ALTERNATIVE ENERGY NEWS
Alternative Energy News has the latest on alternative energy technology including: tidal power, wave power, fuel cell technology, landfill gas extraction, geothermal energy, the Smart Grid, nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. If it’s not oil, coal or natural gas it’s an alternative energy. One day, we hope, that in this country it will just be called energy.
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Science Changing Water to Wine? 11.09.10
Why do we desperately need a replacement for fulvalene diruthenium and why do we care such stuff even exists? Because this liquid may be a means of using solar energy on cloudy days, or at night, without inefficient silicone solar panels or bulky, dangerous batteries. MIT scientists say you can place fulvalene diruthenium in the sun, and it doesn’t get hot, it gets powerful. Sort of like changing water into wine. To use arguably oversimplified language, the sun’s heat twists the fulvalene diruthenium molecule into a new shape that it can hold indefinitely. Then with a little push it releases all that stored energy in the form of heat. The push can come from another chemical catalyst or just warm the stuff up a bit, according to the press release. In some ways, it’s a lot like gas, only it doesn’t burn. In theory you can carry a jug of this stuff to church with you.
How is it different from those little handwarmers you can also take to church or hunting or to a football game? You can reuse fulvalene diruthenium indefinitely. Put it in the sun, and it stores heat for a rainy day. What are the drawbacks? The ruthenium part of the molecule costs a fortune and we’ll need a lot of it to put it to good use. However, scientists say knowing the structure of the molecule and how it behaves should make the search for a cheaper replacement fairly easy. Once they find it, what’s to stop us from storing it in 500-gallon basement containers piped up to rooftop solar panels?
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Water Turbine Works,
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World's Largest Laser to Zap Earth's Energy Woes? 05.04.10
These days everyone is an auditor for the laundry list of suspect science experiments we've been asked to shell out for in the Stimulus package. So, we thought we'd weigh in on federal financing for plans in California to build a baby sun that will solve all the nation's energy woes. First, lets talk about the pros of such profligate spending. If they can get this hot fusion project to work it will be like creating a small sun fueled by deuterium and tritium, two forms of hydrogen that can be extracted by the bucketful from seawater. How cool is that? Endless energy in oceans of water.
That's it for the good news, now for the fault finding. Assuming these folks all have Ph.Ds, we still have to ask: is anyone on earth qualified to build a replica of the sun outside San Francisco? Isn't this work better left to God? Or at least move over to Detroit, not San Francisco. The scientists involved say this model sun will be a pinpoint several times thinner in diameter than a human hair. And, it will only burn for 200 trillionths of a second. Roast a few marshmallows and we're done. "There's no danger to the public," said Lynda Seaver, spokeswoman for the project. But to play it safe they've encased the 900-foot -ong lab in 6.5 feet of concrete. That's either incredible overkill or this woman is lying. Either way, our search for the truth lands us between the quotation marks of a group NBN has previously labeled as professional environmental saber rattlers, the National Resources Defense Council. They suggest our tax dollars might be better spent on stuff that works right now like solar panels and wind turbines. Particularly given the looming threat of global warming.
We agree, but what this group misses in its critique, and we feel is key to this whole concept, is the problem with centralized power generation sources, a.k.a. great big power plants. Do we really want to pursue energy technology that keeps us tethered to massive power plants, whether they burn coal or sea water? Particularly in the face of growing threats to the security of these installations. At the same time, the price of solar and wind power just keeps going down and no one can hack into your solar power system and shut you down. These scientists have spent $2 billion in tax dollars. That's enough to outfit 40,000 homes with solar panels that deliver results and wean the nation off centralized power supplies. We love science at NBN, but we also love results.
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Geothermal Goes Main Stream 02.22.10
Looking down from outer-space, one might laugh at a civilization sitting atop a ball of molten lava at the same time ruining its economy and environment by burning fossil fuels to heat their homes and water. That's pretty much the story down here on planet earth. So, we thought we'd give a little ink to a completely anonymous group called the Geothermal Energy Association which is apparently gaining a little traction in this energy hungry world. That's the message from this website's report on a recent NYC summit on the subject. Attendance doubled over last year.
This 5-minute video and this Wikipedia link show just a little of how geothermal goes from high hopes to hardhats. It's an amazing process. To oversimplify it here, geothermal heating systems consists of drilling a hole into the ground and sinking a bunch of pipes into the hole. Cold water goes into pipes and hot water comes out. Important variables include how deep you drill—the deeper you go the hotter it gets.—and if you use heat pumps, which work like air conditions in reverse and use refrigerants, like freon. Those holes can be 20 or 30 feet deep, but then you'll need the heat pumps, which are not cheap. Or you can drill a couple hundred feet down, in which case you don't need the heat pumps, but the holes are more expensive harder to drill and maintain. Worse, about one in five of these holes needs to be redrilled.
Those are a few of the variables involved in geothermal heating which, again, we're grossly over simplifying. But, it's neat to think you don't have to live in Iceland or on a tectonic plate to take advantage of the earth's heat these days. Here are some other fun facts pulled from the piece linked up top:
Despite the recession, geothermal energy added 750 full time jobs and 2,827 construction-related jobs from roughly $800 million that was invested in the industry in 2009. The United States is the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world. Nevada, has about 450 megawatts of conventional geothermal power in production.
Despite the recession, geothermal energy added 750 full time jobs and 2,827 construction-related jobs from roughly $800 million that was invested in the industry in 2009. The United States is the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world. Nevada, has about 450 megawatts of conventional geothermal power in production.
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GULF POWER IN SUNSHINE STATE 12.13.09
Here is some fun stuff out of the University of Florida. They are investigating tapping energy from the Gulf Stream using underwater turbines to generate electricity. The gulf stream is pumping enormous amounts of water right past Miami, a city that's been know to flip on an air conditioner or two. How cool would it be, if you'll pardon the pun, to have those AC units power by DC out of the Gulf Stream via turbines just a quarter mile offshore. Here's a very well written story about similar efforts farther north. We are surrounded by environmental energy. We should tap into every bit we can. Above is an artist rendering of the plan. The little things on the bottom are the turbines with cable linking them to the hotels.
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Wishing on Wave Work 11.03.09
Mass High Tech also had this piece on a tidal energy project in Newburyport, MA. a while back. Anyone who has spent any serious time body surfing knows there is a lot of energy in waves, but the technology has always seemed gimmicky. These Newburyport folks are the third attempt in this area to harness all the water sloshing around here. However, the technology is showing promise. MIT and some Portuguese scientists announced a new tidal energy machine that might eventually make this technology work. It looks pretty cool.
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