On Sunday, Technology Review showed us the first tidal power generator. Harnessing the ocean’s power is the next frontier in utility-scale alternative power generation, but this has so far proven difficult given all that the sea can throw at what humans try to put in it. This installation produces power at a hefty 0.30 to 0.40/kWh, but scale can bring this down to 0.20/kWh. Cut that in half again and now you’re talking. On Monday, Clean Edge told us that Schott was planning a partial spin-off of its PV unit through an IPO. Given the headwinds the Eurozone economies are facing, and the impact this is having on equity markets, this will be a real test of solar investors’ will. On Tuesday, Ernest Scheyder at Forbes informed us that new efforts to store wind power were underway. This is great news for wind aficionados such as myself, and the direct involvement of a large integrated utility is testament to the potential of large-scale storage technologies. Of course, don’t expect these technologies to come in cheap. On Wednesday, Paul Davidson at USA Today informed us that wind and solar projects were in a race to finish before tax credits expired. This rush to get projects in the ground is no-doubt creating a tremendous amount of inflationary pressure across the supply chain, meaning that the costs of that solar and wind energy will be higher than would have been the case had the industry been operating under a predictable, long-term policy framework. On Thursday, David Ehrlich at Cleantech.com told us that thin-film was getting fat on cash. The big winner: Nanosolar. On Friday, The Master Resource Report showed us a graphical depiction of why electric transportation makes more sense from an energy balance perspective than ethanol-powered vehicles. After you click on the link and download the PDF, scroll down to the last page. You can access the full presentation on Tesla`s website. The Week In Cleantech is a collection of our favorite stories from the past week generated by our Cleantech News service. Register your site with us if you want your articles to appear here.
The report by Ernest Scheyder was from the Associated Press, not Forbes.