The province of Andalusia had two major headlines concerning ecological progress the last weeks. One was about the production of hydrogen using solar energy without the circuit via electric energy [Read here on oekonews.at and here on GEO.de, both in German]. and the other was about producing solar energy. Both were state-of-the-art ideas about how we could ensure at least a little bit more of the energy we’re going to need in the future. This is a milestone to me, since Andalusia was formerly mostly popular for its especially wasteful consumption of its ecosystem [this satellite picture might show you, why].
This is my first entry, and I decided something very important about the philosophy of this blog. Usually it is the German blogosphere that benefits from news in the english blogosphere and press, but I might at least try to give a little bit back to the Anglo-American world.
Production of Hydrogen - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center)
To put it short, the key fact about the Project is that they managed to produce Hydrogen by using solar power directly. This makes the production carbon-neutral. And by that I do really mean carbon-neutral, not only the “buying someone else’s license to produce carbon”-neutral. Of course you have to consider the amount of carbon needed to produce and maintain the facility, but that is probably a question of time. From a previous experimentary version that did only supply 10kW, they did now build a new one providing 100kW, and that “only” by heating water to about 1200 degree centigrade. (This is the project in “the sea of plastic”-Almeria 
)
The production of solar energy (Abengoa Solar)
A quite similar mechanism can be used to produce electricity. By heating water to – guess what? – over 1000 degree centigrade (You just read it a few lines above, didn’t you?) they produce enough heat to operate a turbine creating the electricity. And that is enough (well, probably not in Scandinavia, but in Andalusia it’s perfect…) to power 11.000 households. This Project is near Sevilla, where my love is.
