Clean Energy Classrooms - The Canadian Guide to Sustainable Energy Training News
Bright lights in clean tech
November 30, 2009
Chris Turner, Ivor Tossell, John Lorinc - The Globe and Mail
On the dusty plain just west of Seville in southern Spain, a monolith has been lately erected, a sun temple, standing almost six full storeys taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza. The 20-megawatt solar thermal power plant is one of a cluster of new technologies being test-bedded on Abenoa Solar’s Solúcar platform.
Near the German port city of Cuxhaven, meanwhile, a small forest of giant steel tripods, painted an exuberant yellow, rest next to their manufacturing plant. Their colossal prongs tower 24 metres above the tarmac, waiting to be crowned atop gleaming white pillars, far out to sea, where they will surpass the height of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. More importantly, they will be the most powerful wind turbines ever installed.
These are not one-off green initiatives or feel-good demos, but rather the first vigorous wave of a whole new industrial economy. It has emerged primarily in those places where climate change has been acknowledged not just as a fundamental fact of life and the defining crisis of the 21st century but also as an opportunity-the fulcrum for a lever that will launch the second Industrial Revolution. Notwithstanding whatever muddled consensus may emerge from the high-minded climate talks in Copenhagen this December, the nations and companies leading this second wave will continue with installations and innovations at a breakneck pace. And they will do so because building this new generation of infrastructure is a smart business move, based on sound economics.
