Since we don’t have the unlimited supply of magic pixie dust discovered just yet, we were made to fantasize about how we would “Power the World” without those eevviill fossil fuels.
OK. I can play make believe as good as anyone else.
Without telling him, I borrowed the Mad Scientist hat for an evening and went about “Thinking Green” with it.
The Assignment: Renewable Energy
Sunlight can produce heat or small amounts of electricity. Its derivatives (wind and rain) are also useful for producing power. Other unconventional energy sources either exist or have potential. For example, geothermal plants and small-scale methane digesters are very important in some regions, especially for heating and cooking. Tides have been turned into electricity (but as yet, people only dream of harnessing the energy in a lightning strike, tornado, or hurricane).
For several existing nonfossil fuel energy resources, describe the ideal conditions for producing or using them, and then find where on Earth those conditions exist. For example, solar energy for home heating would have an advantage in places with clear winter skies, cold temperatures, and a southern exposure, especially if other sources of heating fuel were expensive. What regions satisfy most or all of these conditions? Do this exercise for two or three energy sources.
Lab #9
For this assignment I would like to cover two Turbine generated Renewable Energies: Wind and Hydroelectric.
Wind powered turbines are a swiftly spreading technology. They are almost always placed along hill tops and ridge tops and along coast lines across the planet wherever sufficient sustained air flows are located. However, because of the remoteness of these locations, the cost of clearing the location (including cutting new roads), or of building a platform off the coast, connecting them into the power grid can end up being cost-prohibitive. Also, a number of environmental organizations have vigorously fought the installation of them because of the toll they take on an area’s bird population.
For this reason, I believe that one option has been overlooked: Installing them in the metropolitan areas where the landscape itself will contribute to the generation the electricity.
When most people think of a wind turbine, they picture a huge windmill with blades extending twenty or thirty feet each, placed upon a long pole. However, more recent technology in the form of barrel-type turbines now exists with installation at a very cost effective price.
In dense urban areas with a quantity of mid-rise and high-rise buildings, the heat generated at street level between the buildings creates a natural updraft. Imagine if architects incorporated rows of barrel wind turbines going horizontally between the floors of their building designs to catch this natural updraft.
While current technology might not be sufficient to provide enough electricity to power the entire building, the use of the updraft created by the building and its neighbors would very likely provide a portion sizable enough to make it much more cost effective than placing a windmill in a remote location in the hinterlands or along the coast. Also, because of their enclosed design, barrel type turbines are highly unlikely to harm birds in the urban space.
Also imagine the carbon footprint reduction if the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, one of the most densely population regions in the nation, were to replace their coal fire generated electricity with a system generating power from the very existence of their urban landscape. And this could be taking place in any dense urban area in the world, from Beijing to Mumbai to London.
Another technology which is finally beginning to be taken notice of is hydroelectric turbines placed in tidal areas and in riverbeds.
The western United States has long had relatively inexpensive electricity generated via hydroelectric turbines placed in dams. This is not a new technology, but it has taken until quite recently for people to grasp the idea that if those same hydro electric generators, modified to be stand alone units, are placed along the sea floors of coastal regions, they can take advantage of the natural tidal motion to generate electricity. They can also be placed along the river beds as well as at the mouths of large rivers where they will use the downstream flows to do the same.
A number of the current technologies use windmill-style blades to turn the turbines, but some are now using kinetic energy like the buoy type or floating cylinder type systems.
The installation costs of these technologies are rapidly dropping and the amount of energy they are able to generate is rapidly growing. In the not-too-distant future, they should become common enough that any region or nation which has a nearby coastline or a river large enough to accommodate shipping, (examples include: Columbia, Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Thames, Danube, Ganges, etc) in the vicinity, can use these natural resources without having to burden itself with the expense and destruction caused by the construction of dams.
If urban areas were to use both of these types of natural methods of electrical generation, not only would the cost of electricity generation for their inhabitants be lowered significantly, their individual carbon footprints would shrink significantly.
Grade: 100%
Yet another lab I didn’t enjoy anything about except the grade. No comments from the Professor.
I’ve seen architectural drawings that include the occasional short floor to house wind turbines and heat exchangers (capture the urban wind energy, then use the same air to remove heat from water in pipes that is falling from upper levels for natural AC). Add in thinfilm PV on the windows and you have a building that has a higher initial cost but a much lower operating cost, especially as the price of energy climbs.