Last July, Turkey signed a contract with General Electric for 52 wind turbines.

In an era of record high oil prices, many countries increasingly are turning to alternative fuels, including biofuel, solar energy and wind power. This pattern is typically pronounced in Turkey, forced to import more than 90 percent of its energy needs, with energy suppliers that are not only expensive, but erratic.
In 2006, Turkey spent $29 billion on energy imports, primarily from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia. High prices and fickle suppliers have stimulated Turkey’s growing interest in wind power, UPI.com reported.
Turkish interest in alternative fuels has been spurred by recent events. Turkish natural gas imports come primarily from Russia via the South Stream pipeline and Iran. On Dec. 31, Turkmenistan halted its deliveries of natural gas deliveries to Iran, citing the need for urgent pipeline repairs. The cutoff subsequently forced Iran to reduce its gas exports to Turkey by 75 percent, from 20 million cubic meters to 5 million cu. m., as inclement weather increased domestic demand, disrupting Iran’s domestic gas distribution. Tehran subsequently claimed that Turkmen action was, in fact, a retaliatory move over proposed price increases. Iran then stopped shipments completely Jan. 8, leading Ankara the next day to halt the flow of Azeri gas to Greece because of the suspension of gas supplies from Iran.
Turkey is Iran’s sole export market for natural gas, but the relationship has not been smooth, again due to disputes over price. The Turkmen incident had a feeling of deja vu, as in January 2006 Iran halved its supplies of natural gas to Turkey to around 7 million cubic feet per day, citing “climactic conditions“ and increased domestic need, while in December 2006 it temporarily shut off supplies completely.
During the most recent dispute, Turkey turned to Russia with a request for additional natural gas supplies, but was rebuffed. Instead, Moscow also reduced exports, citing severe weather. As natural gas powers half of Turkey’s power stations, state pipeline company Botas was forced to tap reserves in its gas depot near Silivri, Turkey’s sole gas-storage facility.
The incident has provided further incentives to Turkish efforts to seek alternatives. A measure of Ankara’s determination to free itself from the grip of avaricious, erratic energy suppliers is a dramatic rise in governmental interest in wind power, which is illustrated in government figures. While in 2006, wind power in Turkey generated 19 megawatts of electricity, last year Turkey’s 10 wind farms produced nearly 140 megawatts, a 736 percent increase.
Turkey’s interest in renewable energy dates back to 2005, when the Turkish Grand National Assembly passed a renewable energy law harmonizing government legislation with European Union legislation to support renewable sources, including wind power. The new law provided a government guarantee to purchase electricity at a set price for seven years.
Marmara University Energy Department Associate Professor and World Wind Energy Association Vice President Tanay Sidki Uyar recently said that if Turkey properly developed all of its renewable energy potential resources, including solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal power sources, the country could become self-sufficient in energy. Uyar told RenewableEnergyAccess.com, “Wind power could supply Turkey’s electricity needs twice over within five to 10 years if the government had the political will to develop this sector.“ Uyar added, “We have terrific geographic conditions for solar and wind power in Turkey. Exploiting it is already economically and technically possible, but the problem is that the government favors fossil fuels and nuclear energy.“
Epitomizing Ankara’s determination to become energy self-sufficient is a contract signed last July with General Electric for 52 of its latest generation of wind turbines with a generating capacity of 2.5 megawatts apiece. The GE 2.5xl is the largest GE wind turbine available for onshore applications and is specifically designed to meet EU requirements, where the relative lack of available land is a significant constraint on project size. While previous wind park projects were primarily situated in Turkey’s western regions and the Aegean coast, the 130-megawatt GE wind power project in southeastern Turkey will be the world’s largest installation of GE latest 2.5xl wind turbine technology and will more than double Turkey’s installed wind capacity.
Turkey is not limiting itself to U.S. suppliers; on Jan. 30, Turkey’s Rotor Energy Co., a subsidiary of Zorlu Energy, signed a contract with Ecosecurities to build a wind power plant in the southern province of Osmaniye. The Osmaniye facility, scheduled to come online in 2009, will initially generate about 135 megawatts daily, with an annual capacity of 500,000 megawatts.
Ankara is not moving on the issue as swiftly as alternative energy advocates would like, however; proposals to build wind farms with a total operating capacity of 8,000 megawatts is still awaiting government approval. Ankara has already issued about 40 licenses for wind parks, each with an installed 20-60 megawatt capacity.
The future looks bright for alternative energy companies, as the Turkish government intends to privatize a significant proportion of the country’s primarily state-owned energy and gas supply companies over the next few years. Given the “pipeline politics“ that Turkey has recently endured with its fickle natural gas suppliers Russia and Iran, Ankara’s move toward alternative energy makes both fiscal and ecological sense.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change related to human activity is driving the world toward increasing ecological instability, with potentially permanent impacts to human development.
It is also apparent that the poorest people carry the greatest risk and cost.
The case for a serious and urgent response the Namibian government together with Namibian institutions and citizens is rooted in social responsibility for the welfare of fellow Namibians, the socio-economic stability of the country, the maintenance of a stable and productive environment, adherence to global benchmarks, and commitment to the needs of future generations, Namibian.com.na reported.
Collectively, we have done a lot of talking on this subject and written many reports, but to date there has been little outcome oriented action.
Facing increasing energy demands and recent power shortages in the region, Nampower officials indicated last week, “the energy supply situation would be critical for the next three years with regional energy experts predicting that 2007-2010 would be dark years in terms of energy supply“.
Namibia’s providers in the SADC region may be unable to guarantee long-term power provision, as stated by an Eskom (Energy Supply Commission) representative.“
[Eskom] halted power exports to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe because local demand had grown so much that it had to supply its own country first.
This raises the question-what action is proposed? A quick response by government is possible.
The simplest first steps could be to implement the immediate removal of barriers to the expansion of renewable energy in Namibia.
Currently, Namibia has an installed generating capacity of 384 MW and imports roughly 40 per cent of its electricity from South Africa.
This electricity is mainly produced through coal fired power generation, which is not ideal because no matter how carefully it is burnt, the emission by-products of sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen have climate-change effects on the environment.
Evidence links the rise in temperature to increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, particularly from energy-related CO2 emissions.
Addressing the impact of climate change requires international cooperation and setting of global and national targets.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol has established an international framework to address the impact of climate change.
From an environmental perspective it doesn’t matter where in the world CO2 is emitted.
While Annex 1 of the protocol (developed countries) have agreed to national targets of CO2 emissions cuts and Annex 2 (developing countries) such as Namibia are not yet obliged to cut CO2 emission levels, any reductions in CO2 that developing countries do achieve can be sold to Annex 1 businesses in order to help meet their targets.
Namibia currently has the potential to cut its emissions at a much lower cost than businesses in most other nations, and thus is at an advantage to trade its carbon credits.
The Namibian government can capitalize on these carbon trading opportunities, and create incentives for low energy alternatives.
The following immediate actions are suggested:
- Explore a range of innovative financing options for households and businesses, including removing all forms of taxation on the import and sale of renewable energy appliances, including solar hot water systems, photovoltaic panels, solar water pumps, wind turbines and gas replacing coal and mains electricity for heating and cooking.
- Tax rebates on construction using passive heating and cooling systems in homes and offices.
- Provide incentives and funding for investment in low carbon research, development and deployment.
- Use funds generated through carbon trading to increase tax relief, or subsidize renewable energy purchases by households, businesses and government facilities.
- Mobilize support for adaptation measures to climate change by communities and businesses, and integrate adaptation into national planning.
Cabinet could take a decision at its next meeting to implement the above with immediate effect.
It could also direct its line Ministry to report on progress, both to Cabinet and to the nation.
Chris Brown

The flexible solar module is as small as the page of a book.

Teams of researchers all over the world are working on the development of organic solar cells. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg is presenting avenues towards industrial mass production at the world’s largest trade fair for nanotechnology, the nano tech 2008 from February 21 through 23 in Tokyo.
Organic solar cells have good prospects for the future: They can be laid onto thin films, which makes them cheap to produce. Established printing technologies should be employed for their production of the future. In order to achieve this goal of suitable solar cell architecture as well a coating materials and substrates have to be developed. “This method permits a high throughput, so the greatest cost is that of materials,“ says Michael Niggemann, a researcher at ISE, Physorg.com said.
Nevertheless, organic solar cells are not intended to compete with classic silicon cells-Ðthey are not nearly efficient enough to do that just yet. Because they are flexible, however, they can open up new fields of application: Plastic solar cells could supply the power for small mobile devices such as MP3 players or electronic ski passes. Another possibility would be to combine solar cells, sensors and electronic circuits on a small strip of plastic to form a self-sufficient power microsystem.
At nano tech in Tokyo, the Fraunhofer experts will be presenting a flexible solar module that is as small as the page of a book. It was produced by a method that can easily be transferred to roll-to-roll technology Ð a vital step en route to mass production.
A new design principle helps to save costs, too: Until now, the front electrode, the one that faces the sun, has usually been made of expensive indium tin oxide because this material is transparent. But now there is an alternative: The Fraunhofer crew has interconnected a poorly conductive transparent polymer electrode with a highly conductive metal layer on the rear side of the solar cell. This connection is done trough numerous tiny holes in the solar cell .This has the advantage that a low-priced material can be used. The idea has already been patented.