Portal:Energy/Did you know/3

Cyclone Catarina from the ISS on March 26 2004

• According to research by the IPCC, government funding for most energy research programmes has been flat or declining for nearly 20 years, and is now about half the 1980 level?

• Renewable energy in Iceland provides over 70% of the country's primary energy needs, and 99.9% of Iceland's electricity?

• The Rance tidal power plant in France was the world's 1st electrical generating station powered by tidal energy?

• A tropical cyclone (example pictured) can release heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 trillion joules per day, roughly 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity?

• Ordinary fossil fuel power plants convert between 36% and 48% of the fuel's energy into electricity, with the remainder being lost as waste heat, about half of which is unavoidable due to the second law of thermodynamics?

• Burning biomass indoors leads to between 1.5 and 2 million deaths each year from indoor air pollution in developing nations?

• Over 50% of world small hydroelectricity generating capacity is in China?

• Charles Fritts developed the first solar cell in 1884, although its efficiency was less than 1%?