Clean Electricity for the Future World

Capture of High Altitude Wind Energy Can Supply the World's Energy Needs and Achieve Kyoto Goals Through Economics

An array of 600 Flying Electric Generators rated at 20MW each, a total of twelve thousand megawatts in capacity, operating over a ground space of a ten by twenty mile rectangle, would produce approximately three times as many megawatt hours per year as the 28,572,902 MWh produced by the Palos Verde Arizona nuclear facility in the year 2003, the most electricity produced by a single generating plant in the U.S. that year.
While other power sources will, of course, always supply some power, 43 such FEG arrays, all operating at relatively remote sites with average capacity factors of 85%, but not located so far from metropolitan areas as to require very long transmission lines, could supply the same amount of electrical power as was produced in the United States in the year 2003, which was 3,883,185,000MWh.

Additional arrays in the most remote places in the temperate zones, including off shore, may be used to generate hydrogen.

Because vehicles will probably best be powered electrically using new battery technology, the most important use of this hydrogen probably will be to supply energy for use in tropical regions where the high altitude winds are insufficient to supply this energy to civilization directly below. This use of hydrogen in the tropics shipped from the temperate zones is in the world's interests, as the global warming from green house gases there are as undesirable as anywhere else, and the non-global warming hydrogen should be able to be economically competitve in that use even though shipped from elsewhere, as fossil fuel is now.

It is important to note that future U.S. and world energy needs will undoubtedly increase, and, in addition, that many current energy needs now provided by fossil fuels directly, not through generating electricity, will switch to high altitude wind supplied electrical grid energy as the relative economics change and the need to address global warming problems become more generally recognized.

Thus, the number of FEG arrays required to meet future world needs will increase significantly. However, in the U.S., this whole subject should really be addressed from the viewpoint of combined U.S. and Canadian supply and demand, as the U.S and Canadian electrical grids are connected.

But Canada, a Kyoto protocol subscriber, the U.S., which is not, and the World, may all find the Kyoto objectives achieved through simple economics without painful legislation. Too good to be true? Well, there certainly are opposing interests.

Urja presents Eco-Architect @ QUARK-2011 (The National Annual Technical festival of BITS-Pilani Goa Campus)

Bored of reading up monotonous articles and stats about energy exploitation? Want to come down to the playground and have a game? We are ready for it! ‘Quark 2011’, in association with ‘Urja- Save Today Survive Tomorrow!’, presents to you the opportunity to become the wittiest “Eco Architect” among your petty peer!

The event calls all the creative and conscious minds out there who have the desire and passion to innovate and the ability to ideate and as well as those who realize that it's about time we did something for our too-much-tortured planet!! The participants are required to implement their knowledge and ideas to find a solution to an issue which is not only of great concern in India but across the entire globe as well!

The Problem Statement:

You are required to come up with an amalgamation of conventional and non-conventional innovative ideas to reduce the monthly electricity consumption of the building.

For more details, click here

Multicopter based wind turbines.

Mercury 5 from Joby Energy

Joby Energy is developing airborne wind turbines which will operate in the upper boundary layer and the upper troposphere.

While knowledge of the tremendous energy in high-altitude wind is not new, recent advances in power electronics, sensors, and control systems now make our technology practical.

Multi-wing structure supports an array of turbines. The turbines connect to motor-generators which produce thrust during takeoff and generate power during crosswind flight. Orientation in flight is maintained by an advanced computer system that drives aerodynamic surfaces on the wings and differentially controls rotor speeds. A reinforced composite tether transmits electricity and moors the system to the ground. The high redundancy of the array configuration can handle multiple points of failure and remain airborne.

How It Operates

For launch, the turbines are supplied with power to enable vertical take-off. Upon reaching operating altitude, the system uses the power of the wind to fly cross-wind in a circular path. The high cross-wind speeds result in the turbines spinning the generators at high speeds, eliminating the need for gearboxes and increasing efficiency. The energy is transferred to the ground through the electrical tether. During occasional periods of low wind the turbines are powered to land the system safely.

http://jobyenergy.com/tech/visit

ENERGY SAVING COMPUTERS

Even the most energy-hungry home computer doesn't make much of a dent in the monthly electric bill. If you ran a desktop computer and monitor at full power for eight hours every day, it would add $30 to your annual energy costs [source: myGreenElectronics].

But imagine that you owned a business with hundreds of employees. Now imagine all of those desktop computers crowded into an office, plus the servers and storage units crammed into IT rooms. Not surprisingly, those computers eat up a lot of energy, accounting for up to 70 percent of a company's energy bill. Computers also create heat and force the air conditioning to work even harder to keep the office cool.

Recently, several computer makers have introduced machines designed specifically to lower the energy costs of small and large businesses. One is the Earth PC and Earth Server by Tech Networks of Boston. These new PCs come with a patented power management system that keeps machines running as lightly as possible in standby mode. They also come with 80 Plus-certified power supplies which keep them cool and lower air conditioning bills by 33 percent in the process.

The Cranberry SC20 smart client computer

The Cranberry SC20 is another new energy-conserving computer marketed toward businesses. The Cranberry isn't exactly a PC. Instead, it's something in between a full-fledged PC and what's known as a thin client. Thin clients are pared-down computer terminals that run all of their applications from a central server. Thin clients don't have hard drives and can't run their own native applications. The Cranberry is called a "Smart Client" because it's slim (the size of a paperback book), yet it can run its own software, be controlled locally and includes standard ports for connecting digital cameras, speakers and other devices. Because the applications reside on the Internet rather than on the machine, this is a form of cloud computing.

But the impressive thing about the Cranberry is that it uses just 10 percent of the power of a standard PC. That's because it has no moving parts (no fans or hard drive) and is powered by an extremely efficient microprocessor. The Cranberry consumes a mere 9 watts compared to a standard PC which burns through 175 watts [source: Cranberry].

The Mac Mini­

The Mac Mini is another desktop computer touted for its energy efficiency. The Mini is a tiny 6.5-inch (16.5-cm)-square, white box with a built-in CD/DVD drive and the standard input/output jacks for USB and Firewire devices. But since it's stuffed with highly efficient notebook computer guts -- and has an external power supply -- it runs quiet and cool at only 25 watts. The latest Mac Mini meets Energy Star 4.0 standards and earned an Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Silver rating.

In terms of computer monitors, smaller LCD monitors are more energy efficient than CRT monitors of the same size -- some reports say 66 percent more efficient [source: flatpaneltv.org]. LCD monitors also give off less heat than CRTs and help save money on that air-conditioning bill.

Bloom Boxes: A Zero Emission Energy Source Just Check out their customers

How Does the Bloom Box Energy Server Work?

The Bloom Energy Server is made out of fuel cells, or electrochemical cells. A single fuel cell consists of an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte stuck between the two. As fuel flows in through the anode side and an oxidant comes in over the cathode, a reaction is triggered that causes electrons to move into the fuel cell's circuit, producing electricity.

• The Bloom Energy Server isn't actually a server. In actuality, it's a distributed power generator. Each "server" produces 100 kW of power, consists of thousands of fuel cells, costs between $700,000 and $800,000, and pays for itself in three to 5 years based on an energy cost of 8 to 9 cents per kW hour.
• There are many different types of fuel cells. Some of the more popular ones include methanol fuel cells, hydrogen fuel cells, and zinc-air batteries. The Bloom Energy Server consists of solid oxide fuel cells, which are attractive because they can be made out of low-cost materials with high energy efficiencies.
• The cells can run on a variety of fuels, including traditional fuel, natural gas, biomass gas, landfill gas, and ethanol.
• Until now, technical challenges have stopped solid oxide fuel cells from being commercialized, but the company's cells ("sand" baked into ceramic squares that are coated with green and black inks) supposedly have overcome most of the issues. Bloom's Web site has a great animation showing how solid oxide fuel cells work.

• One of the biggest problems with solid oxide fuel cells is their temperature requirement--the ceramic squares only become active at extremely high temperatures (up to 1800 F). That means Bloom's cells will have to prove that they can remain durable under the stress--already, the company has had to come out to replace cells at eBay's installation, which has been running for just 7 months. In general, Bloom expects that its fuel cell stacks will have to be switched out twice during the device's 10 year lifespan.
• Bloom's device generates electricity at 50% to 55% conversion efficiency. In comparison, solar generally produces power at between 10% to 15% efficiency. But unlike solar panels, the Bloom Energy Server produces CO2 as a byproduct. According to the Energy Collective, "CO2 emissions when running on natural gas would be just under 0.8 pounds/kWh, which compares favorably to electricity from central station coal-fired plants (2 lbs/kWh) or natural gas plants (roughly 1.3 lbs/kWh) and the national average for on-grid electricity (around 1.3-1.5 lbs/kWh)." If the box runs on landfill gas or biogas, it produces net zero carbon emissions.
• Eventually, Bloom hopes that a scaled-down version device can be used in homes. A residential Bloom Box would produce 1 kW of power and cost approximately $3,000. But that probably won't happen for at least 10 years.

Some websites to read further:

1. http://theweek.com/article/index/200144/What_is_the_Bloom_Box_anyway
2. http://gm-volt.com/2010/02/28/the-bloom-box/

FOOD AND ENERGY CONSERVATION- WHAT’S THE LINK?

                                                                 

                                                                            
    

It is a very common misconception among a lot of people that energy conservation is only limited to buying new gadgets that consume less amount of electricity. A lot of people don’t see the big picture.  For a lot of us, very less thought is given to how a simple change in our attitudes towards some simple tasks can result in a mammoth effort towards energy conservation. Many of us do not realize that lower consumption and more planning will go a long way in helping energy conservation and will also save us money in the process.

We live in an age of consumerism. People get attracted to some widely advertised products and buy it at the first possible whiff of a good offer. Whether or not they actually need the product they buy may come as a second thought. This is especially true of food articles. When we are home, we stuff the food articles that we buy on a shopping spree into the back of a fridge. A lot of times it may happen, that we forget about something and by the time we get it out of fridge to eat it, it has become stale or has overreached its expiry date. Then we are forced to throw it away.

                                                                                     

                                                          

How much energy and money could we have saved by buying only what is required?

This is only at home. You would have to be blind to not realize the amount of food that goes to waste in the mess right here in the campus. Upon request, I got some statistics from last year of the daily food wastage in A-mess. Just get a hold of this. On 9^th October 2009, 14 kg of food got wasted in breakfast, 75 kg in lunch, 20 kg in snacks and 71 kg in dinner. All in all, 185 kg of food got wasted that day. This was pretty much the case for all the days that the mess administration conducted a weighing of the wasted food. There was no bio-gas facility in the campus then, and there is none even now, which means that all this food goes straight to the dumping pit.  And talking about the environmental cost of food, let us take bread as a simple example. It takes fertilizers to make crops grow. Those fertilizers are produced from crude oil derivatives. It takes oil to drive the giant machines that cut and clean the crop. It takes energy to build and operate the machines that separate the grains and chaff. Then, machines are used to grind the grains, process the flour and bake the bread. Then again, energy and more materials for packing, then transport.

Conclusion: One kg bread takes about 4.4 MJ energy to just produce and transport to average consumer home. That comes to about 1 million calories of energy. If the bread is thrown away, then there is additional energy to transport it as trash. This means wasted money, wasted energy and wasted environmental resources.

Don’t we know that people die of hunger in this country? Don’t we know that we are wasting money, energy and precious environmental resources when we waste food? The answer to all these questions, is definitely a yes. Even then, why do we continue to be so indifferent? It's all in the attitude-a highly irresponsible one! It's time to grow up and become more responsible towards the nature of our actions and its consequences.  

                                                           

                                                                             
           

I came across an article in the internet recently.  They suggested some good methods to reduce our ‘tendency’ to waste food. Here are some of the things that we can do:

1. Start keeping track – First step of changing anything is being aware of it fully. When you buy food, keep track of it. When you eat food, make a note somewhere. When you throw away food, make a note. Do a food balance sheet somehow. This will help you identify a lot of bad habits.


2. Plan food- This is easier said than done, but still worth trying. Even if you come up with a plan with one good point, it is worth it in the long run.



3. The Toyota solution- Buy just in time. Do not buy a bulk of food in advance. Buying in bulk might save you some money in the food price. But your preferences change, your get bored, something else comes up. So you end up wasting food you bought and the savings go down the drain. So if possible, buy only two or three days worth of food at a time and buy that well planned. Decide how many lunches you will eat and what you will eat for each lunch, etc.



**One thing that would be relevant to our life in the campus would be to take just enough food on our plates in the mess. There’s no need to pile on food on our plates. It would take less than 2 minutes to go and get a second helping if you require more food.


All of us know this as highly educated individuals should. Yet, we remain indifferent.  Don’t you think that it’s a far better habit than throwing away the food?

As I said at the outset of this article, a little change in our attitude will go a long way in helping the cause of energy conservation.

A Prayer

Help us to harness
the wind,
the water,
the sun,
and all the ready
and renewable
sources of power.

Teach us to conserve,
preserve,
use wisely
the blessed treasures
of our wealth-stored earth.

Help us to share
your bounty,
not waste it,
or pervert it
into peril
four our children
or our neighbors
in other nations.

You, who are life
and energy
and blessing,
teach us to revere

and respect
your tender world.

Blackle-an energy efficient version of google

Welcome Blackle to your PCs!!

Here's an energy efficient search engine which doesn't compromise on functionality, and at the same time, makes you aware of the amount of energy you save each time you use it.

Blackle was created by heap media  to remind us about the significance of 'small' steps we can take to save energy in a 'big' way. It's searches are powered by Google custom search.

If you were wondering about how Blackle saves energy, then here is how it goes about it:

The screen is predominantly black when one uses Blackle. It's a proven fact that image displayed is primarily a function of the user's colour settings and desktop graphics and also the size of open application windows. A given monitor requires more energy to display a white (or light) screen than a black(or dark)one.

In January 2007, a blog post titled 'Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-Hours a year' proposed the theory that a black version of Google would save a fair bit of energy owing to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of energy savings that can be achieved and cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

What do we make of all this?

A moment's thought reveals that there is value in this concept because it is firmly rooted on the philosophy that even small steps taken to save energy add up over time and this goes a long way in fulfilling our social responsibility and moral obligation towards saving our planet, for it saves us!

So friends, let's switch to Blackle and help save energy for a better tomorrow!  

Global warming

The sun, its rays, now scorch my gaze,
The stratosphere’s depleting.
The hail, it falls like acid balls
And kills the air we’re breathing.
The winters surrender to heat,
The springs cut short before we meet,
Our fields are barren of its wheat
Because our earth is dying.

The breaking dawn, it brings upon
Each day a silent warning.
Instead of fog, we see the smog
In which the city’s bathing.
The dry and burning winds, they blow
And filled with dross, the rivers flow,
And as our populations grow
The earth, our home, is dying.

As though a dream, the oceans seem
To lose the war that’s raging,
It is with grief, each coral reef, 
I hear, is disappearing.
With ocean levels on the rise,
The wells and ponds, they breed more flies,
We fail to heed to natures cries
And our earth is dying.

The caps of snow, they melt and flow,
The permafrost is thinning,
The oceans wide, they hide inside,
The life that we are killing.
The lakes, they dry up at the shore
And leave our gullets parched and sore,
The trees have lost the fruit they bore
Because the earth is dying.

The barren lands and desert sands
Unchecked, are fast expanding.
Our cars and vans and aerosol cans
Invite this global warming.
The birds, extinct, can’t take to flight
In skies of ultraviolet light,
Against the dust and smoke we fight 
Because the earth is dying.

But for our earth, and all she’s worth,
And all she has been giving,
I pray, someday, we’ll find a way
That won’t leave us lamenting.
If only we could do our best
To put this endless war to rest
And put our talents to the test
To save our earth from dying

Hygroelectric power-an alternate source of electricity

Hygroelectricity
Lightning in Humid Regions Could Be Harvested for Energy


Move over solar, wind and wave power — there’s a new renewable on the block. Researchers are experimenting with devices that can pull electricity from the air.

For centuries, scientists have been fascinated by the idea of harnessing the power of thunderstorms. Nikola Tesla experimented extensively with the topic, but significant understanding of the field of atmospheric electrodynamics has until recently proved elusive.

Fernando Galembeck, of the University of Campinas in Brazil, presented a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society that detailed a future where every house has a device on its roof that pulls cheap, clean electricity out of the air. ”Just as solar energy could free some households from paying electric bills, this promising new energy source could have a similar effect,” he said.

Originally, scientists believed that water droplets in the atmosphere were electrically neutral, and remained that way even after brushing up against charges on dust particles and other liquids. However, Galembeck discovered in a series of lab experiments that water droplets do in fact pick up a charge.


He used particles of silica and aluminum phosphate, both of which are common dust particles in the air, and found that they become increasingly charged as the amount of water vapor in the air increases. “This was clear evidence that water in the atmosphere can accumulate electrical charges and transfer them to other materials it comes into contact with,” said Galembeck.

It could be possible to harvest this “hygroelectricity” from the air in regions that experience high humidity, such as the tropics. To jump-start this industry, Galembeck’s team is already testing metals to see which might be of most use in capturing atmospheric electricity on hygroelectric panels.

A similar approach could help to avert lightning damage, too, by placing hygroelectric panels on buildings to take charge out of the air in the vicinity of places that suffer regular thunderstorms. “These are fascinating ideas that new studies by ourselves and by other scientific teams suggest are now possible,” said Galembeck.

“We certainly have a long way to go. But the benefits in the long range of harnessing hygroelectricity could be substantial.”

Energy Conservation

What is energy conservation? Many people do the mistake of equating the reduction of
wastage of energy as simply reducing the unnecessary consumption of electricity. While this is true to a great extent, it is also much more than that.

Let us pause for a moment and ponder upon what comes to our mind when we say
energy. Wikipedia defines energy as follows: “In physics, energy (from the Greek ἐνέργεια - energeia, "activity, operation", from ἐνεργός - energos, "active, working") is a quantity that is often understood as the ability to perform work. This quantity as the contained energy can be assigned to any particle, object, or system of objects as a consequence of its physical state.” Energy is all around us. In every action that we do (or don’t do), we are spending energy. Let us for the moment think about energy in terms of money. Let a single unit of energy be equal to 100 rupees. Now we all spend money on buying a variety of merchandise, be it food, cloths etc. Some of the items bought, like groceries are very much required. But items such as gaming consoles may be, in a manner of speaking be considered
a waste of our resources as we don’t need it to survive or to perform our daily functions. In the same way, a lot of energy is used for constructive purposes but a lot of it just goes to waste. Our aim, in URJA, is to basically spread awareness about the different ways in which energy gets wasted and to minimize this wastage.

Wikipedia defines energy conservation as being achieved through efficient energy use, in which case energy use is decreased while achieving a similar outcome, or by reduced consumption of energy services. Take a bucket bath instead of your daily shower, and thus reduce water consumption. In the process also save on the energy which would have been required to pump that extra water to your shower outlet. Walk or cycle if you are only traveling short distances. This way you’ll end up saving the energy that would have been spent in running the engine of your vehicle. In addition, walking is great exercise. Don’t waste the food you eat. Only pile on as much on your plate as you will eat. A waste of food also wastes the energy that has been spent in bringing the food to your plate-from the moment it was grown, and harvested and transported and cooked-all the energy spent in the above processes would be wasted, and in addition more energy will be spent in deposing the wasted food. We must build up a mindset that will enable us to relate to everything we do in terms of the energy that is spent in the task we are involved in, the energy that was spent leading up to the particular task, and the energy that will be spent in its outcome. If we can do this we will achieve our goal of ‘minimum utilization, maximum efficiency’.

Everyone’s support is highly vital to achieve this objective. Join us in our campaign. Do your bit by following the guidelines of energy saving, listed in our initiate page. The administration has promised us that any reduction in the daily expenditure of the campus, as a result of this campaign will be directed to the development of infrastructure in the campus.

INTRODUCTION

Energy is one of the important necessities of human civilization. The world continues to face challenge in terms of depleting energy resources. Scientists, engineers, economists as well as policy makers endeavor to develop technologies to efficiently harness, transmit, store and utilize it in a conducive policy and regulatory environment. A growing emphasis is being placed by India towards expanding the access to energy for its citizens, to harness renewable energy resources and to improve efficiency to energy utilization for realizing sustainable economic growth. To this; BITS community fully understand its responsibilities and social expectations.

To address the situation BITS has launched an energy awareness campaign in all its campuses called URJA “save today, survive tomorrow “. The campaign not only aims at making all BITS campuses energy efficient but also prepare professional who can take this issue out in the world and help making it more sustainable than what it is now. Apart from training the professionals and leading once again in being one of the most energy efficient campuses in India we also aim to inspire other academic institute and other professional bodies in launching such noble initiatives in their campuses.

URJA is basically being divided into 3 stages

·    A Awareness : It aims at making individuals more responsible towards energy management issue because we believe youth form not only the future but also the platform of the society, changing their attitude towards energy will automatically create long term impact on society in term of energy conservation.

·    S Short term solutions: It aims at increasing the present energy efficiency of our campuses by changing the parts of system that consume maximum energy.

     L Long term solutions: It aims at replacing the high energy consuming systems with more energy efficient systems.

The duration and order of the programme can actually vary depending on the campus specific choices.

Launch of URJA:

The noble campaign was launched by the honorable chancellor Dr. K.M Birla during his visit to the campus from 3^rd to 5^th of February 2010. The launch of the program by the senior management has motivated our students who are now looking forward in making this campaign a big success and also extending it to the society.