Jul/100
New Approaches to Wind Power in Massive 10MW Turbine Design
The Aerogenerator X is a new 10 MW wind turbine designed for off-shore use combining the best of horizontal axis and vertical axis designs.
via New Approaches to Wind Power in Massive 10MW Turbine Design.
Jul/100
Synthetic Gasoline Is Created From Biomass and Solar Power
Synthetic Gasoline Is Created From Biomass and Solar Power
via Synthetic Gasoline Is Created From Biomass and Solar Power.
Concentrated solar energy is most commonly used for electrical power generation. However, a Colorado company, Sundrop Fuels, has a unique approach to the production of biofuel by that marries the mirrors and tower of concentrated solar power with their process for the production of bio-based fuels.
Instead of burning biomass for the energy needed to create biofuel, Sundrop uses concentrated solar as their energy source to gasify a range of feedstocks including agricultural waste, energy crops, and wood waste. The Sundrop process can produce a range of fuels including gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel. Many other biofuel processes produce ethanol which has a lower energy density than other fuels, meaning that more of it must be used for an equal amount of work. (Flex-fuel cars get fewer miles per gallon from ethanol than from gasoline, but the ethanol fuel costs less per gallon, and the ethanol is not derived from petroleum.)
Sundrop uses the high temperatures from the concentrated solar array to vaporize the biomass feedstock and form syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. As with other biofuel processess, the syngas is the basic building block which is turned into useful fuel.
Sundrop’s process has other efficiencies that provide additional benefits. By using solar energy, the process yields 100 to 125 gallons of fuel per ton of biomass, which is more than twice what other biofuel producers obtain. The process also requires far less water, needing only a half gallon of water per gallon of fuel produced, versus 6 or 7 gallons required in other systems. The process also creates electrical power from the waste heat generated in the reaction tower.
One of the only significant drawbacks that the Sundrop process faces is the distance between areas with excellent solar access (and few cloudy days) and ready sources of biomass.
The Sundrop process is expected to be able to create gasoline, without subsidies, for less than $2 per gallon. The company is constructing a pilot plant and aims to have a full, commercial-scale plant with a capacity of 100 million gallons by 2015.
Jul/100
Renewables Made Up Half of New Power Installed in U.S. Last Year
Renewables Made Up Half of New Power Installed in U.S. Last Year
via Renewables Made Up Half of New Power Installed in U.S. Last Year.
May/100
Gravel Batteries Offer a Solution for Renewable Energy Storage
Gravel Batteries Offer a Solution for Renewable Energy Storage
“The gravel battery system would use excess capacity generated by a renewable source to heat and pressurize the argon gas and then pump it through a gravel filled silo to store energy. Then, when demand calls for electricity, the system is simply operated in reverse to generate electricity. According to the company, the system’s “round trip efficiency is over 72% – 80%.” This is comparable to the efficiency of pumped storage hydro, which has an efficiency of 70 – 85%. But gravel batteries are much more compact, and can be more readily installed in relatively flat areas characteristic of many areas with good windpower potential, such as the American Great Plains. A gravel battery can use far less land (1/300th) than that required for a pumped hydro lake, as well.”
via Gravel Batteries Offer a Solution for Renewable Energy Storage.
Apr/100
Question for the Kennedy’s
I wonder what the Kennedy’s would prefer -a windfarm, or an exploding sinking oil rig – resulting oil slick – and subsequent unknown environmental damage?
Apr/100
Kiss the Grid Goodbye: Power Your Home with a Bloom Box! | Greenopolis
Bloom Energy is a venture capital funded firm that builds the “Bloom Box”- an appliance sized unit that houses fuel cells running on natural gas, landfill gas, bio-gas or solar power. Fuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen and emit only heat, electricity and distilled water.Google has been powering a datacenter with 4 Bloom Boxes running on natural gas for the past year and a half. eBay has 5 of them in San Jose, which they claim have saved them $100,000 in energy costs over the past 9 months.
via Kiss the Grid Goodbye: Power Your Home with a Bloom Box! | Greenopolis.
Apr/100
The World’s First Energy-Generating Revolving Door | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World
Harvesting the kinetic energy generated by crowds of people is one of our favorite approaches to renewable energy. Recently Netherlands-based Natuurcafé La Port installed an energy generator in a rotating door, so every time someone walks in for a cup of coffee, they give just a little bit of their energy back to the coffee shop.
via The World’s First Energy-Generating Revolving Door | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.
Apr/100
The train that never stops | scitechie.com
Stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time. But in this brilliant new Chinese train innovation No time is wasted- get on & off the bullet train without the train stopping. The bullet train is moving all the time.
via AMAZING : Chinese Concept – The train that never stops | scitechie.com.
Apr/100
MIT claims 24/7 solar power
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have combined a liquid catalyst with photovoltaic cells to achieve what they claim is a solar energy system that could generate electricity around the clock.
Apr/100
BioPower Systems – Wave and Tidal Energy
BioPower Systems is commercialising ocean power conversion technologies. Through the application of biomimicry, we have adopted nature’s mechanisms for survival and energy conversion in the marine environment and have applied these in the development of our proprietary bioWAVE™ ocean wave energy system and bioSTREAM™ tidal energy system. These systems inherit benefits developed during 3.8 billion years of evolutionary optimization in nature’s ocean laboratory. Like their natural counterparts, the systems are designed to move and sway in tune with the forces of the ocean, and naturally streamline when extreme conditions prevail. This leads to lightweight engineering structures and lower costs.The bioWAVE™ and bioSTREAM™ are designed to supply utility-scale grid-connected renewable energy using efficient modular systems. These automated systems will be mounted on the seabed and operate beneath the ocean surface, out of view, and in harmony with the marine inhabitants that inspired their design.