Wind

The problem concerns the vicissitudes of weather, which makes wind and solar inherently unreliable and unsuitable for today’s energy-intensive economy.

Wind turbines produce at maximum capacity during a range of wind speeds — typically 50 to 90 kilometers per hour. At slower speeds, electrical output falls dramatically. If wind speeds fall by half, production decreases by a factor of eight.

Therefore, turbines scarcely produce at capacity. In fact, the annual output of a turbine averages just 20% to 30% of capacity. And about 10% to 15% of the time, turbines produce virtually no power at all.

Solar energy is equally dependent on weather — it doesn’t work at night without a storage device, and even during the day, cloud coverage can make the technology stall.

A general solar panel will produce 100 to 120 watts of energy per square meter. That’s during periods of direct sunlight, which is about five hours per day.

For the amount of energy that solar and wind produce, their start-up and ongoing operating costs are exorbitant.

Wind farms, for example, can only be built in a limited number of remote places. They are generally found in wide open, rural areas or offshore, where long-distance transmission adds costs for consumers.

In many regions, attractive areas have already been exploited, leaving only less favorable sites that require significant investment in transmission and additional infrastructure, including new substations and access roads.

Wind power facilities, depending on the ruggedness of location and other factors, cost between $2 million and $6 million per Megawatt of capacity.

The starting rate for power from the Cape Wind project, America’s first offshore wind project with 130 wind  turbines, is set at 18.7 cents per kilowatt — almost double the average U.S. retail rate for electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Alternative energy sources fail the cost, reliability, and scalability tests, says the founder of the Institute for Energy Research, Robert Bradley.

On the Cape Wind project we can see for example few pros and cons of construction of such alternative energy facility.

As mentioned, biggest disadvantage of project in the star is of course price which is estimated to $1 – $2 billion. Among others are possibilities to disrupt marine life and endanger birds in Cape Cod; probably alter or even ruin certain seaside spots.

Considering such huge price and other obstacles for wind farm in Cape Cod one may take in consideration fact that those wind turbines could provide three-quarters of the power to more than 200,000 residents and could already start generating power in 2012. It will also create green jobs in the area with no chance of the wind turbines polluting the water. The closest turbine to the shore would be 8 kilometers offshore so it won’t disrupt local people fishing or sightseeing.

With the example above, obviously there is almost no one project regarding green energy and current issues with fossil fuels that can be considered to have only advantages for us and future generations. However, we must insist to new technologies and new fuel sources, to be prepared for years that will come when fossil fuels and some other resources like water, food or wood will significantly deplete.

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The major criticisms against solar power facilities, such as wind farms, are unreliability and inefficiency. Solar power depends on some environmental factors that can’t be controlled by humans so that’s the main reason potential investors are bit anxious. Not only money makes a problem but investments need to be followed by large areas with high and effective sunlight during the day.

When we are looking back to the past, around 50 years ago, group of scientists gave a proposition of solar powered satellites (SPS). Such satellites would have almost perfect and most wanted conditions if we compare it to the earth’s facilities because those satellites would be able to gather energy 24 hours a day and of course there is a larger amount of solar energy in Earth’s orbit than on Earth’s surface (144% of maximum solar energy on surface). One more, big advantage for SPS would be a satellite’s mobility and ability to transfer energy to areas of higher necessity.

Now is the question do we have enough will and money to build such state of the art power plant and do humanity has knowledge to do it?

The last projections, from 1980s, put the cost of launching an SPS at $5 billion, or around 8-10 cents/ kWh. Nuclear power plants for example cost a minimum of $3 billion to $6 billion, not including cost overruns, which can make a plant cost as much as $15 billion.

It is questionable how long SPS would survive in orbit due to threat from solar winds and space radiation. As for adding to the ever-expanding satellite graveyard in Earth’s orbit, most solutions to satellite pollution remain theoretical.

One of the major shortfalls in the design of SPSs is simply in getting the power from point A to point B. This remains the most controversial aspect of SPSs: the use of microwaves to transmit power from high orbit to the ground.

Critics often cite the dangers of microwave radiation to humans and wildlife, however, the strength of the radiation from these beams would be equal to the leakage from a standard microwave oven, which is only slightly more than a mobile phone.

For the sake of the future, expediency must take a back seat to longevity and longevity may just be found in outer space.

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Shakes with recent terrible events, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has recently said that all renewable energy sources, among them mostly wind power will play much more important role in near future to the world’s third largest economy.

Wind turbines, solar power and biomass should become a new pillar of Japan’s energy policy while recent plans to increase the number of nuclear power plants operating in the nation should be now be dismissed, Kan said last Tuesday.

Prime Minister also suggested that the entire nation needs to do more on creation and implementation of energy saving society.

A statement from his office noted that existing nuclear energy facilities and fossil fuels — currently two major energy sources in island — would continue to be used to create electricity for the nation of almost 130 million residents.

Until the three related disasters struck Japan in February and March, Japan’s government had planned to increase the number of operating nuclear power plants doubling the contribution of nuclear power in total power produced, by 2030s. Nuclear power plants give 24% of total electricity in Japan today.

I would like to add natural energy and energy saving as two major pillars and to exert further efforts to achieve them, while promoting safety on nuclear energy and reducing CO2 on fossil fuels. Based on these thoughts, I would like to accelerate the discussion on reviewing the overall energy policy, Kan was quoted as saying.

Japanese Wind Energy Association (JWEA) wants to increase capacity of wind farm plants scaled up to 50 GW by 2050, from the current capacity of 2.3 GW. Onshore and offshore wind farms would have eventually same contribution – about 25GW each.

JWEA Director Yoshinori Ueda reportedly said he personally believed an expanded wind power sector could provide 50GW before 2040. He added, however, the wind power sector requires a feed-in-tariff in order to attract investment that will drive rapid expansion.

Japan is not the only country reassessing its position on nuclear power in the past two months.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered no new nuclear plants be built, temporarily closed seven facilities and demanded security reviews of the nation’s remaining 10 plants. She also established an “ethics committee” to look further into the question, which recently said a phase-out of all the country’s nuclear capacity was possible by 2021.

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For clarification purposes we consider a question of terminology: when we include the electricity or hydrogen from energy sources, we must bear in mind that these are two different sources. On one side is the primary energy. There is only one primary source of external energy on this planet: the sun, and two internal: the gravitational and nuclear forces inside the Earth. And after the transformation process, human action or time or physical-chemical phenomena, there are others that we call “secondary” such as electricity, hydrogen, fossil fuels, energy mechanics.

What is possible is to find alternatives and solutions that solve specific problems. The sum of all these solutions will lead to a new stage. In order to deepen the study of possible measures should be organized and classified, to avoid looping on the same or overlook important facts. Overall we rank the alternatives or possible solutions in three sections:

Until about two centuries, mankind lived without fossil fuels. In the early nineteenth century the population of the planet was around 1000 million people, only 3% of which lived in cities, and its energy base was the human and animal power, supplemented by the use of renewable energy tamed. And it was not until the early twentieth century, the use of fossil fuels (mainly coal, then, even dawned and the use of oil) shifted the global importance of the energy matrix after (renewable). In 1900, the human population had undergone a discrete jump (although very important in historical terms) to exceed 1600 million inhabitants and the urbanization rate had increased by 5 (up to 15%). Urbanization broke out where it was producing the industrial revolution, especially in Western Europe, appearing the first cities millions (though London had exceeded this threshold by the end of the century). Today, on the threshold of the new century and millennium, world population is over 6,600 million people, more than half of which live in cities (for the first time in history), over a hundred times more than in 1800 ( especially in big cities), the base is clearly residual renewable energy (6%), and the bulk of the needs in this area (80%) is guaranteed by fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas), although oil the main source that keeps an increasingly industrial, urban, metropolitan and motorized operation. 40% of global energy needs is ensured by the “black gold” (in the last fifty years the demand has multiplied by seven). Without him and without coal and gas (rising) too, the increasingly globalized world, and highly consuming natural resources that we know (not just energy) simply would not be viable.

However, this urban-industrial world faces two enormous challenges. One is the change of the energy mix, because as we see the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era, which will occur as a result of reaching the roof of the extraction of oil. The other is how they can cope with feeding a growing population, whose growth and nutrition has been very feasible until now largely thanks to fossil fuels, especially oil (due to industrialized agriculture and animal husbandry) although the extent of malnutrition (and starvation) to more sectors of humanity.

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In this green energy project Swedish company Vattenfall invested more than $1.38 billion and will operate the farm in this quite attractive region, especially for wind energy. As an example, an offshore turbine around the British island is estimated to produce even 50% more power than similan wind turbine located in Germany.

The Thanet wind farm covers an area of 35 square kilometers and this is first from 16 farms being under construction around Europe. Half of them are in Britain so it is estimated that wind power from those turbines can supply around 3 million British homes.

Wind farms are being constructed on places where local fishermen don’t go often but now is expected so-called farm tourism with a interested people wanting to see new farms themselves.  This wind turbine project will not remain the world’s biggest offshore wind farm so long since in 2012 and 2013 is planned new turbines off the Essex coast. As expected, that will be first 1 gigawatt offshore wind turbine complex, far more than present 300 megawatts what is expected from Thanet wind farm.

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Even then, in early 1908s there were several companies using wind turbines to produce energy. The biggest difference from new age turbines and pioneers were in capacity and less impact to surrounding nature.

Tehachapi has been responsible for impact on alternative energy on national and global level since the Tehachapi-based turbine manufacturer became a major turbine manufacturer across United States.  Those first turbines were a big catalyst for man projects including Coram Ridge, Windstar and Alta I-V.

The Windstar project expected to eventually comprise 1750 to 2000 turbines and is expected to out perform largest wind farm in the world, located in Texas.

Today are ongoing projects of re-powering smaller with bigger, energy efficient turbines so it is expected the production of more energy from the new ones.  Tehachapi region will grow in the near future to about 5000 megawatts of capacity and after that will continue rising to the capacity of 10000 megawatts by the year 2040.

This region can be example how to smartly use green energy, not only wind but the all available energy.

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In fact, Zephyr this time doubled its own unofficial record of over 82 hours of flight and smashed the previous world record for unmanned flight of 30 hours and 24 minutes which was set in 2001. by U.S. aerospace company.

Weighing just 53 kilograms, Zephyr has a wingspan of 22 and half meters and wing area of around 30 square meters. Top side of wings is covered in solar panels thinner than a sheet of paper. Sounds very interesting, so light but so effective in use of solar energy.

Those solar panels were connected to lithium-sulphur batteries which powered the plane at night. 18 months were needed for completion of last prototype. It is very bright future for such solar planes since they can be used in risk situations like monitoring of forest fire.

During the flight Zephyr showed no signs of running out of power so designers are hopeful it will stay in the air for another five days when the plane will finally return to Earth.

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After being postponed last week, the flight began at 6:51 a.m. local time, when the Solar Impulse HB-SIA aircraft took off from the Payerne airbase in Switzerland with Andre Borscherg, CEO and cofounder of the Solar Impulse project, at the controls.

“For seven years now, the whole team has been passionately working to achieve this first decisive step of the project,” Borschberg said before easing himself into the cockpit for a flight expected to last until Thursday morning.

On the “cockpit” section of the Solar Impulse website, followers can track the aircraft’s altitude, air speed and myriad other factors.

Over the course of the day on Wednesday — until about 7:30 p.m. local time — the prototype aircraft will slowly ascend to an altitude of 8,500 meters, while at the same time charging its batteries in preparation for the night flight.

About two hours before sunset, when the sun’s rays stop being strong enough to supply the solar cells with more energy, the HB-SIA will start a slow descent, reaching an altitude of around 1,500 metres by 11 pm. It will then use the energy stored in its batteries to continue flying until sunrise on Thursday morning.

The big question is whether the pilot can make efficient use of the battery energy to fly throughout the night. If this mission is successful, it will be the longest and highest flight ever made by a solar plane. The flight also represents the first test of this length with people on board, Eric Raymond, told president of Solar Flight.

Raymond has participated on the Solar Impulse project and is currently working on a two-seater solar aircraft that will be ready next summer, he said.

With a wingspan of 63.4 meters — the same as an Airbus A340 — and a length of 21.85 meters, the Solar Impulse craft weighs 1,600 kg. It includes 11,628 solar cells — 10,748 on the wings and 880 on the horizontal stabilizer — as well as four electric engines.

Its average flying speed is 70 kilometers (43 miles) per hour. That speed, in fact, is currently a limiting factor when it comes to widespread use of solar-powered aircraft, Raymond pointed out.

Typical coast-to-coast jets, by contrast, travel at more like 600 miles per hour. “When people are in a hurry, they like to fly at high speeds,” he explained. With solar aircraft, “that’s not going to be possible for some time.” On Raymond’s own craft, he can fly at altitudes as high as 21,000 feet with the plane’s windows open, he said. Looking ahead, then, the next steps in solar flight will be to increase both flying speeds and payload capabilities, Raymond added.

“The notion of having solar-powered aircraft is an interesting one,” Brad Collins, executive director of the American Solar Energy Society, told TechNewsWorld.

Currently, there are also electric airplanes under construction in China, Collins noted.

“If you had a technical marriage between solar on the wings and electric power, you could really start to impact not only the global influences of flight but also efficiencies and costs,” he suggested, noting that fuel is currently the No. 1 cost in traditional air travel.

After two less-than-stellar years, the solar energy industry should return to growth rates in the 60- to 100-percent range in 2010, Collins added. “Solar is one of the bright spots in the global economy,” he concluded, “as more people are realizing that it’s the energy source of the future.”

source: TechNewsWorld

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The first CSP projects date to the 1960s in Europe and 1980s in the U.S. The concept got a lot of press recently when the nascent Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) unveiled its plan to transport solar power from North Africa to Europe. DII’s proposal highlights the potential for CSP worldwide, including throughout a large swath of North America.

Of the four types of CSP technologies, parabolic troughs are the most mature and are commercially proven, according to a joint 2009 report from Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association and the International Energy Agency’s SolarPACES.

Launched in July 2009 by 12 European companies, DII was founded as a limited company October 30, 2009 with Paul van Son, a Belgium energy executive, as its first CEO. Physicist Max Schoen, who founded Desertec (now Desertec Foundation) and is current head of the DII supervisory board, often cites the fact that “within six hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes in a year.” The foundation date came a year after the 43 participants of the Union for the Mediterranean summit under French and Egypt leadership signed the Mediterranean Solar-Plan (MSP).

Plans for the transmission infrastructure are currently being discussed — about which kind of line to construct, a representative of The European Renewable Energy Council told The Faster Times , but an existing transmission cable between Morroco and Spain wouldn’t be sufficient to transport energy from CSP. The representative didn’t know how much the EU would pay for the transmission line, but she did say that the EU will fund a maximum of 50 percent of CSP projects in Europe or North Africa, involving a European company. The Desertec website provides an overview of the concept and proposed transmission lines.

Skeptics doubt whether solar from North Africa can meet a substantial portion of Europe’s energy mix by 2020 or 2050 as DII hopes. And they point out environmental barriers, such as sandstorms, and terror threats, but proponents say these hazards can be overcome and that the project will stem the tide of illegal migration to Europe from Africa by creating jobs and providing local energy. Further, they say, it could establish a framework for water battles since the process involves water desalination.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has fast-tracked plans to develop federal lands for solar. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told Congress in January that 128 applications for utility-scale projects are under review by the Bureau of Land Management.

Nine plants were constructed in the Mojave desert in California by Israeli-American company Luz between 1984 and 1991, according to the CSP report, and Acciona is planning a 64 MW project called Nevada One that will produce 130 GWh per year. In Spain, the Andasol and Solnova projects in construction will together provide 250 MW of capacity. The largest single parabolic trough installation yet proposed is called Solana and is planned for a site in Nevada. More than 14 more projects of their type are proposed since the introduction of a sufficient feed-in tariff (FiT), which aims to achieve grid parity.

On the whole, prospects for CSP are good: The cost is dropping — at about 15 US cents per KWh for solar generated electricity at sites with very good solar radiation, with predicted ongoing costs as low as 8 cents per KWh in some circumstances, such that CSP is becoming competitive with conventional, fossil-fuelled peak and mid-load power stations, according to the joint CSP report.

source: TheFasterTimes.com

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The study was conducted on the orders of Massachusetts state environmental officials and conducted rigorously for about six months to finally reach the result. This rubbished the idea of burning biomass for power needs as they were believed to be less carbon producing. The study has ended the path for the use of biomass as a renewable energy source in the wake of depleting natural resources and global warming. The Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences on Thursday published the findings of the study.

Till now biomass was said to be carbon neutral as the trees absorb carbon dioxide for during their lifetime for producing food. Now when this biomass is burned the carbon is released into the atmosphere which can be again taken up by other growing plants in its place. But this idea has been left on shaky grounds after the study. The study points out that the time frames considered in this idea are wrong. It takes a very small time for a tree to burn out and release a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere whereas it would take decades to absorb and fix the same amount of carbon. This questions the role that biomass can play in the reduction of atmospheric carbon which is the primary reason of global warming.

John Hagan, Manomet’s president elaborates “There’s a greenhouse gas debt before there’s a dividend. And so the question becomes, how long does it take to pay off the debt before you start to appreciate the climate benefits of using wood?” Hagan says. “So if it’s a large electricity plant, like a 50-megawatt electricity plant, the debt period could be 20 or 30 years before you start to appreciate a carbon benefit.”

Biomass can on the contrary be used more efficiently for heating and not for power generation. In its use for heating the biomass can pay off the carbon debt within 10 to 20 years.  The carbon debt payoff for using biomass instead of coal to make electricity is 21 years and more than 90 years compared to making electricity from natural gas.

The study will be and enlightening literature for policy makers of the future to address power needs and at the same time account for sustainable development and reduce global warming. And also help regions manage their forests better.

source: Abh-news.com

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