Archive for the ‘renewable energy’ Category

Geothermal Energy

Friday, August 6th, 2010

The amount of geothermal energy beneath the earth’s surface is vast; the problem is just getting to it. If you go deep under the surface, down to about 10,000 meters, you will find heat that contains around 50,000 times more energy than all the oil and natural gas resources around the world combined.

Currently the main means to gain energy from this great storage under ground is to drill holes into the rock to access the hot water and steam that naturally rises up. The hot water can then be used to power electric generators and once it cools off it will be pumped back under ground and can reheat.

With geothermal energy you don’t have the same fluctuations as is the case with solar and wind energy. Furthermore, it is clean, as no greenhouse gases are produced in the process and it is renewable, as the water is reused. In the US, President Obama gave 350 billion USD to geothermal projects last year.

There are a few different concepts at the moment. Most plants will be situated at the edges of tectonic plates, where geothermal activity is high. However, more recently companies have starting drilling deep into rocks and pumping cold water down to create steam. However, there is the fear that this second method might cause seismic activity, which could lead to earthquakes.

If you would like further information on geothermal energy, please visit http://bit.ly/9JJ7pQ

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First-ever Clean Energy Ministerial

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

For the first time, the energy ministers of 24 industrial and threshold countries came together in Washington last week, to discuss energy efficiency and renewable energy. 11 initiatives were launched during the meeting to address these issues. The projects include electric vehicles, solar energy, smart grids and household appliance efficiency.

Everyone at the conference has agreed that the issue of renewable energy is extremely important and many proposed a doubling of investments in clean technologies, but no actual financial commitments were made. These meetings will now be held on an annual basis, the next one scheduled for the United Arab Emirates and the 2012 meeting is set to take place in the United Kingdom.

One important initiative created at the meeting was the Carbon Capture, Use and Storage Action Group. This group aims to establish infrastructure around the world for carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) by 2020. Germany will be a part of this initiative, as well as the following three other: the Electric Vehicle Initiative, the super-efficient equipment and appliance deployment initiative and it will head the Multilateral Solar and Wind Working Group, together with Denmark.

If you would like more information about the meeting and the initiatives, you can read the following article: http://nyti.ms/aMEgVd

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Common EU Standards for Electro mobility are taking shape

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Last week, vice president of the European Commission, Antonio Tajana, initiated a mandate to the European norms organisations CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, to create EU-wide standards for charging stations of electronic cars.

Such unified standards will allow electronic cars to cross borders without major complications. Some of the most important points of discussion are standardized plugs, battery standards and general safety standards.

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Solar energy without sunshine

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Solar energy has great potential to be the energy source of the future, but it is unreliable. What happens when the sun goes down at night? Or when the sky is cloud covered all day? These questions are currently being addressed, as researchers are experimenting on ways to store the energy captured from the sun.

One current solution used in Spain in parabolic trough power plants, is to use solar energy to heat up a thermo oil, which in turn heats up liquid salt, and when the sun goes down, the heat of the liquid salt is used to power a steam turbine. However, liquid salt is very expensive and it is not allowed to cool down, or else it will congeal and destroy the container. Furthermore, liquid salt is not compatible with solar thermal power plants, thus different containment methods have to be developed for the varying power plants.

In a solar power plant In Jülich Germany, solar panels reflect the sunlight to a huge tower, which stores the heat. In this case we are dealing with heat in gas form, which makes a storage container of molten salt not feasible. Thus, in this situation ceramic is used, which is however also very expensive. Currently the researchers are working on an alternative solution that uses salt. The salt falls into a collecting container and in the process, the warm gas is blown onto the sand, transferring its warmth onto it.

The salt method is also not perfect, as it cannot be as easily pumped through pipes as liquids or gases. A final method is the chemical thermal storage, where, for example, calcium hydroxide would be split into Calcium and Water. Then the two elements would be brought back together and heat would be released. This way, the energy can be saved for a long period of time and released at whatever temperature necessary. However, this method has only been tested in the confines of scientific labs and would require the construction of a special chemical reactor.

There is a lot of potential for development in this area and experimentation with different materials and processes. If renewable energies are to replace current non-renewable sources, a process for their storage has to be developed, so that we will still have energy when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind dies down.

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Are solar shingles a real alternative?

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

In 2009 the company DOW unveiled its newest project, the so-called DOW Powerhouse Solar Shingle. It does not differ from regular shingles, except for the fact that is creates power by using the energy of the sun. The firm itself says about their product: “The technology blends form and function, aesthetics and performance into a solar solution that is accessible and affordable for homeowners” (http://bit.ly/do46Ui).

The shingles decrease energy bills to a small extent, as they yield 3.5 kilowatt-hours per day on average, and the average usage of a household is 50 kilowatt-hours. There are cheaper ways to be environmentally friendly these days, as the shingles cost USD $40 per 4 square feet. However, improvements will be made to further reduce the costs and increase the performance of the shingles.

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Eco Friendliness of Solar Companies

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

In the past years many new solar companies have begun popping up and many of them claim to be eco friendly and use this as an advertising slogan. This begs the question, to what extent these companies are in fact ‘green’ companies. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) has recently published the results of an annual survey, the so-called solar scoreboard, on this topic.

SVTC, founded in the early 80s, is a “diverse non-profit organization engaged in research, advocacy and grassroots organizing to promote human health and environmental justice in response to the rapid growth of the high-tech industry”.

A number of criteria were used to measure the greenness of the 12 solar companies surveyed (24 were asked to take part, but only 12 responded). The Criteria are what sorts of materials were used in the production processes, the conditions under which workers operate, transparency of the company and whether or not companies recycles obsolete solar modules.

The three companies that scored the highest in the survey, Calyxo, SolarWorld and Sovello, are all based in Germany. The first two have extensive take-back and recycling programs in place, and thus scored higher in the survey, 90% and 88% respectively, but they still use cadmium in their production. Sovello scored a bit lower with 73%, due to the lack of a take-back and recycling program.

Many of the companies fall below 50%, due to the lack of response to certain parts of the survey. This clearly shows, together with the non-response rate (only 12 of 24 companies), that not all solar companies are environmentally friendly. All of the companies that did not respond to the survey are located in China or the Unites States. In this situation, a number of companies will argue that they are new companies, and thus they can’t afford to see environmental issues as a high priority. However, no matter at what stage a solar company is, eco friendliness has to be somewhere at the top of the agenda.

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Responsibility for the Cities

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

The 5th World Urban Forum, organized by UN Habitat, was held in Rio de Janeiro from the 22nd to the 26th of March 2010. The WUF was “established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing problems facing the world today: rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies”.

Cities consume about three quarters of the worlds fossil fuel supplies, thus experts at the WUF argue that they have a responsibility to create a sustainable renewable energy supply. The only problem is that thus far no one has come up with any ideas on what forms such a program should take. During the meetings, the World Future Council (WFC) presented its ‘100% renewable energy and beyond for cities’ plan.

The Plan calls governments to start by making individual buildings and then entire cities more energy efficient. Small cities should become self sufficient and may even produce more renewable energy, which can then be used by bigger cities that are not able to achieve self-sufficiency. Fur the purpose of their report, the WFC has come up with a seven steps that need to be taken to achieve the goal of self-sustainability in cities.

For More Information, please refer to the WFC Report.

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