Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts

Natural Gas Must Not Be Used as a Substitute for Clean Power Generation

It is proposed that natural gas be used instead of coal for electric power generation. The national climate summit put a deadline of 2012 for this to happen with the dirtiest power station, Hazlewood. Environment Victoria took up the challenge saying that natural gas with renewable energy resources could reduce Hazlewood's pollution by 14.4 million tonnes to just 1.8. Wind generation would gradually replace natural gas.

The claim is exceedingly optimistic. Too much faith is placed in wind generation despite the fact that electricity production by this means has peaked in northern Europe and it still does not make a profit.  Beyond Zero Emissions is even more optimistic. Its plan aims to end Hazlewood's use of coal by 2013.  Failure to reduce emissions means it could be closed.

The future looks good for natural gas production with gas being obtained from coal seams and 20 gas power plants being planned. Natural gas is not really clean though. Indeed, leakage of methane gas occurs. Replacing coal power generation with gas as a temporary measure is a mistake. What is the point of wasting millions of dollars in investment on the premise that something better will come along?

The best way to go in the short term is to build solar thermal power sites alongside existing coal power stations. Note that solar thermal only produces electricity during the day. A final solution will undoubtedly be tidal generation because the moon continues to circle the earth making oceans rise and fall day after day.
Environment by Ty Buchanan
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Society by Ty Buchanan
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Investment in Clean Energy Production Predicted to Rise

It is predicted that the use of solar and wind power will rapidly increase as costs falls. There has been an improvement in the efficiency of wind turbines. Solar panels also put out more power at a lower cost.

Australians have strongly adopted solar power while governments offer high payments for electricity going back into the system. Making an end date of 2026 of such overpayment was a silly idea. It is too far ahead for future governments to guarantee this "lopsided" subsidy that only helps the wealthy. The financial burden has been pushed onto the elderly.

Solar power has hidden costs. Power surges burn out televisions and computers. New ones must be purchased. Many consumers are saying someone has to fix this. Considering solar power generation will fluctuate throughout the day with this is near impossible.

Frank Calabria, CEO of Origin Energy, favors the elimination of all subsidies on clean energy. This indicates a probable back down considering Origin is the largest investor in wind farms. Coal remains the cheapest form of power production in Australia. This economic advantage will continue. Whether new calls for nuclear power are supported is unknown are present.
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Conservation
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Power Generation Via Hydrogen Is Not Taking Off

It is amazing how people will see something new, then run with it to the extreme saying this will change the world. This is true for virtually all non-fossil energy producing systems, but all of them have drawbacks and none have revolutionized the power sector. The two major problems have been high cost and non constant energy production during the 24 hour period.

Scientists have worked on hydrogen systems for decades and success seems very distant. It is not being accepted for widespread use. Actually, hydrogen is a "byproduct" of energy production. When electricity is generated by any method the excess not used at a point in time is passed through water. It splits into oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis with the fuel stored to be used in the future. When hydrogen is recombined with oxygen, electricity is generate. Heat from the process can also be used directly for heating purposes.

As with other environmentally friendly electricity producing methods time will tell if hydrogen is accepted for general use. Perhaps hydrogen can be made in significant quantities from solar and wind generation. It could potentially make for a hybrid system producing electricity 24 hours a day. Until now, governments have been the main source of funding for hydrogen experiments. Apparently, the private sector sees little future in it. For non-fossil energy systems to flourish it is necessary for the community to work together. Unfortunately, individualism is the norm. Perhaps this is why there is very little progress.

Energy Use Due to Mobile Phones Is Unstainable

There is an energy crisis slowly creeping up on us. We go about our daily business enjoying the benefits of computer advances while not realizing that massive amounts of energy are being consumed.

Mobile phones are designed with very little hard storage. Reliance on cloud services is increasing at a rapid pace. Many developing countries do not enjoy continuous energy supplies. When the electricity goes off so does cloud storage. In advanced countries aluminium producers were blamed for eating up too much power, now everyone is responsible.

A new study, The Power of Wireless Cloud, clearly shows that the continuing use of electricity is not sustainable. Energy use by cloud services will be equivalent to 4.9 million cars over the period 2012-2015. This is known by comparing energy from petrol to power station input.

It is not just the cloud. Wi-Fi will use more power than anything else. Computing networks are not "clean". Many do not consider that most electricity is still being produced with dirty energy inputs. Even nuclear is dirty - it contaminates.
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Society
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New Solar Power Station in Western Australia

Australia goes its own way in lower carbon power generation by opening a solar-diesel power station, the world's first, in Western Australia. Solar panels track the sun during the day. The station is built in a location that holds the record for the most days of maximum temperature. Use of the solar panels will lessen greenhouse gas emissions by 1119 tonnes a year.

the local Aboriginal community is fully supportive of the power plant in the Pilbara. Aboriginals named it Pippunyah, the name of the river nearby. Funding came from the Federal Government in its renewable remote power generation program via the Office of Energy in Western Australia.

It is unfortunate that solar power generation had to be combined with fossil fuel generation. Even getting natural gas there would have been better than diesel. It seems there is no perfect solution to the pollution problem. New systems only seem to meet requirements half way.
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Energy
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Models Show Lasers Can Produce Energy Using Hydrogen-Boron as Fuel

Energy created by lasers could be the way of the future. Researchers have used models and they show that lasers can produce "cold" energy by nuclear fusion. A new generation of fast, powerful lasers makes this possible. To achieve fusion a short, carefully controlled pulse is required. The pulse target is hydrogen and boron. Creating neutrons is not the objective because they cause radioactivity.

The Australian research is duplicating what is going on at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, but they are using deuterium-tritium fuel.

A single laser pulse can generate 500 times more electricity than all the power stations in the US. At first the research team did not believe hydrogen-boron fuel would work. However, models indicated that it was only ten times more difficult than deuterium-tritium. For it to work the laser pulse must be clean, that is, lasting only a million, millionth of a second. Optical energy is then converted to mechanical energy.

It is not commonly known but coal power stations actually emit radioactivity - it is a problem in Germany where they are considering burying polluted material. Producing energy by laser pulsing hydrogen-boron creates less radioactivity than using deuterium-tritium. Coal generation is very dirty compared to hydrogen-boron. The waste product is helium gas. Hydrogen-boron is also plentiful. Team leader Professor Hora say it could be some time before the research becomes reality.
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Society
TwitThis
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The Energy Crisis Has Been Solved

The energy crisis has been solved - no more pollution or high fuel prices! Just get a "slave" to pedal away all day while you enjoy the electricity generated. A joke? No this is no joke. Scientists are using mice with special nanowire jackets to create power while running around in their exercise wheels.

But this is just the beginning. The jackets will be made "human" size. So you can generate electricity to run your iPod for example. Jackets will even be made to put on your dog. Taking a dog for a walk will no longer be a waste of human time.

The nanowire generators can be put on anything that moves or vibrates. They can be put on bicycles, cars, air conditioners, heaters and so on. It will take some time, however, to make them smaller and cheaper. Research on this is being done.
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Society

Tiny Phosphorus Wires Means Computers Can Be Smaller

Moore's Law can still be valid. Computer power can continue to double every two years. As the diameter of "wires" in semiconductors get smaller resistance to electrical flow increases. This was thought to be a real barrier to improving computer chips.

A team of researchers from the University of Melbourne, University of NSW and Purdue University in the US have made wires from phosphorus only four atoms in diameter. The tiny wires are encased in silicon and conductivity is retained.

When the diameter of conventional wires is reduced, resistivity rises exponentially. This means that as computer power has doubled so resistance has doubled. The conductivity in current computers is very poor. Silicon on the surface of the new phosphorus wire isolates it from the general environment, so the flow of electrons is unaffected and is not slowed down.

It will be some years before computer circuit boards can be made using the new technology. We are reaching the end-time for Moore's law, but the future holds the promise of smaller electronic devices.
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Computers

New Laser Processing of Uranium Is a Danger

The last thing the world needs is an easier way to enrich uranium. There is nowhere to put the used uranium and the disaster in Japan shows the potential risk and damage from nuclear power stations.

A new laser enrichment process has been developed by General Electric. It enables production of enriched uranium cheaper, quicker and in larger amounts. It is feared that "rogue" states will get hold of the knowledge and make uranium for nuclear bombs.

Claiming that nuclear power is a way of reducing greenhouse gases is ridiculous. If more power plants are built more will be at risk from natural disasters. Vast tracts of land will be left uninhabitable as in Japan. It is ironic that GE has made this leap forward in partnerships with a Japanese company, Hitachi.

They are talking now about turning the damaged power plant back on because the country cannot manage without it. Workers there will have to wear full-protection suits all day every day to generate electricity.
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Science

Surely Australia Could Pay a Little More for a Cleaner Planet

It is so strange how support for Kevin Rudd's Emissions Trading Scheme has totally evaporated. Kevin Rudd rightly claims that his backing down from trying to pass the legislation cost him leadership of his party and the country, so great was public support for it then. Times have changed. With big rises in water charges and electricity charges across the country people just don't want a bar of it anymore.

The proof of global warming is considerable. Ice is disappearing from the North and South Poles. Those who still contend that it is made up just to get money out of the public must be living on another planet - in their minds at least. No one wants to be paying higher prices for essential items than consumers in other countries, but the world is changing. China is making major changes. to reduce pollution. Finland introduced the world's first carbon tax in 1990. That is two decades ago. Sweden followed in 1991. Great Britain brought in a climate change levy in 2001. Boulder in Colorado has had a carbon tax on electricity since 2007. There has been a tax on all fuels in Quebec from 2007. British Columbia initiated the most efficient carbon tax in 2008 with $10 tax per metric ton rising to $30 in 2012. So Australians would not be alone in paying higher prices.

Young Australian families today have never known hard times. Economies go in boom and bust cycles. Australia has been lucky in avoiding the busts due to a small population "owning" a tremendous resources base. It is the only country in the world with this economic advantage. Surely Australia can do it a little tougher and help show the way to a better world.
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Society

The Cost of Electricity Will Rise If Electric Car Ownership Increases

There isn't much doubt that as people adopt alternative means of transportation and relinquish the hold that the internal combustion engine has over us that costs will increase for alternative "fuels". A hope for the future is electric cars, the cost now being only a fifth of comparable petrol or diesel vehicles. If the majority of the population actually do buy electric cars the supply of electricity will have to be increased. More power stations will have to be built.

The Japanese accident shows that nuclear is no longer an option for future power generation. This means more pollution from coal and oil power stations. Electric cars are not an easy solution to the pollution problem. It is just a cheaper means of transportation, for the present.

The market always pushes up the price of alternatives. Households in the future will have a hefty electricity bill for lighting, heating and so on of their homes. Two tier pricing is not an option. All electricity will eventually have to be paid for at the same price from the first unit used, whether it be for home heating or the car.
~~~~~Society~~~~~
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Don't Get Excited About Nuclear Power

The world is in a tight corner and people are far too optimistic. Thinking that carbon pollution will cure itself is not scientific fact. Only a fool would hang onto the notion that nothing is wrong. The poles are thawing out and that is fact. Polar bears are dwindling in number as their traditional frozen feeding grounds get warmer. Butterflies that used to stay on in winter in southern England have moved north to colder climes. Those species that stay are getting larger.

Despite coal power stations being the main culprit more are being built to meet Mankind's increasing demand. Much is said about nuclear power stations holding the key to a "clean" future. Used uranium is going around Europe at this very moment without finding a home in any country. Where will this dangerous product be put in the future? Unless it is blasted into space toward the sun there is no where for it to go. France gets more than 80 percent of its electric power from nuclear means, but this is the country with the used uranium problem.

Even some scientists say the carbon footprint of nuclear power will be reduced to zero. This is hogwash. If you ignore nuclear waste everything looks good. Include it and it all looks very bad indeed. Nuclear power isn't cheap. Building a nuclear power plant requires long term planning. Safe guards are costly. Their useful life is also limited. Coal plants can stay in operation for much longer.

Within twenty years all 25 of China's new nuclear plants will come online. The world will be a militants' paradise with used uranium for sale on the open market. The consequences will be catastrophic. Saying there is no carbon price is absolute rubbish. If a bomb goes off there will be plenty of pollution.
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