The 10 most important green achievements 2009

This is my view on the most important green achievements that took place during 2009.

Basis for the ranking was how big positive impact it could have on our future.

You probably disagree on certain points:

Use Comments to add items that should be in the list and use the polls to vote to change the order of the list.

My comments on changes of the list at the end.

10. Frankfurt Motor show

It is probably a little unjust to point out one show where the electric car revolution had a big impact just because this is a slowly increasing trend taking part in many events. However the Frankfurt show was something special. With Renault, Peugeot, WW E-Up, The BMW Efficient Dynamics and the Audi E.Tron as examples. The hype from US with the Volt, Karma and Tesla had challenged Europe in advance and the fresh feeling of this compared to the bad situation in the car industry made it even more interesting. At this point the race was on and electric cars were here to stay.

9. First Osmotic Power plant started

Well the first plant started in Norway the 24:th of November may not produce more

than enough to power a hair dryer, yet this is interesting since it has very limited impact on environment & produces a constant flow of energy. It it said it has potential of 1700 TWh/year. Lets see where it is in 5 years.

8. Nissan Leaf

There

are many Plug-in hybrid concept cars out there but not so many real cars with zero emission. This is what Nissan will launch this year and even if I believe the big sellers will be Hybrids with preferably extended range technology (fuel charged generator) this is a bold move

and puts pressure on the other car

makers. The car has quite long range, roughly 160 km and will cost between 20-30 KUSD at launch.

7. LED-TV commercial breakthrough

A normal LCD tv uses CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) to produce back-light. The LED TV (Not OLED which is a totally different technology) uses light emitting diodes to produce the back-light. They come in different setti ngs lit from the sides of the TV or as a matrix behind the screen. The thing is that it produces a better image, makes the TV thinner and it cuts power consumption in half where a normal 40 inch LCD TV consumes roughly 200 W the LED-TV consumes 100W. So for the approximately 100 Million LCD TVs sold per year in the world we save about 25000 Million KWh per year when the old technology has been shifted out. This will probably also be the start of a trend for more low power home electronics.

6. Solar thermal ramp up

Solar thermal is my favorite technology for future green energy. It is green, it provides electricity all day around due to easy buffering and it is low cost because you can harvest the sun over a big area with low cost mirrors or lenses. During 2009 we have seen many large investments all over the world and it is the fastest growing green alternative in the world.

5. China going for clean energy

At the end of 2008 China launched a stimulus package because of the world financial crisis and a big part of this went to renewable energy. China has been quite aggressive in this for a number of years but in 2009 it was really taking off. 1.3 Billion people needs a lot of energy and with an increasing welfare their strategy is so enormously important for all of us. They may not have been, and still is not the best in class but the current strategy is positive. That is why its on the list.

4. First Solar Thin film production reaching 1 USD/W



It has been said for quite some time that when Photovoltaics reaches 1 USD/W of generated electricity it would have all the possibilities of making a large breakthrough in green energy. First Solar did not go for world record in efficiency, they went for world record in Price/performance which sound like a good plan. February 2009 they announced that they had broken the barrier reaching 98 Cents/W.

3. Low efficient Light bulbs banned



Investigations show that replacing the worst-performing lamps with today’s best available technology will reduce domestic energy consumption for lighting by 60 per cent in the EU, equivalent to saving 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year. The decision made by the EU Energy ministers to ban the low efficient light bulbs in 2010 was however taken already in October 2008 but the big shift has started in 2009 that is why it is in this list. This is a good example where politics really can make a difference. There were of course a lot of complaints but many of the affected companies have not lost money but instead prospered from this. Only difference maybe was that it had to go faster. Lets see how long it takes until someone dares to put additional taxes on dirty electricity..

2. Copenhagen summit



The summit was considered a failure since a clear legally binding commitment was not met. However this is still the most important event ever for reaching a green consensus throughout the world. Over 180 Nations agreed that the increased level of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is something very dangerous and that is a big difference compared to just a few years ago. This will eventually have a big effect since no politician can say that they did not hear about it and making the world greener is a lot about politics.

1. Project Desertec launched



On the 30th of October 2009 twelve companies and the DESERTEC Foundation signed the articles of association for the DESERTEC industrial initiative “DII GmbH”. It means a memorandum of understanding is signed where 13 large European corporations have agreed to work on a solution to provide green wind and solar energy enough to power most part of the Middle East and North African region and 15% of the European energy consumption by 2050. Except for cheap and clean energy there are Improved agriculture from the shade of the solar collectors, desalination of salt water and improved work and economy situation for the region that is considered positive side effects. This is indeed a great project.