Future Green Technology
To change the world for the better we must search for better and sustainable solutions. As we speak, a lot of scientists, entrepreneurs and business men are plotting the next move in sustainable living, green energy propulsion and many more technologies which makes the future a little bit better, a little greener. Here you can read all the articles on the ‘Tomorrow is Greener’ website about Future Green Technology.
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Biofuel in aviation
Last modified on 2010-07-13 20:02:50 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transport sources, which is 3% of the total man-made contribution to climate change. To prevent climate change to reach a point of no return, carbon emissions from aviation must also be greatly reduced to near zero emissions. Since the start of aviation, particularly the jet age, aviation has reduced fuel burn, carbon and water vapour emissions by some 70% per passenger kilometre. Airlines are aiming for a further 25% fuel efficiency improvement by the year 2020. They want to achieve this efficiency through technology and operational enhancements.
Now airlines, such as Continental, are experimenting on a blend of traditional fuel and biofuel. Airline company KLM is aiming even higher and announced that it will fly a test flight with passengers aboard. This test flight will give one of the engines a mixture of 50% bio-kerosene and 50% traditional fuel. Unlike test flights or other airlines, this test flight will be flown exclusively on biofuel from camelina.
As test flights earlier in 2009 showed that biofuels were more efficient than petro-fuels as aviation fuel, jet fuel from camelina goes even further in reducing carbon emissions from flying. Analysis done at Michigan Technological University showed that jet fuel made from camelina can reduce carbon emissions up to 84% as compared to petro-based fuels.
A problem which can hold a possible 360 degrees turn in aviation emissions is the overwhelming challenge to produce enough biofuel to supply all of the world’s aircraft. The aviation burns over 60 billion gallons of jet fuel every year. To start to produce even a fraction of this amount, biofuels made from food crops (soybeans, sugar cane) would affect food supplies and food prices. Non-food plant sources like camelina are difficult to produce in large quantities and compete with food crops for land. As The Guardian puts it, ‘There are some 13,000 airplanes in the world’s commercial fleet, and to supply them all with soybean-based fuel would require an area of land the size of Europe just dedicated to soya cultivation’.
Nevertheless, there are some positive developments which can kick start the reduction of carbon emissions by airplanes. The study done by Michigan Technological University also indicates that the state of Montana in the United States alone could support 2 to 3 million acres of camelina cultivation, which would be done in rotation with wheat, which would yield some 200 to 300 million gallons of oil each year. Though this is only 0.33% to 0.5% of the total demand of jet fuel, it is a start.
Sources: IATA.org, Treehugger.com
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Solar stations in the heavens?
Last modified on 2010-07-13 20:03:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
At an altitude of 22,240 miles above the earth, orbital solar stations would be one of the biggest steps undertaken for governments and energy companies. However, orbital solar stations would give a constant deliverance of sunlight, even more than 2,000 MW of clean solar power in some proposed projects.
Orbital solar stations have three advantages over normal earth based solar stations. First of all it must be daytime for an earth based solar stations to get its energy from the sun, next to that the solar array must be pointed towards the sun without any obstacles between the array and the sun. Finally, the sunlight powering the solar array must pass through the bulk of the atmosphere and the sky must be clear for optimal use. Because of all these factors an earth based solar array produces almost 80 percent less energy then orbital based solar stations. Furthermore, the sun shines continuously in space and because of the lack of an atmosphere, sunlight carries 35 percent more energy.
A number of countries, including the United States and Japan, have showed interest in building an orbital solar station. Back in 2007, a report suggested that the Pentagon is serious about the built of an orbital solar power station. The United States Department of Defense has even called on the government and private sector to support the construction of a 10 billion dollar pilot station in low earth orbit. Where the United States are aiming for the construction of a pilot station, the Japanese want to built a 21 billion dollar, 1 GW solar power station within the next three decades.
Also see: Could space solar power beam its way to Earth by 2016?
Source: Environmentalgraffiti, adAstra
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The Future of Green Energy: Nuclear Fusion
Last modified on 2009-11-06 15:13:03 GMT. 24 comments. Top.
Where it must be daytime to produce energy with solar panels, it must be windy to produce energy with wind turbines, nuclear fusion can provide us with a constant stream of clean energy 24/7. Nuclear fusion is clean because it doesn’t emit carbon into the air, like coal based power plants or leave radioactive leftovers like nuclear power plants. Moreover it is a safe technology which has the potential to create much larger volumes of energy then traditional or alternative renewable energy sources. As it is being explored as we speak, it might be the best long term energy solution to solve our energy problems as well as our environmental problems.
Nuclear fusion is a process by which multiple like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus. During this process there is an enormous release or absorption of energy, which allows matter to enter a plasma state.
As there are many projects underway researching the possibilities of nuclear fusion, projects like the ITER project say it is possible to produce over 500 MW of power with a nuclear fusion power plant.
Here are some more pages on nuclear fusion I found for you:
Potential of nuclear fusion investment
Nuclear fusion by students (video)
Conventional Fusion vs. Focus Fusion
Source: Environmental Graffiti
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Nanosolar’s solar cells, the green future technology?
Last modified on 2010-07-13 20:05:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Solar energy has been around for many years now. It is one of the best renewable energy sources as it is carbon neutral and low in maintenance once you’ve installed all the panels. The high manufacturing costs, however, and the high operational costs not to forget, have been the main factor why traditional energy sources haven’t been swapped in for clean solar energy. This is set to change though, as Nanosolar Inc. is leading the way to a more cost efficient solar energy source.
Nanosolar is a company founded in 2002 which is working on the world’s largest solar cell factory in California and has just finished the world’s largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. Nanosolar has succeeded in creating a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source so far. They say that they can reduce production costs of a solar cell from 3 dollar a watt to 30 cents a watt. If so, Nanosolar’s solar cells will be cheaper than burning coal to generate power.
This cost reduction was managed by using an innovative technology which coats thin metal sheets with a microscopic layer of printer ink which contains minuscule solar cells. With this formula the company has plans to mass produce these cost efficient solar panels. The plant which will manufacture these cells is being built as we speak and will more then quadruple solar cell production in the United States.
The possibilities of these solar cells are enormous. Imagine if we put Nanosolar solar cells on all the roofs of the houses in a city. This would greatly reduce the need for grey energy once and for all.
Sources: Environmentalgraffiti, Wikipedia, Celsias, NanoSolar
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Could 23 ponds Solar Panel be the answer for the developing world?
Last modified on 2009-10-03 13:12:05 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Milan Karki, an 18 year old teenager from Nepal, thinks he has found the solution for the developing world’s energy needs. He has made a solar panel with hair as a conductor, making it one of the cheapest solar panel so far.
What started as an experiment could turn out to be a commercial viability for developing nations. The solar panel produces 9 V (18 W) of energy and costs around 23 ponds to make from raw materials. The teenager is convinced that when mass-produced, the solar panels could be sold for less than half of the price. Swapping the expensive silicon for the far cheaper hair is the main change that makes his solar panels so cheap. While the solar panel can only charge a mobile phone or shine a light all evening, for the developing nations this could be a great possibility to stop the power failures which occur almost every day.
Source: MailOnline
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Japan’s aiming for Space Solar Power
Last modified on 2009-10-01 21:49:03 GMT. 2 comments. Top.
The ‘Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp. will join a $21 billion project to build a giant solar-power generator in space. The giant solar-power generator in space is scheduled for completion within the next three decades and will beam 1-gigawatt of electricity back to earth.
To make the project cost effective, they must bring back the launch costs tremendously and find a safe and secure way to beam back all those megawatts of power. If they can reduce the costs to a factor of say 10 times the construction costs of a ground solar-power generator, it may be efficient enough due to the 24 hours of 100% sunlight the space solar generator will receive.
Source: TreeHugger
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Spray-on Solar Cells
Last modified on 2009-09-14 00:51:28 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Sprayed on or painted-on solar cells are not entirely new, but more and more companies are developing the technology as we speak.
The idea is to make a solution of sunlight absorbing copper iridium gallium selenide (CIGS) nanoparticles and spray them onto a substrate to make a panel. However, before a spray-on solar cell becomes a reality, the efficiency really has to be improved. At the moment researchers have only made prototypes that work at 1 percent efficiency. It has to reach at least the 10 percent mark before it becomes a potential commercial product.
Source: TreeHugger
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Will plants be our energy of the future?
Last modified on 2009-09-14 00:44:10 GMT. 20 comments. Top.
The Dutch minister of Agriculture has made 25 million euro’s available for the Towards Biosolar Cells project, a joint venture of multiple Dutch research institutes to harness the power of photosynthesis.
For a long time now, we are using plants to produce energy for our homes and public buildings. We burn them in power plants or use biomass to produce bio-ethanol for our cars. Countries like Brazil or the US have acres and acres of biomass production farms, which farm energy, no food products.
The Towards Biosolar Cells project is based on improving the photosynthesis of plants. Photosynthesis is a biological process where green plants and micro-organism convert sunlight into energy. The efficiency of plants is unfortunately only 1 or 2 per cent. With the project researchers want to raise the efficiency of the photosynthesis so that we can produce bigger crops in a shorter amount of time. Next to that, scientists want to create artificial leaves to create a power plant.
Source: nuzakelijk.nl
