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The images in this post are coutesy of Swanturbines Ltd -- kos.]
Since humans ventured out of the wild and decided to settle where they may, fire has been a constant need. Our battle with fire was greatly advanced with the AC/DC current, allowing us to tame energy for our everyday needs. But we still had to generate fire as it were to power our basic way of life from non-renewable sources that does a number on Mother Nature. This is the last great war for humans, and if we succeed in taming fire once and for all, it will go a long way towards an egalitarian society.
But how do we do it? How do we solve the riddle that has confounded cultures for generations? My friends, we have the technology, we need to tell those who keep down the advancement of humanity so their profit margins are robust that their time at the feeding trough is over. With a free and replenish-able power supply, costs of common goods will dramatically drop, as will travel, home heating and lighting, and myriad of other aspects of life that will usher in a dawn of untold prosperity. It is always darkest before the dawn, and this journey of a thousand steps starts with a single question, "how?"
Personally, I am wrestling with a step up that will create a very high frequency that will allow for wireless energy transfers. Not a new idea, Tesla had this licked in the 1920s, but research and development is still needed to build a working infrastructure that will emit an EMI that we can all live with. Give me five years, and I will give you this jewel, but in the meantime, how can we begin to wing ourselves of oil, by and far the most absurd energy source we ever bet the farm on.
I am not advocating a single energy source here, but a patchwork of all those listed below to create a new green infrastructure that will lead America bravely into the future. I heard people need work, so why not lead government projects in these areas to not only kick start our economy again, but to create a new one based on near-zero energy costs.
Wind Energy:
In the United States, including California, Alaska, Hawaii, the Great Plains, and mountainous regions, we are the 'Middle East' of wind energy production. An average wind speed of 14 mph is needed to convert wind energy into electricity economically. The average wind speed in the U.S. is 10 mph.
On the economic front, there is a lot of good news for wind energy. First, a wind plant is far less expensive to construct than a conventional energy plant. Wind plants can simply add wind machines as electricity demand increases. Second, the cost of producing electricity from the wind has dropped dramatically in the last two decades. Electricity generated by the wind cost 30 cents per kWh in 1975, but now costs less than five cents per kWh. New turbines are lowering the cost even more.
Looking to the future, a different kind of system to convert wind energy into electricity has been designed by an aeronautical engineer in Connecticut. Eneco's Wind Amplified Rotor Platform (WARP) does not use large blades; instead, it looks like a stack of wheel rims. Each module has a pair of small, high capacity turbines mounted to both of its concave wind amplifier module channel surfaces. The concave surfaces channel wind toward the turbines, amplifying wind speeds by 50 percent or more. Eneco, plans to market the technology to power offshore oil platforms and wireless telecommunications systems. In the future, however, the Eneco design could be used by utilities for major power generation. Huge WARP fields could be built with towers hundreds of feet tall, each generating megawatts of electricity. Turbines could even be integrated into buildings to provide power for the occupants.
Tidal Power:
The tide moves a huge amount of water twice each day, and harnessing it could provide a great deal of energy - around 20% of Britain's needs. Though the USA is much larger, we have a lot more coastline to use. Now, I am against use the "barrage", which is built across a river estuary. This will screw any ecosystem that depends on the flow of tides, like birds who feed on the mud-flats after the tide rolls out. But there is no reason we cannot build them offshore.
Offshore turbines act like an underwater wind farm. The "Swanturbines", named after the The University of Wales Swansea project that got this ball rolling, design is different to other devices in a number of ways. The most significant is that it is direct drive, where the blades are connected directly to the electrical generator without a gearbox between. This is more efficient and there is no gearbox to go wrong. Another difference is that it uses a "gravity base", a large concrete block to hold it to the seabed, rather than drilling into the seabed. Finally, the blades are fixed pitch, rather than actively controlled, this is again to design out components that could be unreliable.
The advantages to an underwater turbine farm are: Once you've built it, tidal power is free; It produces no greenhouse gases or other waste; It needs no fuel It produces electricity reliably; Not expensive to maintain; Tides are totally predictable; Offshore turbines and vertical-axis turbines are not ruinously expensive to build and do not have a large environmental impact. The only real draw back is that you can only harvest energy around 10 hours a day, when the tide is rolling in or out. But remember, by the power of all these projects combined are we getting anywhere.
There is one underwater turbine farm in operation today, check it out: http://www.marineturbines.com/...
Solar power:
Solar Cells: In a sunny climate, you can get enough power to run a 100W light bulb from just one square meter of solar panel. This was originally developed in order to provide electricity for satellites, but these days many of us own calculators powered by solar cells, just another reason we should always support our space programs. Plus, as the technology of the photovoltaic cells continue to be miniaturized, the yield will only become greater per square meter.
Solar water heating: Here heat from the Sun is used to heat water in glass panels on your roof. This means you don't need to use so much gas or electricity to heat your water at home. Water is pumped through pipes in the panel. The pipes are painted black, so they get hot when the Sun shines on them. Solar heating is worthwhile in places like California and Arizona, where you get lots of sunshine. I have used this system for over three years in Mexico, and let me tell you, the showers are HOT.
Solar Towers: I picture these all over the deserts of the Southwest of the USA. The idea is very simple - you build a big greenhouse, which is warmed by the Sun. In the middle of the greenhouse you put a very tall tower. The hot air from the greenhouse will rise up this tower, fast - and can drive turbines along the way. This could generate significant amounts of power and allow for new farming land within the greenhouse. Win, Win here folks.
The Australians are already on this, check it out here: http://www.enviromission.com.au/...
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion:
The idea is not new. Using the temperature of water to make energy actually dates back to 1881 when a French Engineer by the name of Jacques D'Arsonval first thought of OTEC. The final ocean energy idea uses temperature differences in the ocean. If you ever went swimming in the ocean and dove deep below the surface, you would have noticed that the water gets colder the deeper you go. It's warmer on the surface because sunlight warms the water. But below the surface, the ocean gets very cold.
Power plants can be built that use this difference in temperature to make energy. A difference of at least 38 degrees Fahrenheit is needed between the warmer surface water and the colder deep ocean water.
Using this type of energy source is called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion or OTEC. It is being demonstrated in Hawaii. More info on OTEC can be found on the archive pages for the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii at: http://www.hawaii.gov/...
Geothermal / Ground Source Heat Pumps:
Almost everywhere across the entire planet, the upper 10 feet below ground level stays the same temperature, between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit (10 and 16 degrees C). If you've ever been in a basement of a building or in a cavern below ground, the temperature of the area is almost always cool.
A geothermal or ground source heat pump system can use that constant temperature to heat or cool a building. Pipes are buried in the ground near the building. Inside these pipes a fluid, like the antifreeze in a car radiator, is circulated.
In winter, heat from the warmer ground goes through the heat exchanger of a heat pump, which sends warm air into the home or business. During hot weather, the process is reversed. Hot air from inside the building goes through the heat exchanger and the heat is passed into the relatively cooler ground. Heat removed during the summer can also be used to heat water.
Biomass
Biomass is matter usually thought of as garbage. Some of it is just stuff lying around -- dead trees, tree branches, yard clippings, left-over crops, wood chips (like in the picture to the right), and bark and sawdust from lumber mills. It can even include used tires and livestock manure.
Your trash, paper products that can't be recycled into other paper products, and other household waste are normally sent to the dump. Your trash contains some types of biomass that can be reused. Recycling biomass for fuel and other uses cuts down on the need for "landfills" to hold garbage.
California produces more than 60 million bone dry tons of biomass each year. Of this total, five million bone dry tons is now burned to make electricity. This is biomass from lumber mill wastes, urban wood waste, forest and agricultural residues and other feed stocks.
If all of it was used, the 60 million tons of biomass in California could make close to 2,000 megawatts of electricity for California's growing population and economy. That's enough energy to make electricity for about two million homes!
So to recap, if we use wind energy, biomass, geothermal, ocean thermal energy conversion, solar, tidal and more to form a patchwork system across the United States we can not only stop foolishly importing oil, but help dramatically in the global warming department.
Sure, people will howl in the boardrooms of ExxonMobile and other plutocratic oil and energy companies, but they can cry me a river and I will dam it and get power from there too.
We have the technology to finally tame fire, but are we ready socially and politically to do it? The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.