Tower Generates 600% More Electricity Than Traditional Wind Turbines. The Sheerwind wind turbine promises to produce 6 times the electrical power than traditional wind turbines. This funny looking wind tower acts like a funnel, directing the wind from any angle, down through a tube to a ground based turbine generator. The funneling of the wind through a narrow passage effectively creates a “jet effect” increasing the velocity of the wind, while lowering the pressure. This is called the Venturi Effect. This speeds up the wind turbine mounted inside the narrowest portion and generates electricity. As such it can capture and generate electricity at a much lower wind speed than current wind power technologies. The idea is so simple, so elegant, and promises to produce so much more energy at lower cost and more efficiently, that it might just be the answer to many problems with current wind turbine technology.
Imagine a smaller HOME version on your off grid cabin. Conventional wind turbines use massive turbine generator systems mounted on top of a tower. Appropriate Tech Encyclopedia. Plastic can convert heat into electricity. A new study has found that certain types of plastic can be semi-metals.
(Photo: Ida L. Flanagan) Plastic does not normally conduct electricity. This is why regular electrical wires are covered with plastic, so that we don’t get a shock when we touch them. However, it turns out that special forms of plastic polymers can actually conduct electricity in the same way that metals can. Some polymers share certain properties with metals, but they behave differently. Scientists from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Australia have now taken a closer look at these semi-metallic polymers. There is typically a heat loss of 50 percent from traditional energy sources. Jens Wenzel Andreasen Semi-metallic polymers can be thermoelectric, which means that their electrical conductivity varies with temperature.
Waste heat turns into electricity These special materials can be used to recover heat that would otherwise go to waste. “There is typically a heat loss of 50 percent from traditional energy sources. Electricity from the marshes. An unexpected source of new, clean energy has been found: the Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell that can generate electricity from the natural interaction between living plant roots and soil bacteria.
The technique already works on a small scale and will soon be applied in larger marshland areas throughout the world. On 23 November, researcher Marjolein Helder will defend her PhD research on generating electricity via plants at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR. She has also founded a spin-off company called Plant-e with her colleague David Strik. The Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell draws electricity from the soil while the plants continue to grow. Plants produce organic material via photosynthesis. The roots excrete up to 70 % of this material (unused) into the soil.
The Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell can currently generate 0.4 Watt per square metre of plant growth. Marshlands Plant-Microbial Fuel Cells can be used on various scales. A 'Green' Gold Rush? Calif. Firm Turns Trash To Gas. Hide captionEnergy Of The Future? California company Sierra Energy is testing out a reactor that turns garbage — like these wood chips, metal fragments and plastics — into synthetic gas that can then be turned into a low-carbon diesel fuel. Christopher Joyce/NPR Second of a two-part series.
Read Part 1 California starts the ball rolling Wednesday on a controversial scheme to keep the planet from overheating. Some permits will be auctioned today; the rest are free. It's a gamble. Dan Kammen, an energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, helped write the climate law. "The way we say it," Kammen explains, "we've squeezed the lemon a little bit. Many of those low-energy products are made abroad. That includes people like Mike Hart. Hart has set up shop in a big warehouse at a mothballed Air Force base near Sacramento. Hide captionSierra Energy is testing a reactor that makes fuel in a warehouse at an old Air Force base near Sacramento, Calif.
"It's an exciting time," he says. New Wave Energy wants to put power plants in the sky. Harvesting power from the wind and the sun is nothing new. We've seen flying wind turbines and solar power plants that aim to provide clean renewable energy. UK-based New Wave Energy has a bolder idea in the works. The company plans to build the first high altitude aerial power plant, using networks of unmanned drones that can harvest energy from multiple sources and transmit it wirelessly to receiving stations on the ground. The patent-pending technology aims to have drone networks hover in the sky harvesting both solar and wind power, while moving about at low speeds to keep track of the sun. The drones will operate at high altitudes where the winds are more stable and there's minimal chance of weather patterns or aircraft interfering with them.
"At 50,000 ft (15,000 m) there is very little air traffic and biodiversity, unless you go over the Himalayas," company director Michael Burdett tells Gizmag. "Implementing a system in these conditions will not obstruct any existing systems. " Inside a network operator: How solar changed the game. We’ve been hearing a lot about the solar revolution recently: from the largest generators and utilities in the US, the entire German power industry, from the world’s biggest solar companies, and from leading energy analysts from the likes of Macquarie Group, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Citigroup who track the implications for listed electricity and energy technology assets around the world.
The basic synopsis is that the arrival of rooftop solar as a cheaper alternative to grid based power – as is now the case in more than 100 countries, including Australia – is changing the nature of the energy game forever. Last week, at the Solar 2013 conference in Melbourne, we got a rare insight into how this is happening in Australia – from the point of view of one of the major network operators. Energex already has installed 212,000 systems and is still adding them at 3,000 a month. Even in the first three months 41MW have been added – and it was continuing despite the fall in incentives. Landfill gas helps Palo Alto go carbon neutral. Can London run on its own fat? Gross but true: when residual fat, oil, or grease from restaurants and food manufacturers is poured down the drain, it coagulates into globs known as “fatbergs” that can clog sewage systems.
Thames Water, which handles much of London’s wastewater, spends up to £12 million a year removing as many as 40,000 fatbergs from the 66,500 miles of sewer pipe it oversees. (Earlier this month, Brits discovered a nearly 17-ton tower of congealed lard lurking in London’s sewers—a fatberg for the record books.) Now the utility has decided to think of this nuisance as a deep-fried golden opportunity. Starting in 2015, Europe’s biggest sewage treatment plant—at Beckton, in East London—will be powered by a mix of fatbergs and leftover cooking oils collected from restaurants.
In this fish-and-chips-loving city, analysts predict that all this grease—once converted into fuel—will provide up to 130 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. Natural Gas From Cows? Argentine Scientists Tap Methane In Bovine Burps. By Maximiliano Rizzi BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine scientists have found a way to transform the gas created by the bovine digestive system into fuel, an innovation that could curb greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Using a system of valves and pumps, the experimental technique developed by Argentina's National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) channels the digestive gases from bovine stomach cavities through a tube and into a tank. The gases - which otherwise are commonly known as burps, or "eruptos" in Spanish - are then processed to separate methane from other gases such as carbon dioxide.
Methane is the main component of natural gas, used to fuel everything from cars to power plants. "Once you get it compressed, it's the same as having natural gas," said Guillermo Berra, head of INTA's animal physiology group. Each head of cattle emits between 250 and 300 liters of pure methane a day, enough energy to keep a refrigerator running for 24 hours. Also on HuffPost: Artificial Photosynthesis System as efficient as plants and can reduce CO2 levels.
A group at Panasonic has developed the Artificial Photosynthesis System, which produces organic materials with a world-leading efficiency in terms of solar energy conversion. The recently achieved efficiency, 0.2%, is on a par with that for real plants used in biomass energy. Artificial photosynthesis is a technology that uses sunlight to produce oxygen and organic substances from water and carbon dioxide, like plants do.
As an ideal technology that could solve both global warming and energy issues, artificial photosynthesis is currently being researched worldwide. "This device is a demonstration model of the artificial photosynthesis system we've developed. When light hits this electrode, a CO2 reduction reaction occurs. Here's how the reaction works. To convert CO2 in this way, electrons must be excited to a high-energy state using light. This is an experiment using sunlight. "When carbon dioxide reacts, the organic substances produced are of various kinds. Supressed Technology.
SKWID harnesses the power of both the wind and the tide. There are already a wide variety of renewable energy systems that harness the power of the wind, along with some that generate power via the flow of ocean currents. According to Japanese engineering firm MODEC (Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Co.), however, its soon-to-be-tested SKWID system will be the first one to do both. SKWID stands for Savonius Keel and Wind Turbine Darrieus. This is appropriate, as it’s an anchored floating platform that contains both a Savonius tidal turbine below the waterline, and a Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine up in the air.
The two are connected by a central gearbox/generator, allowing the SKWID to generate power from the currents, the wind, or both. Additionally, the rotation of the tidal turbine can be used to help get the wind turbine spinning, when breezes are light and it needs a bit of extra inertia. The design of the Darrieus turbine is such that it can spin to the left or to the right, so it works regardless of the wind direction. Europe joins race to store energy at the bottom of the ocean. "Imagine opening a hatch in a submarine under water. The water will flow into the submarine with enormous force. It is precisely this energy potential we want to utilize. " This is how German engineer Rainer Schramm describes his idea for storing energy under the sea. By using surplus energy to pump water out of a tank at the seabed, the water is simply let back in again when there's an energy shortfall, driving turbines as it rushes in.
The deeper the tank, the more power is generated. The technology is being developed by Schramm's company, Subhydro AS. Based in Olso, Norway for access to deeper water, the company claims to be the "first in the world to apply a specific patent-pending technology to make this possible. " Really, the idea is very similar to that behind above-ground pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations which pump water from a low reservoir to a high one when energy is cheap or plentiful, and allow it to flow back down through turbines when more energy is required.
World's largest fat-burning power station to burn blubber from London sewers. East London is set to play host to the world's biggest power station to run solely on fat, which will provide a much-needed use for the discarded fat which can block the city's sewer system. The station will generate 130 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power about 39,000 houses.
The power station is to be built in Beckton, East London, where some 75 GWh (58 percent) of the output will be sent directly to the nearby Beckton sewage works, run by Thames Water, as well as a local desalination plant brought online during droughts and emergencies. The rest of the energy will be fed into the national grid. Set to contribute a little over 6 percent of the 1.3 terrawatt-hours of electricity Thames Water uses every year, the new plant will boost Thames Water's renewably-sourced energy from 14 to 20 percent.
As part of the deal, Thames Water will provide more than half of the power station's fuel. Sources: Thames Water , BBC. MIT maps solar potential of Cambridge, Massachusetts with record accuracy. MIT researchers have developed a new technique that can be used to accurately predict the annual yield of a photovoltaic solar array located anywhere on the planet, taking into account local climate, panel orientation, and obstructions from nearby buildings. As a proof of concept, the scientists have mapped out the 17,000 rooftops of Cambridge, Massachusetts and created a user-friendly web interface that residents can use to look up their homes and get an accurate projection of the cost and return on investment of placing a PV panel over their heads.
View all Introducing ... the Solar System The software, called "Solar System," is the brainchild of the Mapdwell Project, a collaborative effort of academics, engineers, designers and computer scientists that strives to collect research-based information on sustainable technology and present them to the public through a user-friendly interface. Just how accurate is it? The LIDAR data is used to create a 3D model of the territory (Image: MIT)
ThermoElectrics. Solar/Wind Power. Energy Storage. Grid Tech. Could New York run on renewable energy alone? Three times now, Mark Jacobson has gone out on the same limb. In 2009 he and co-author Mark Delucchi published a cover story in Scientific American that showed how the entire world could get all of its energy — fuel as well as electricity — from wind, water and solar sources by 2030. No coal or oil, no nuclear or natural gas. The tale sounded infeasible — except that Jacobson, from Stanford University, and Delucchi, from the University of California, Davis, calculated just how many hydroelectric dams, wave-energy systems, wind turbines, solar power plants and rooftop photovoltaic installations the world would need to run itself completely on renewable energy.The article sparked a spirited debate on our web site, and it also sparked a larger debate between forward-looking energy planners and those who would rather preserve the status quo.
The duo went on to publish a detailed study in the journal Energy Policy that also called out numbers for a U.S. strategy. What if we never run out of oil? As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchill’s world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchill’s outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911.
With characteristic vigor and verve, he set about modernizing the Royal Navy, jewel of the empire. The revamped fleet, he proclaimed, should be fueled with oil, rather than coal — a decision that continues to reverberate in the present. Burning a pound of fuel oil produces about twice as much energy as burning a pound of coal.
Because of this greater energy density, oil could push ships faster and farther than coal could. Churchill’s proposal led to emphatic dispute. The Emerging Climate Technology Consensus. Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities. Over-Unity. Nanotech. Fusion. BioFuel. Hydropower from Reuse. Tesla Technology: 5 Bladeless Turbines About To Revolutionize Energy Production. Solar Power To Be Sold For Less Than Coal. MIT Researchers are Printing Solar Cells on Sheets of Paper SunPowerPort. How I built an electricity producing wind turbine.
Installing a Solar Energy System. Home - solarcentury. National Clean Energy Project. Update! 15 PowerPoint Slides That Shook the Earth : Greentech Media. Greentech Media | Home. Business | Solar energy giants discovering Ontario. Nuclear Fusion - Coming Soon ? Greencajun.com. Greentech Media: Green Light » Blog Archive » Alberta’s governme. Solar Incentives: Could Ontario Be the Next Germany? - Renewable. Bloom Energy Revealed on 60 Minutes! : Greentech Media. Why Bill Gates is wrong. US military's SPIDERS microgrid uses 90% renewables in first test. A silicon sprinkle for electric cars. Peak Opportunities. This graph of the day shows baseload generation may be redundant soon. The Problem of Growth. Methane hydrates.