Energy

African Sunlight for European Power

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Blue chip companies in Germany are looking at using solar energy to power the European markets, the really neat thing is that all the solar energy stations will be in northern Africa. This will help the EU become more efficient with power generation and help the northern African countries with more revenue.

The energy potential in the deserts south of the Mediterranean is enormous.

According to the European Commission’s Institute for Energy, if just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts was captured, it could provide all of Europe’s energy needs.

The Desertec project aims to build solar power plants in several locations in north Africa. Jeworrek said the “most important criteria” was that the locations were “situated in politically stable lands”. Morocco, as well as Libya and Algeria have been cited as potential sites, where land is also cheap.

The technique called “concentrating solar power” or CSP, uses banks of mirrors to focus the sun’s rays in a central column filled with water. The rays heat the water, vaporising the it into a steam which is then used to drive turbines which generate carbon-free electricity.

Green Jobs Grow fast

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Wired is running an article that points out the outstanding growth of green jobs in the USA and how they already employ 770,000 Americans. Green jobs have grown 250% since 1998.

The report differs from government projections or most industry association estimates in that it counts individual jobs, not entire industries. In other words, only the electricians who actually install solar panels were counted as green electricians.

“Although our numbers are conservative, our report provides the most precise depiction to date of the clean energy economy in the United States,” the Pew researchers wrote.

Green jobs are a major part President Obama’s plan for economic recovery and energy transformation. Manufacturing jobs have declined a few percent a year over the last decade, and in the bullet-point language of Whitehouse.gov, his administration wants to “Drive the development of new, green jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced.” The report shows that environmentally friendly jobs already exist, but most of the “green” jobs aren’t in clean energy at all. A full 65 percent of the jobs fell into the “conservation and pollution mitigation” category, which includes recycling.

That leaves a lot of room for growth in clean energy, even if some jobs are lost in traditional energy companies. Right now, there’s a small base. There were only 89,000 “clean energy” jobs in 2007. Current research indicates that for renewable energy sources to really make an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependence, we’re going to need a lot of manpower.

Solar Power and Stirling Engines (TED Talk)

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

Here’s a talk from 2003 that examines the efficiency of using concentrated solar energy to run a stirling engine. This is a super-efficient way to produce energy.

A Simple Buoy That Pumps Water

- Adam Clare

Pumping water into filtrations plants and reservoirs is not really an exciting topic, except when someone invents something that’s so simple that it seems that it should exist. A British inventor has created a pump that uses only wave power that is a self-cleaning device that essentially pumps water for free.

Dubbed ‘Searaser’, it consists of what looks like a navigation buoy, but is in fact a simple arrangement of ballast and floats connected by a piston. As a wave passes the device, the float is lifted, raising the piston and compressing water. The float sinks back down on the tail of the wave on to a second float, compressing water again on the downstroke.

What is particularly clever about Searaser, however, is its simplicity. Where most marine energy devices have sealed, lubricated innards and complex electronics, Searaser is lubricated entirely by seawater, has no electronic components and is even self-cleaning. Smith describes it as ‘Third-World mechanics’, but this belies the sophistication of the concept.

‘The beauty of it is that we’re only making a pump, and bringing water ashore,’ he explains. ‘All the other technology needed to generate the electricity already exists.’

9% Return on Solar Investments

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

In the UK it is apparently possible to get a 9% return on investing in solar panels for your house thanks to the economy and government programs. Score one for the environment and for your pocketbook.

How we achieved a 9% return on investment:
The cost of our solar power system was £17,000 but the government paid for 50% which meant it only cost us £8,500 ($13,000). A return of £590 ($903) for that amount of investment equals around 9% return if you take into account that it’s untaxed.
In this economic climate you would be hard pressed to get such a return on investment.
The future
With the cost of photovoltaic panels reducing every year, choosing to purchase solar panels is becoming even more of a sound investment choice.

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