2012. In January of this year, a 12 megawatt project, a joint venture between the island’s utility co-op and Homestead Community Development Corporation, was announced for the island. This project was awarded to REC Solar. “This coalition demonstrates the innovative spirit and concern for the environment that has made Hawaii home to the nation’s second highest installed solar capacity per capita, and we are excited to move this project forward. Solar is bankable, proven way to grow KIUC’s (Kauai Island Utility Cooperative)’s renewable generation portfolio and meet the energy needs of Hawaii”, indicated by CEO of REC Solar.
This 12 megawatt project could potentially power about 8,000 homes or possibly 24,000 people (representing more than one third of the island’s permanent population) (estimate based on http://www.caiso.com/about/Pages/OurBusiness/UnderstandingtheISO/Understanding-electricity.aspx). The operation of this solar plant will reduce imported oil consumption by almost 12,000 barrels per year, preventing the emissions of 567,000 pounds of NOx, SOx, and CO2 over its twenty year life. For this tropical paradise where tourism accounts for a significant portion of the island’s revenue, preservation of its natural beauty and being free from pollution matter a great deal. It is no wonder that there are tremendous incentives given/provided for residents of Hawaii/Kauai to go solar: government may pay up to 55% for residential solar installation costs;government may pay up to 85% of commercial solar installation costs. Please allow me to show you this island of paradise, Kauai, where natural beauty will more likely be preserved through replacement of fossil fuel by solar energy.
Jurassic Fall (where part of Jurassic Park was filmed) of Kauai, Photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Sun shines through cloud of Kauai, Photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Video clip of Kauai, below:
It’s no brainer, both financially and environmentally feasible, GO SOLAR!
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Friends & Readers,
Today, I want to take you to an island where more than seventy Hollywood movies and TV shows had been featured (including the musical South Pacific, television series Lilo & Stitch, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones’ Raiders of the Lost Ark, Six Days Seven Nights, the 2005 remake of King Kong, John Ford 1963 film Donovan’s Reef, Tropic Thunder, a scene in opening credit of popular TV show M*A*S*H (helicopter flying over mountain top), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, parts of the 2002 film Dragonfly, major parts of 1966 Elvis Presley film Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and the recently released The Descendants (featuring George Clooney as the lead actor), etc. Now, do you have the name of the island at the tip of your tongue? If you are thinking about the oldest and the fourth largest of the main Hawaiian Islands also known as the “Garden Isle”, then you are on the right track! At about 105 miles (169 km) northwest of O’ahu, across the Kauai Channel, is the site of Waimea Canyon State Park, also known as the Kauai island of Hawaii.
Idyllic Garden Isle of Kauai, with swaying palms, mountains, beautiful clouds, and taro pond (Photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker)
Beautiful sunset of Kauai (Photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker)
I came and spent about a week at this Garden Isle, Kauai, not just for its idyllic scenery and laid back island pace of life, but also to visit its various solar installations, the largest system of its kind in the state of Hawaii. Hawaii’s imported energy costs are three times higher, and will soon to be close to four times higher than the mainland. With its tropical location providing lots of sunshine, it is no wonder that Hawaii has great motivation to become one of the highest users of solar energy among our fifty states. Currently Hawaii solar incentives include generous rebates for solar electric and solar hot water systems. Combining with Federal solar rebates, the solar panel installations for residents and businesses in Hawaii would cost approximately 65% less. Please refer to this link for Hawaii’s energy tax credit, solar rebates, and incentives.
Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) spends tens of millions of dollars for oil to power generators each year to make electricity for approximately 60,000 residents and tourists on the island. When oil prices increase they have no option but to pay even more. Generating electricity from clean and renewable sources make much better sense financially and environmentally. In 2010-2011, REC Solar completed the designing, procuring, and managing the installation of a 1.21 MW ground mounted photovoltaic system on 5 acres of non-productive agricultural land above old Kapaa Town on the windward side of Kauai. It was the largest system of its kind in the state of Hawaii and in Kauai at the time (2011). Here is a video clip about this project, below:
The project partners KIUC and Kapaa Solar LLC, who financed the system and negotiated a power purchased agreement (PPA) with KIUC. “KIUC has long acknowledged that significant investments in additional renewable energy generation will be required for us to achieve our strategic goals of being 50 percent renewable by 2023,” said KIUC Acting President and CEO David Bissell. “This first utility-scale solar farm on Kauai allows us the opportunity to determine and better understand the physical limitations of high penetration PV on a distribution circuit and to work through some specific technicalities associated with adding large scale intermittent renewables to our generation mix.” The system will produce an estimated 1.8 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy annually, enough energy to power close to 300 Kauai homes for one year. This solar system will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 40,000 tons throughout the first 30 years of the system’s life. Please stay tuned in for more on solar energy project in Kauai in the next post.
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Friends and Readers,
This week, on Wednesday (March 21, 2012), President Obama made his first stop at the Boulder City (about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas), Nevada, at Copper Mountain Solar 1 during his two-day energy tour, drawing attention to the ever expanding solar industry and to take on anti-solar lobby. During President Obama’s speech at Boulder City, he reaffirmed his commitment to an “all the above” approach to domestic energy production and refer to the solar energy sector as an “industry on the rise”. President Obama’s speech at Copper Mountain Solar 1, below:
There is good reason why Copper Mountain Solar 1 was selected to be the first stop for President’s two day energy tour. The Copper Mountain Solar Facility is a 48 megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic power plant in Boulder City, Nevada. Sempra Generation built the plant from Jan., 2010 to Dec., 2010 at a cost of about $141 million. When the facility entered service, it was the largest photovoltaic plant in the U.S. (the previous record holder for the largest U.S. solar power plant was the 20 MW DeSoto PV plant in Arcadia, FL). At its construction peak more than 350 workers were installing the 775,000 First Solar panels on the 450 acre site. An expansion of the facility by more than 200 MW was approved in 2010. On August 4, 2011, Sempra announced a plan to expand the facility by 92 MW to be online in January of 2013 and another 58 MW to be added by 2015. The power from Copper Mountain Solar and Sempra Generation’s adjacent 10 MW El Dorado Solar plant has been sold to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) under separate 20 year power purchase agreement.
Solar 1 is the original 48 MW 1st phase with an expansion
Solar 2 is the under construction 150 MW phase 2
Solar 3 is a proposed 220 MW phase 3
When President Obama visited the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility in Nevada Wednesday, he had a first-hand look at the first large-scale facility equipped with solar forecasting devices called the sky imagers. Sky imagers are essentially fish-eye lenses that capture a 360-degree view of the horizon and generate a 3-D model of the clouds being observed. This device is connected to a sophisticated forecasting system that uses what it observes to predict solar output in 15-minute increments. Sky imagers and their algorithms are the brain child of Jan Kleissl,
Professor Jan Kleissl of UC San Diego. Credit:UC San Diego
an environmental engineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. Earlier this month Professor Kleissl’s research and solar forecasting at UC San Diego received $1.5 million grant from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC);he is the principal investigator on the grant with another professor of environmental engineering at the Jacobs School Carlos Coimbra This grant funds research to refine forecasting methods and work with San Diego Gas & Electric to help integrate solar power to the energy grid. In addition to the CPUC funding, the project is receiving matching funds from SDG&E (San Diego Gas & Electric), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the California Energy Commission and the Department of Energy. “As California continues to integrate higher amounts of solar energy into the grid, demonstration projects like these will maximize the value of solar energy by providing predictable generation profiles that grid operators can rely on,” said CPUC President Michael R. Peevey. The two researchers/scientists and their teams plan on developing comprehensive forecast models that predict solar power output based on how much sunlight can be found at a specific location and how it fluctuates. Their sensor network now extends beyond San Diego to include many sites along the Pacific Rim, from Bellingham, Washington, to Oahu, Hawaii. This type of forecasting projects could reduce unpredictability of solar power and potentially generate significant savings for utility companies.
One thing to be certain, there are much work and opportunities in solar sector waiting to be discovered, for entrepreneurs, academic researchers and scientists, and homeowners and renters alike. As long as we continue to be optimistically active, there’s much needing to be done!
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Friends & Readers,
Today, I want to share a special treat with you that was received from taking an alternate route to the post office. This is the first time for me to have ever observed such a special and rare phenomenon. Naturally, I took out my IPhone and took a few shots, wondering how it was formed, shared below:
Fire Rainbow (on the way to post office) photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Moving Fire Rainbow (on the way to post office) photographed by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
After I pointed it (what appeared to be a fragment of a rainbow) out to my hubby (who happened to be in the car sitting next to me), he became quite ecstatic because he just read about this phenomenon on Reddit today;it was mentioned under the topic of Fire Rainbow. Yes, one more item on the list of “firsts” that I brought to my hubby, from gardening/ perennials, vitamins/supplements, yoga, solar car race, unusual foods and spices, etc. and now the fire rainbow. Upon further investigation online, I found out that it/fire rainbow is fragment of Circumhorizontal Arc.
As it turned out, fire rainbow is a rare phenomenon that appears when the sun is high which makes its rays pass through the high cirrus clouds containing the ice crystals.
For a clip of these Fire Rainbow or Circumhorizontal Arc:
For further understanding and sharing of this rare phenomenon, please also enjoy more of the photos and explanations from Wikipedia below:
A circumhorizontal arc
Sun Arc/Horizontal Arc of 2011 at Oregon-Fire Rainbow (Wikimedia Commons)
The current accepted names are circumhorizonal arc or lower symmetric 46° plate arc. The complete halo is a huge, multi-colored band running parallel to the horizon with its centre beneath the sun. The distance below the sun is twice as far as the common 22-degree halo. Red is the uppermost color. Often, when the halo-forming cloud is small or patchy, only fragments of the arc are seen.
Fire Rainbow-Circumhorizontal Arc of Idaho (photographed in Coeur d'Alene by Gavin Anderson, June 3, 2006)
Fire Rainbow at Ravenna, MI-Circumhorizontal arc, Creative Commons
How often a circumhorizontal arc is seen depends on the location and the latitude. In the United States it is a relatively common halo seen several times each summer in any one place. In contrast, it is rare to non-observable in northern Europe.
Formation of the halo requires that the sun be very high in the sky, at an elevation of 58° or more, and that the cirrus cloud or haze contain plate-shaped ice crystals. The sun’s altitude determines the visibility of the halo; it is impossible to see at locations north of 55°N or south of 55°S (although a lunar circumhorizon arc might be visible). At other latitudes it is visible for a greater or lesser time around the summer solstice. For example, in London, England, the sun is only high enough for 140 hours between mid May and late July. Contrast that with Los Angeles with the sun higher than 58 degrees for 670 hours between late March and late September.
The halo is formed by sunlight entering horizontally-oriented flat hexagon ice crystals through a vertical side face and leaving through the near horizontal bottom face (plate thickness does not affect the formation of the halo). In principle, Parry oriented column crystals can also produce the arc, although this is rare.
The 90° inclination between the ray entrance and exit faces produce the well-separated spectral colors.
The arc has a considerable angular extent and is thus rarely complete. When only fragments of cirrus cloud are in the appropriate sky/sun position they can appear to shine with spectral colors.
Fire Rainbow off of the Coast of Carrillo (Creative Commons)
A circumhorizontal arc can be difficult to distinguish from an infralateral arc when the sun is high in the sky. The former is always parallel to the horizon whereas the latter curves upwards at its ends.
I hope you have enjoyed this piece. Remember to look up into the sky from time to time because you’ll never know what treasure/treat you might discover. Did you notice that most adults do not look up (or around, for that matter) that often…perhaps that explains why adults tend to get stiff necks far more frequently than children (who look up quite often). Look up and take an alternate route periodically, so you’re more likely to discover something surprisingly intriguing.
Cheers!
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Readers and Friends,
A solar manufacturing company established by the Panasonic Corporation, Panasonic Energy Malaysia Sdn Bhd, is investing RM 1.84 billion (according to Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia) for its fully integrated solar manufacturing base in Malaysia, located at the Kulim Hi-Tech Park in Kedah, Malaysia.
Kulim Hi-Tech Park Business Center of Kedah, Malaysia
This manufacturing facility will undertake the integrated manufacturing of solar wafers, solar cells, and solar modules with an estimated annual production capacity of 300 megawatt (MW). The company’s current global capacity is 600 MW from its factories in Japan, Hungary, and Mexico.
The decision in establishing its facilities at Kulim Hi-Tech Park is mainly due to lowering the total cost per watt of modules being produced. Other attributing factors include the availability and readiness of human resources;well developed and reliable transportation system, close proximity to airports, seaports, and rail;stable political environment;effective and efficient government delivery systems; business friendly policies and favorable tax incentives.
Kulim Hi-Tech Park (KHTP) was established in 1996 as Malaysia’s first high-tech industrial park, envisioned to be the “Science City of the Future.” It is the home of high-tech facilities of companies such as Infineon Technologies, Intel, Applied Materials, Fuji Electronics, First Solar, and dozens of others.
Maeda, the person in charge of of the solar business for Panasonic Energy Company Japan, said solar panel sales had dropped for the last three years, but not its HIT (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-layer) solar modules. “With increasing environment awareness globally and the introduction of subsidy systems as well as a Feed-In-Tariff scheme in various countries, the solar market is predicted to grow further,” he commented that the robust demand is expected particularly in the residential sector, the main target area for HIT modules. The plant is expected to employ 1500 people and has a total built-area of 70,000 square meters. The products manufactured in Kulim will be sold all over the world.
Below, you will see a video clip from PanasonicNewsPortal about this facility:
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear friends and readers,
Few days after my meet at San Francisco, CA, with Milepointer-Kiva DOers, I emailed one of Kiva’s strategic planners. I see Kiva (a microfinance global organization) as a vehicle to help magnify development of businesses, particularly for potential solar or renewable energy businesses for countries/locations with less developed infra-structures. Below, is the letter/email I’d like to share with you:
Hi, Michelle,
It was wonderful to meet you at Kiva’s DO in SF, CA, even if only for few minutes. I was so energized by all the positive energy that I started a Sunisthefuture Team at Kiva.
Since I am also running a site, http://sunisthefuture.net to bring greater awareness to general public about solar energy, I have come across many projects and feel that these projects will work beautifully with/Kiva and help to speed up the process of conversion of our planet into the renewable, cleaner, and safer world. So, I’d like to share some links with you:
There are several already established organizations that used to provide basic solar cookers…but may have stopped.
Making solar cookers available (at low costs) will solve much fuel, pollution problems, not to mention protecting women and children (who are usually the gatherers of firewood, often late at nights or going to places where they may become victims of rapes or harm). Solar cookers also help to solve much of the problems associated with water borne diseases. There is E4C (Engineers For Change) organization that had come up with different solar cooker designs that will work at night (in the fifth post/link above).
3. Haiti Empowerment Project-Solar Energy Project via Michigan State University (Jan. 23, 2012 post of http://sunisthefuture.net):
I am hoping that educators from various universities working on empowerment projects will help to educate Kiva’s field partners about
potential solar energy business ideas and help to spread the use of solar energy and starting of solar businesses. The Kiva lenders will be looking forward to helping to fund these businesses.
4. University of the People, the world’s first tuition-free online university at: http://www.uopeople.org/
It may be tuition free, but interested students still need to provide a small fee (this is where Kiva may help). Providing education is the most efficient way to bring people out of poverty and find ways to solve world problems. Kiva and its lenders will be able to help students/people from all over the world to cooperatively reach the goal of obtaining education for these students/people who otherwise would not have been able to achieve this goal.
I see the potential of these organizations/businesses cooperating with Kiva and magnify the ability for Kiva to do a great deal of global good.
Finally, I’d like to invite you and your friends to read/listen to over 120 posts/video clips about solar energy at http://sunisthefuture.net so we can all spread more sunshine across our planet.
~have a bright and sunny day~
sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
I hope this letter/email will serve as a catalyst to many future cooperative businesses/projects at Kiva to spread more sunshine across our planet and increase the chance of a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous world for all of us. If you have any suggestions/ideas/comments for potential solar/renewable/green energy businesses, please feel free to email me at sunisthefuture@gmail.com . Please keep in mind that I am soliciting for business ideas that may be applicable to any part of the world.
~let’s spread the sunshine~
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Friends & Readers,
I met some terrifically energized people this past weekend at San Francisco, some fellow Milepointers of the Kiva organization, and came away feeling optimistically hopeful that we earthlings will be able to tackle any problem on our planet.
Remember our previous posts (Jan. 1, 2012; Jan. 24, 2012; Jan. 25, 2012) on the microfinance organization called Kiva ? Now, out of the kindness and enthusiasm of Reid Hoffman (board member and founder of LinkedIn and co-author of recently released The Startup of You)’s heart for what Kiva represents, he has provided the 40,000 Initial Free Trials for any of you who would be interested in helping to create opportunities for others. (These free trials were completed/done by end of March, 2012) If you are uncertain as to how Kiva lending works, just use the free $25 Mr. Hoffman and other donors have provided for you as a test/initial trial at:
So, I’ve started the Sunisthefuture Team at Kiva, hoping that there will be more attention and effort in funneling toward solar and renewable energy business loans at Kiva as time progresses. You can become a Kiva user today at no expense to you! Each new Kiva user can make a free$25 trial loan and experience the impact and joy of microfinance first hand ! Let’s help to solve planet earth’s problems via lending and helping others to become self sufficient! In the process, perhaps we can spread more sunshine throughout our planet earth…remember solar and renewable energy business loans will come under the Green ATTRIBUTES at Kiva.org
Join Kiva and look for Sunisthefuture Team at Kiva !
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Readers and Friends,
Do you know which of the Pacific island nations is the only one that had avoided formal colonisation from the West ?
If your answer is Tonga, you would have been correct! The Kingdom of Tonga is a sovereign state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands (fifty-two of which are inhabited) scattered over 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 sq mi) of ocean in the South Pacific.
Tonga on the Globe, wikimedia commons
The kingdom stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometers (500 mi) in a north-south line located at about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii. Tonga also was known as the Friendly Islands because of the friendly reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit there in 1773.
As oil prices and CO2 emissions continue to increase, many countries in different corners of planet earth are trying to invest in renewable energy sources, such as the sun, wind, or geothermal energy, providing them with more energy security in the future. Many nations are setting targets, to have certain amount of their overall energy consumption to be coming from renewable energy sources by 2015: Russia is aiming at 4.5%;China at 15%;Australia at 20%; Europe at 21% . None of these nations was as ambitious as the South Pacific Tonga, setting its renewable energy target at 50% by 2015 (some even wanted it by 2012!) and already have a plan, the Tonga Energy Roadmap, for how it will achieve this lofty figure.
Now, I’d like to share a piece/clip of Tongan experience with solar and renewable energy with you, below:
“during the oil price spike in 2008, Tonga’s economy screeched to a halt. And since then, with oil prices continuing to rise, many consumers are not able to afford electricity at all.” Zachary Rybarczyk from Climate Progress wrote. Tonga is receiving financial support from New Zealand and technical support from the Renewable Energy & Efficiency Program (REEP) in the development of its renewable energy projects. The Director General of REEP, Martin Hiller, hopes that Tonga will provide “a blueprint for other Pacific Island states that are grappling with similar challenges.”
The latest report from Earth Techling indicated that Tonga has already signed a memorandum of understanding with Masdar, a Abu Dhabi based company, for the order of a 500 kilowatt solar project to be built on the island of Vava, to add to the 1 megawatt solar plant being constructed on the main island of Tongatapu.
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065Thank you very much.
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Dear Readers and Friends,
I am calling for more questions and participation in Solar and Renewable Energy Projectsfor Google Science Fair 2012 Projects!!
Google Science Fair 2012
Hello, future inventors and pioneers: Here is the link to Google Science Fair 2012 specific rules. Be sure to get your project in by April 1, 2012. For more details on the rules, please refer to the video clip, below:
Please email me your projects/links if it concerns Solar and/or Renewable Energy. I will post it at this site for the world to see! Yes, show the world what you’ve got! Earthlings throughout the planet will be rooting for you!
Written and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker, sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Homepage: http://www.sunisthefuture.net
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
