2010 Feb 28
ALAMOSA — The mention of alternative energy in the San Luis Valley may cause most people to look skyward toward the sun that's led government and business officials to tout solar power.
But a group of state officials, business owners and the just plain curious sat down Saturday to talk about a resource beneath their feet at a geothermal workshop hosted by the Governor's Energy Office.
Geothermal energy comes from harnessing the earth's subsurface heat. And in the valley's case, direct use of that heat has come through the harvesting of hot water to heat buildings, greenhouses and, most famously, keep alligators alive in sub-zero temperatures.
Nearly 150 million acre-feet of water, much of it hot, sits beneath the valley in the confined aquifer, the deeper of the valley's two major groundwater formations.
Paul Morgan, senior geothermal geologist with the Colorado Geological Survey, said the state was gifted with a high heat flow. That characterization included the Rio Grande Rift, the geological formation that runs beneath much of its namesake river, but Morgan said there is not a lot of specific data about the resource in the area.
"We don't know a lot about most of the San Luis Basin," he said.
What is known suggests that hot water at a temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit can be found in most parts of the valley at about 5,000 feet below the surface.
Read more: http://chieftain.com/articles/2010/02/28/news/local/doc4b89fe9bec78e291434993.txt
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Showing posts with label Alternative energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alternative energy. Show all posts
Jan 18, 2010
China Tries a New Tack to Go Solar
2010 Jan 8
HONG KONG — As it moves rapidly to become the world’s leader in nuclear power, wind energy and photovoltaic solar panels, China is taking tentative steps to master another alternative energy industry: using mirrors to capture sunlight, produce steam and generate electricity.
So-called concentrating solar power uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors to turn water into steam. The steam turns a conventional turbine similar to those in coal-fired power plants. The technology, which is potentially cheaper than most types of renewable power, has captivated many engineers and financiers in the last two years, with an abrupt surge in new patents and plans for large power operations in Europe and the United States.
This year may be China’s turn. China is starting to build its own concentrating solar power plants, a technology more associated with California deserts than China’s countryside. And Chinese manufacturers are starting to think about exports, part of China’s effort to become the world’s main provider of alternative energy power equipment.
Yet concentrating solar power still faces formidable obstacles here, including government officials who are skeptical that the technology will be useful on a large scale in China.
Much of the country is cloudy or smoggy. Water is scarce. The sunniest places left for solar power are deserts deep in the interior, far from the energy-hungry coastal provinces that consume most of China’s electricity. Provinces deep in the interior have few skilled workers or engineers to maintain the automated gear that keeps mirrors focused on towers that transfer the heat from sunbeams into fluids.
Concentrating solar power “is not very suitable for China,” wrote Li Junfeng, a senior government energy policy maker, in a detailed e-mail reply to questions this week.
Yet the private sector in China is racing to embrace the technology anyway.
A California solar technology company and a Chinese power equipment manufacturer plan to sign a deal on Saturday for the construction of up to 2,000 megawatts of power plants using concentrating solar power over the next decade, executives from both companies said this week. That is equivalent to the output of a couple of nuclear power plants. They will start with a 92-megawatt plant in Yulin, a town in a semi-desert area of Shaanxi Province in central China.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html
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HONG KONG — As it moves rapidly to become the world’s leader in nuclear power, wind energy and photovoltaic solar panels, China is taking tentative steps to master another alternative energy industry: using mirrors to capture sunlight, produce steam and generate electricity.
So-called concentrating solar power uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors to turn water into steam. The steam turns a conventional turbine similar to those in coal-fired power plants. The technology, which is potentially cheaper than most types of renewable power, has captivated many engineers and financiers in the last two years, with an abrupt surge in new patents and plans for large power operations in Europe and the United States.
This year may be China’s turn. China is starting to build its own concentrating solar power plants, a technology more associated with California deserts than China’s countryside. And Chinese manufacturers are starting to think about exports, part of China’s effort to become the world’s main provider of alternative energy power equipment.
Yet concentrating solar power still faces formidable obstacles here, including government officials who are skeptical that the technology will be useful on a large scale in China.
Much of the country is cloudy or smoggy. Water is scarce. The sunniest places left for solar power are deserts deep in the interior, far from the energy-hungry coastal provinces that consume most of China’s electricity. Provinces deep in the interior have few skilled workers or engineers to maintain the automated gear that keeps mirrors focused on towers that transfer the heat from sunbeams into fluids.
Concentrating solar power “is not very suitable for China,” wrote Li Junfeng, a senior government energy policy maker, in a detailed e-mail reply to questions this week.
Yet the private sector in China is racing to embrace the technology anyway.
A California solar technology company and a Chinese power equipment manufacturer plan to sign a deal on Saturday for the construction of up to 2,000 megawatts of power plants using concentrating solar power over the next decade, executives from both companies said this week. That is equivalent to the output of a couple of nuclear power plants. They will start with a 92-megawatt plant in Yulin, a town in a semi-desert area of Shaanxi Province in central China.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html
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Dec 28, 2009
Southern Africa Turns to Wind to Improve Alternative Energy Supplies
2009 Nov 27
SADC Member States are slowly turning to wind power to boost production and meet the ever-growing demand for electricity in the region, as the need for cleaner and alternative energy sources gains momentum.
Among the countries leading the search on how to harness the huge wind potential that lies untapped in the region areMadagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania. Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to provide more than 170 gigawatts (GW) of additional power generation capacity - far more than the sub-region's current installations through exploiting "low-carbon" energy sources such as wind, hydro and solar, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).
Wind energy, which involves using air to turn turbines and generate electricity, is regarded as one of the most reliable and clean forms of power that does not pollute the environment compared to other forms such as thermal. Wind farms are also relatively easier to construct - as it takes only a year to build one with a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW). Because of this, SADC Member States are scaling up their efforts to exploit the alternative source of energy that has emerged as one of the most lucrative source of "carbon financing" under the Clean Development Mechanism. South Africa plans to commission at least 400 MW of wind power by independent power producers within the next three years. Most of the plants will be located along the West Coast that has the potential to generate about 10,000 MW of electricity.
Read more: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2683715/
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Dec 16, 2009
Superturbine: Taking wind power to new heights
2009 Dec 3
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Wind turbines have been a triumph of renewable energy technology. That's a fact. But their design leaves plenty of room for improvement.
The three blade system means that more wind power passes around its blades than through its motor, and their rigid structure prevent turbines from capturing the super-strong winds that blow thousands of feet in the air. Some experts insist the total energy within these winds is 100 times the amount needed by everyone of the planet.
The trick is how to catch this power.
Some research groups have developed advances on the humble kite to try and harness wind's immense power, but there is another way.
"Flying wind turbine"Selsam, the self proclaimed alternative energy innovator (check their website here, complete with plenty of photos and videos), have developed a "flying wind turbine" that is capable of stretching beyond the reach of the traditional turbines and turning these high winds into high voltage.
These "Superturbines" are also far more efficient that the old-fashioned windmill as it eliminates all components that do not directly contribute to power generation, resulting in a low-cost wind turbine.
The Selsam Superturbine is equipped with multiple, synchronous, small rotors and with a universal joint that enables it to tilt - but not rotate - like a reed bending in the wind. Selsam's prototypes produce 6000 watts in 32.5 mph winds - six times more power than a similarly sized seven foot single-rotor turbine can produce. The turbines can be easily deployed by land and by sea, and their effectiveness can be amplified even further via an air-born blimp.
The company website describes the turbines as so: "Like a flock of geese, each rotor favorably affects the next in line. Like a set of louvres, the tilted rotors pull in fresh wind from above, deflecting their wakes downward to insure fresh wind for succeeding rotors and, like a stack of kites, to add overall lift which helps support the driveshaft against gravity and downwind thrust forces.
Read more: http://www.nextgenpe.com/news/selsam-superturbine/Want to help with Global-Warming? Please visit http://www.whiteearth.org
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