Life Alternate

Is China Solar Energy Helping the World

Wispa — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:11:53 +0000

The raging tiger Economy of China has seen the country take leaps and bounds in the last few decades. Many of these advancements are overlooked when Western Nations point the finger and shout Democracy. Freedoms are desirable and so are a lot of other aspects of life. China is becoming the a world leader in many ways and one in particular to LifeAlternate is renewable energy.

sunset china

Helped by its relatively low cost economy China has advanced in solar energy production and solar installations. Achievable Targets are being renewed. Having already aimed for a solar capacity of 5 GW the country is about to double this to 10 GW of solar energy production by the year 2015. Longer term targets could be seeing the country produce 50 GW by 2020.

There is an undeniable connection between production and cost. The more solar energy China installs the more the cost comes down. This is a great benefit to the rest of the world making the price very comparable with much more polluting form of energy production.

China’s rapid development requires a desperate need for energy. A large focus has been on the somewhat cheaper but extremely environmentally unfriendly coal power stations. We all agree this is the wrong direction but it has given China a little breathing space to shift the focus of energy production on to renewables.

If China gains more of the world production of solar photovoltaic panels that would bring down the cost. For the rest of the world cheaper solar energy can only be a good thing. The benefits of renewable energy are too important to get political about.

IKEA and The Solar Rooftop

Wispa — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:41:27 +0000

IKEA a name synonymous with a Scandinavian style of furniture is also taking steps into the green revolution. Not only do they sell green products like the LED Light bulb but IKEA are also making their stores more environmentally friendly.

IKEA is making their stores more efficient with solar energy. Already shoppers can choose their household furnishings in stores that are powered by Photovoltaic solar arrays mounted on the roofs of the stores. If your picking up your new European styles in Pittsburgh, Tempe or Brooklyn then you may be shopping with a store powered by renewable energy.

All across the country IKEA is installing or planning to install renewable energy California and Colorado. This even extends across the Canadian border to Toronto.

The new store under construction in Denver, Colorado will have 60,000 square feet of solar energy production on its roof. This will consist of around 2,200 Photovoltaic solar panels producing nearly 500 Kilowatts of energy. For those concerned with CO2 then this store will prevent the emission of of nearly 600 tons of carbon gases each year.

In IKEA’s home country, Sweden, the home furnishing company has made it a goal to have all its stores powered by renewable energy sources. This is to include wind generation which the company already has made progress.

A plan to build a wind power station in Dalarna, Sweden, will produce around 70GWh of renewable energy each year, this is approximately equivalent to the energy used by all the IKEA stores in Sweden.

Wind power already generates energy for it’s stores in France and Germany.

IKEA is one of the more environmentally conscious companies around has over 300 stores in 38 countries around the world.

Image: dailyenergy

Weird Sahara Breeder Project

Wispa — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:48:02 +0000

Renewable energy is still thought to be a bit on the weird side for some people but fortunately the number is small. Sometimes even for those a bit more knowledgeable of the wonders renewables come across idea that make them raise and eyebrow.

The Sahara Breeder is one such project dreamt up in the minds from Universities in Algeria and Japan How does a project that would provide 50% of the world energy by 2050 sound. The ambitious idea is to take place in the Sahara desert which has an abundance of sand.

Silica would be extracted from the sand and then manufactured in to solar panels. These solar panels in turn would be used to power more silicon extracting factories and more photovoltaic solar panel factories to build more solar power plants and so on and so on. Constantly increasing the capacity.

Eventually there will be enough solar energy being produced to power 50% of the worlds needs. That is provides the technology exists to make it happen. Turning sand in to silicon used to make the solar panels is not yet possible nor is the capacity to send large amounts of energy through cables around the world.

North Africa is ideal for solar projects with its abundant sunshine and the vastness of uninhabited areas and many countries are using this resource for themselves. There is also another ambitious project, Desertec, involving Europe and a wide range of renewable energy projects along North Africa and The Middle East.

Italy Increases Solar Energy Targets

Wispa — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 08:45:47 +0000

The people have recently turned they back on Nuclear Energy and have directed themselves into Solar Energy. A capacity of 8GW by 2020 has already been passed.

The Italians voted “NO” to Nuclear Energy in a recent referendum and have taken on solar energy in a big way. The Country had set an ambitious target of having 8GW of electricity generated by solar energy. Now the Italians can take pride in their achievement of already passing that barrier and have set a much larger goal for themselves.

The hope is to achieve 30GW, that is nearly 4 times the previous target. The country lacks any massive domestic electricity generation with the majority if its power being imported.

Italy has also just opened its largest photovoltaic production plant. The plant in Catania will initially produce 160 MW of panels per year with that rising to 480 MW.

The production plant is a joint venture between Enel Green Power, Sharp and STMicroelectronics and will produce panels for markets in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Increasing Wind Power in China

Wispa — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 08:15:26 +0000

China is becoming the world leader in Wind Energy Production and leaving other counties flapping behind. The hunger for energy has made developing greener options extremely viable.

China has gone for wind in a big way with growth in wind power being more than any other forms of renewable energy production in the country. They are still building nasty polluting coal power station to meet demand and by total generating capacity coal still beats wind by a long way.

Since 2005 wind capacity has virtually doubled each year with around 19,000 MW being installed in 2010. This brings the total capacity to over 44,733 MW of electricity generation. A number that is pushing the USA in to a second place spot. The United States is also falling back on new installation with just a measly 5,000 MW installed in 2010.

First place or second place does not matter as this is no way a competition. Cleaner renewable energy could be seen as an ultimate step to preserving our future. Some of the USA’s demise is attributed to the reduction on tax credits for wind installations.

Everybody has targets and China has its own of 90,000 MW by the year 2015. With many large scale wind farms in development it would seem that China can easily achieve and surpass this number.

Wind production has it’s problems like most renewable energies. The obvious one here is the wind does not always blow and thus no power generation. The variability of the wind speed can reduce output to a fraction of the generating capacity.

Energy storage is the key here which lends itself wonderfully to home wind generation. On a larger scale with larger capacities then the problems become much harder.

Hybrid Cars Stepping up the Juice

Wispa — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:26:48 +0000

The Toyota Pirus series of hybrid cars have been extremely popular since their introduction in 1997. The combination of gasoline and electric has offered a stepping stone to full electric vehicles.

Toyota along with the other main players, Nissan and General Motors are leading the push in Hybrid Technology although it would appear that Toyota is way out in front. The company hopes to achieve world wide sales of 1 million hybrid cars a year by the middle of the decade.

Hybrids have the advantage over pure electric vehicles in they lack the need for the expensive and often heavy batteries. Having the gasoline infrastructure already in place is an added bonus.

With that advantage Toyota are introducing newer models to the Pirus family. Increasing the economy rating and offering more room on the insides.

Also on the cards are plug-in hybrids. These like the fully electric car will allow charging of the internal battery from any place that has an outlet.

Hybrid cars are an extremely good option until technology and infrastructure for electric vesicles matures and become and viable option to gasoline cars for everybody.

While ultimately our town and cities would be so much better with less cars on the road, having cleaner and more efficient cars is a step in the right direction.

Concentrated Solar Power Still out of Focus

Wispa — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:49:23 +0000

Concentrated Solar Power, or Solar Thermal, is one of the more costlier renewable energies around and this have reflected in the low uptake of the technology.

Concentrated solar power

Solar energy is something most people know about but their ideas are mainly of solar photovoltaic. This is the direct conversion of sunlight in to electricity. Photovoltaic is not the only way to harness the energy from the sun.

Head outside in summer time and everybody is going to feel the rays of the sun or more exact the heat. Quite often this becomes too uncomfortable and we head for a more cooler air conditioned environment. This heat energy is what Concentrated Solar Power is all about. Capturing that heat and turning it into usable energy.

Storing the heat of the Sun has one quite significant advantage over photovoltaic and that is the stored heat energy can be used at night. This energy storage concept may be seen in the home with some storage radiators that turn low rate electricity in to stored heat in bricks that is radiated thought the house.

To be really efficient this has to be done on a massive scale and at much higher temperatures. The concentrating part is taking the suns energy over a large area using mirrors and focusing or concentrating it all together. This the heats salt which can function at these high temperatures and keeps the energy from leaking away.

For this to be usable as electricity the heat is more often turned in to steam and the on to an electricity generator much like an ordinary power station.

Engineering a Thermal Power Station is much more costly and difficult that photovoltaic. In fact photovoltaic is so easy that many people have them installed on their residences.

Whats Next for Electronic Readers

Wispa — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:20:44 +0000

Portable devices are in common use now and advancements in renewable technology has made steps to make them even better. eReaders are a favorite with travelers who like to catch up on a few chapters of their latest books.

Solar Powered eReaders

The obvious advantage of an eReader is clear when you think of the size of a pile of 1,000 paper books compared to the size of one little tablet. There are two light problems here. The first one is how can you choose a title to read among the massive selection. The solution of that one is down to you. The second is energy. while electronic ink readers are already efficient, the batteries do run out of power just when you want to use them.

The solution here is solar energy. Currently there are many solar chargers on the market and these work well keeping you gadgets topped up while you are on holiday. The next ideal solution is to make the devices and solar charger integrated. There are already eBook readers, like the Biblio leaf, on that market that have this functionality and we can expect many more in the coming years.

Readers with Touch-screen

Now that we have them all charged up how about few extra features. Touch Screen has taken off since the iPhone came on the market. This is now becoming available on many devices and buttons are becoming nearly obsolete. Devices like the Kobo Reader bring this to life.

Electronic Ink screens are of a slight different technology that is used on other touch-screen devices. This means the designers have to come at the problem from a slightly different angle by using infra-red light. Now we can have virtual button and page turns at the stroke of a finger.

The future can only lead to more exciting innovations. Typically I am not a “green” person but anything that reduces my need to be plugged in some how makes me quite pleased. Take a look back a mobile phones since they first appeared, they were the size of a small suitcase. Now they include your massive hi-fi system and record collection, your video came console, Internet connection and sometimes people still use them as phones. All this in something that fits in your pocket.

Germany to throw out all Nuclear Power by 2022

Wispa — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:12:02 +0000

Germany is the latest European country to make the big nuclear decision. The nation will be nuclear free by the year 2022. The waves of anti-nuclear feeling is spreading across the European Continent with Germany being the latest country to ditch nuclear energy.

Germany has currently 17 nuclear reactors. After the earthquake in Japan that caused the nuclear tide to change, Germany shut down 7 of their oldest reactors in March due to safety concerns, one reactor had already been off-line. The remaining reactors will stay online until 2021 when 6 more will be decommissioned with the last 3 turned off the following year.

This is quite a large risk for Germany. It is a highly industrialized country and many of those industries demand lots of energy. Nuclear Power accounts for around 25% of that demand and will have to be replaced with reliable sources.

The country has always had a “green” aspect to it’s culture and the Government hopes to encourage this with efficiency to reduce the energy demand. Renewable energy will play an important role and we can expect lots of developments in this area.

Germany’s biggest source of electricity is from coal power plants. These produce around 45% of the country’s needs with renewables like solar, Wind and Hydro taking up the remainder.

The challenge here is much greater than what has happened to Switzerland’s Nuclear production. They have muck less energy to replace and twice as much time to achieve it. Germany might have to go back on its nuclear free commitment or extend the time-scale of it’s proposals.

Aquamarine Oyster Expands on Wave Energy

Wispa — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:13:08 +0000

In Scotland, Aquamarine Power is pushing development of its wave power generator. The company is about to install its second Oyster machine in the coming months.

Wave Energy has been overshadowed by more prominent renewable energy forms such as Wind and Solar but there has been progress and some failures over the years.

Aquamarine has been experimenting in the North of Scotland with the Oyster and might just be on the verge of expanding the testing to a full scale wave energy plant. In a few months a second Oyster will be located on the seabed just off the coast of Scotland.

The company is in expansion mode and has made a bid for European funding for the development of a 28MW wave power project. Once completed the Oyster array will be the largest grid connected wave farm in the world.

Altogether a total of 10 Oysters will be bobbing up and down in the waves when operational.

Scotland is ideally located to capture wave energy. The constant swells push across the Atlantic Ocean and can contain a massive amount of energy to harvest. This is also the major problem that Aquamarine have to overcome. Wave machines have to withstand the massive forces and being offshore they have to be extremely reliable.

The big advantage here is wave energy can operate at night unlike solar power. Hopefully the project will become cost-effective and wave energy will become a more common form of renewable energy.