Article Post:
Alternative Energy, The Dream And The Reality
Overview of Various Sources of Alternative and Renewable Energy
The Need for Alternative Energy Sources
Oil prices have recently surpassed $70 per barrel for the first time in history. With gas prices in the US hovering at $3 per gallon, many citizens are reevaluating their lives.Each day more Americans ask questions such as: Can I drive this big pickup or afford a car at all? What will I do this coming winter about my increasing utility bills?
These and other questions drive us to pay more attention to conflicts in the Middle East, Venezuela and elsewhere.
The first installment of this article will deal with the major sources of alternative energy: solar, ethanol, coal gasification and wind power. The second installment will discuss the potential financial benefits of investing in this growing segment of our economy.
Solar Energy
Solar energy breaks down into passive and active solar. Passive is typically dealt with in the architecture phase of a building. Basically, passive solar is about orienting a building and constructing it with materials and techniques that take advantage of the sun’s lighting and heating abilities when it is dark and cold and shading it when temperatures are hotter.Active solar involves installing solar collectors that capture the sun’s heat and transferring it to a liquid for household or commercial hot water applications.
The newer form of active solar utilizes photovoltaic cells similar to semiconductors that convert the sun’s energy to electricity. In simple terms, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms allowing them to flow through the material to form electricity.
Photovoltaic applications have been limited to low power devices like calculators or to remote locations where the electrical grid was not available. This is changing as the number of photovoltaic cells being manufactured increases, which has been lowering the costs per unit each year by 3 to 5%. At the same time, technology has been making them more efficient. The combination of these two factors has lowered the cost of producing a watt of electricity from $7.50 in 1990 to $4.00 in 2005 with the payback on installing a system coming down to 5 to 10 years.
Benefits of solar energy include the fact that it is free and has little maintenance once it is installed. When combined with lower costs and more efficient technology solar is sure to play an important role in the future.
Ethanol
No discussion of ethanol can take place without including the amazing success of Brazil in eliminating its dependence on imported oil from the Middle East. Brazil produces enough ethanol from sugar cane to provide 40% of its demand for gas. All fuel sold in Brazil is at least 25% ethanol.
In the US the primary source of ethanol is from corn. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that production of ethanol in the US will double to 7.5 billion gallons over the next 5 years. Projections are that private industry will exceed this level with no government intervention.
Ethanol is not without its challenges. It cannot be transported in pipelines and is currently moved in railcars and barges. When used in higher concentrations, which can be as high as 85% it can damage fuel tanks and filters, can cause improper readings on fuel gauges and can corrode iron parts and electrical fuel pumps. It also has problems with high levels of evaporation and only provides 66% of the energy content of gas.
With that said, in the short-term ethanol is one of the only solutions we have to the fact that transportation uses 67% of our nation’s petroleum consumption.
Coal Gasification
The 600 traditional coal burning power plants in the US produce 50% of the electricity that we use to run our country. Unfortunately, coal pollutes when it is mined, transported, stored and burned. Using current methods, coal is pulverized and burned to heat up boilers to produce steam that spins turbines that turn generators that produce electricity.
This process is the primary cause of global warming, acid rain and a number of other problems.
In coal gasification the coal is heated to 2000 degrees in a closed environment with steam and a limited amount of oxygen so that it breaks down to its component parts without burning.
A form of natural gas is created that can be burned more cleanly. One of the component parts is carbon dioxide, the primary culprit in the pollution of our world, but it can be captured and pumped underground to revive oil fields or stored underground in caverns. Currently there are several power plants in the US using this new technology known as IGCC, one in Indiana, one in North Dakota and a more modern one in Tampa, Florida. With 300 years worth of coal in existence, this may be the most important current technological advance on our planet.
Wind Power
Wind power currently provides less than 1% of the worldwide electricity capacity. This source of energy has tremendous potential with the cost to generate it having gone down by 80% over the last 15 years due to technological advances. It is abundant, renewable and clean and is currently growing by 38% per year in the US, faster than any other form of energy generation. The highest levels of wind are found at high altitudes where average wind velocities of 100 mph are not uncommon. But places where winds average over 12.5 mph are economically viable. The best locations are on cliffs or on the ridges of mountains where changes in ground elevation cause an increase in wind speed. The problem with wind is its inability to gear up to meet heavy load demand and the necessity to have backup power production capacity from other sources.
These four sources of energy production are the major alternatives we have today to eliminate our nation’s addiction to oil. As newer technologies such as fuel cells become more practical we should see less dependence on fossil fuels like oil and coal that can provide future generations with clean renewable energy.
Allen Goldstone is a Colorado based consultant who specializes in mergers/ acquisitions and corporate turnarounds. AllenG123@gmail.com
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Article Post:
Local Energy Production Makes Sense
Renewable Energy & Alternative Fuels on a Small Scale Community Basis
With the crisis in oil and natural gas prices, the continued violence in the Middle East, and the environmental concerns brought front and center by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, alternative fuels have managed to become a topic of conversation in the mainstream media.
Unfortunately, not all proposals make sense environmentally. The energy crisis has given the nuclear industry a major boost, despite problems with nuclear waste and vulnerability to terrorist threats, and Republicans in Congress are pushing even harder for drilling on the ecologically fragile Alaskan slopes. Meanwhile the oil companies, in an attempt to keep a stranglehold on the production of energy, are the ones getting billions of dollars in support for developing new technologies, including hydrogen fuel cell and ethanol development.
Let’s face it: If Standard Oil or Exxon could figure out a way to put a meter on the sun, we’d have solar energy in abundance tomorrow. Meanwhile, we really need to challenge this notion of having multinational, multi-billion-dollar companies the ones responsible for doling out our energy needs. Bringing energy production back to our shores from the Middle East, Venezuela, and other political hotspots is only the beginning of a solution.
We need every region in this country, and every community in each region, to make energy production a priority. In the Midwest, that can mean a combination of wind, solar, and ethanol or biodiesel production. Farmers particularly vulnerable to a rise in fuel to run their farm equipment could have their own small ethanol or biodiesel plants on-site, growing the raw material and then producing the fuel they need to operate their tractors, combines, and other machines. The Southeast could adopt solar technology on a house-by-house basis; just retrofitting every mobile home in the Sun Belt with solar air-conditioning capability could save billions in fuel demands every year. In the Northeast, a combination of solar energy and wind power in the summer and wind and biodiesel use in the winter, with family farms growing much of the raw material for the biodiesel, could cut the region’s dependency on heating oil, propane, and natural gas during the coldest months of the year. And all over the country, using sustainable farming and foresting methods to product corn and wood pellet products would provide still another efficient, low-emissions fuel.
Even hydrogen technology makes more sense produced on a local basis as part of a comprehensive energy plan. Hydrogen is produced by splitting water molecules into its component hydrogen and oxygen atoms; the hydrogen is then burned, producing more water. Using up massive amounts of water in centralized plants would put a tremendous demand on a locality’s water supply, and then would affect the environment in ways not now known as the fuel is burned and the water redistributed around the country. Locally, hydrogen could be produced using solar energy on a building by building basis, and then could be stored and used to fuel cars or for household energy use. The water produced by burning the hydrogen could also conceivably be collected and reused, limiting the demand on the water supply.
Thinking locally in terms of energy production and use could serve not only to break our dependence on foreign oil but could eventually free us from relying on corporate entities for our energy needs. That is true energy independence.
Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire. She has written numerous articles for local and regional newspapers and for a number of Internet websites, including Tips and Topics. She expresses her opinions periodically on her blog, http://beyondagendas.blogspot.com
Visit Aldene’s hydrogen technology page for additional information
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Article Post:
Advantages of Alternative Energy
The Major Benefits of Using Alternative Forms of Energy Like Wind & Solar
The ongoing discussion about energy is one that can be polarizing. So, just what is the advantage of alternative energy over fossil fuels?
While researching your options for your electricity needs, you will learn that an advantage of alternative energy is that once you purchased the equipment, you will no longer have a need to purchase electricity from a provider. This can be a life-changing event. With alternative energy, you can now supply your own home with all of the power necessary for your needs without the worry of power outages and other problems with providers.
In fact, you could even tap into their network of power lines and sell the excess electricity that your home will not need back to the power plant. They have to buy it from you. An advantage of alternative energy is that it is clean, meaning it does not produce the harmful pollutants that burning fossil fuels do. This makes the power plant want to buy this electricity from you to help them reduce the amount of pollutants that they release into the air.
After you have a good idea of how much your electric need will be, have the power company install a meter to measure how much electricity you generate for them. You will love to see the meter reader coming to see how much they are going to pay you, instead of it being the other way around inmost cases. The amount of money you will earn will be the difference between how much alternative energy you can produce, with the equipment that you have installed, and the amount that you consume.
Another advantage of alternative energy is that we are finding ways to use it in our vehicles. This will reduce the amount of oil that we will have to buy from other countries. Also it will cut down on the amount of pollutants released into the air.
The technologies that are being discovered for using alternative energy are changing the way we look at burning fossil fuels. The advantage of alternative energy over fossil fuels is that it can easily be replenished from the wind, the sun, or from water power. Fossil fuels are in limited supply and once we have used them all up, we won’t be able to get anymore. Once we have mined all of the coal that the Earth holds, we will not be able to quickly reproduce more.
With the population growing and the consumption rate of fossil fuels rising at an alarming rate, the need for alternative energy sources becomes more and more evident. Studies are currently underway for new ways to utilize this technology.
Read more about renewable energy at SolarCompanies.com
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