Advanced Energy Perspectives

Solar Impulse 2 takes a nighttime flight over the Statue of Liberty.

Advanced energy moves pretty fast, and this week we’ve got more movement in planes, trains, and automobiles, as well as some interesting storage solutions, plus some really small modular reactors being developed abroad. Phew! Buckle your seatbelts: This week’s news wrap-up could be a bumpy ride.

This week we saw wind turbines reaching heights, new opportunities for energy storage in California, and the grid’s “best kept secret.” (Spoiler: it’s Combined Heat and Power, but that’s apparently not sexy enough for your average consumer). But let’s begin this week in Iowa, where time-lapse footage from MidAmerican Energy gives us a look into the construction of the tallest wind turbine ever built in the United States. Working night and day, construction crews build the turbine, which has a capacity of 2.4 MW. And you can see it put together in just 5 minutes and 42 seconds! 

Montana's big sky. Photo by Lexie Briggs. 

This week, the news was shining bright with solar energy, both new generation and new policies. We’re used to those stories coming from a few key states, but this week it’s like Kevin Spacey’s entire oeuvre: not just the usual suspects. Take Montana, for instance. Though the state is known as an energy producer, it’s mostly been in the news as an example of the resurgence of the U.S. gas and oil drilling industry or of the country’s growing wind generation capacity. This week, however, Tom Lutey, writing for the Billings Gazette reported that recently, solar has become the rage.

Image courtesy of AEE member SolarCity.

Not sure why it fell to the International Renewable Energy Agency to tell us this, but the number of people employed by the solar industry in the U.S. has passed oil and gas extraction, as well as coal mining. Also, as reported by Bloomberg, IRENA points out that these solar businesses have grown 12 times faster than overall employment growth in the U.S.

We were promised flying cars. Those Jetsons-mobiles careening through the air sure seemed like the way of the future… until we actually considered traffic logistics in a three-dimensional airspace. The future of transportation is closer at hand than ever before, though, and it just might be Rosie the Robot at the wheel rather than George Jetson. Driverless vehicles are fast becoming a reality, and companies are preparing for a new automotive frontier – and potential blowback.