Electrek morning green energy brief: Trump likes green?, tallest solar tower in Israel, manufacturing growth and more!

Trump surprising on Renewables? – I’ll file this in the category of ‘believe it when I see it’, but I can see the man bending to the will of the highly popular, and heavy employment numbers of the green industries. Do remember though – “Climate change is a Chinese hoax!” – so the logic you are pitched will be on the $$$ of solar and renewables, and not on the environmental/climate side.

Israel building world’s largest solar tower – Check out the video at the bottom of this post to see construction. 50,000 mirrors, 121 MW, 787 feet tall, $773M and 1% of Israel’s electricity. Natural predators of birds will be played on speakers nearby to limit deaths.

Videos inside of a wind tower – Big machines doing cool things. I like.

Department Secretary of Energy very proud of solar growth under Obama – A list of accomplishments: 1.2GW of solar in 2007, 32GW now. No plants greater than 100MW then, more than 50 now. The Sunshot program is 90% of the way to its 2020 goal of $0.06/kWh for utility scale solar – new goals for 2030 at $0.03/kWh. A lot of good work has been done that will allow for a significant expansion tomorrow.

Only 1.9GW of manufacturing capacity planned in December – So many factories are being built with so many different technologies in so many different countries. We are distributing the creation of electricity instead of depending on finding it in hundred million year old holes in the ground. This will change the world politically as well as economically.

California to 27% of its 33% 2020 renewable goal – The whole of the USA looks toward California for leading edge renewable technology, and to see that the largest state with a dense population can get it done gives hope and motivation. As of October 31, 9,400MW of distributed generation is in place – the goal is 12,000MW. 5,400MW of that distributed energy is self generation.

Germany at almost 1/3 of electricity from renewables – Off shore wind up 57%, while solar was down 1%…lots going on in Germany. Energy storage is coming hard, lets see how they deal with these high percentages.

Israeli solar tower under construction:

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