It seems like everyone is falling over themselves at the moment to come up with new and cleaner fuels to meet our ever growing energy needs.
There are some interesting ideas out there. They range from the widely known solar, wind and wave technology to the lesser known fusion, zero point energy and biological ideas.
I agree that we need to find a more abundant, cleaner, less hazardous way of providing energy for everyone from one of the ideas above and in essence move away from 'fossil fuels', but i can't help thinking that we are neglecting other ideas for improving our energy systems.
Primarily, I'm talking about efficiency. At present the national grid wastes around 60% of the electricity made through losses in transmission. If you are not an electrical engineer then basically this translates into heat energy.
Other losses in the generation system include transfer energy losses from not recycling enough energy out of the steam used to spin the turbines in the first place.
The technology exists to make the most of the steam created from boiling the water already!!
The US power stations have staged turbines that are used in ever decreasing sizes to extract as much potential energy from the steam as they can before recycling whats left through condensers.
With rising energy bills and more pressure to be more 'green' and carbon friendly, shouldn't the power companies generating our electricity be doing all they can to improve the effectiveness of the power stations they run?
This equates to each piece of coal or each unit of gas used to heat the water only being 40% efficient.Yet we still end up with 100% of the pollution and cost!!
Not a great system is it?
Why do we put up with it though, would you pay £400 for a new TV to get home and find that you only had 40% of the TV in the box?I doubt it!
Yet we all do it everyday of every year because we no other choice at the moment.
Scientific advances in superconductors and transmission system hope to reduce the loss down to less than 10% or better.
Hopefully the other end of the energy enigma will be solved soon to with nuclear fusion reactors only 30 years away from being fully usuable and stable. The power of the sun in a big magnetic box on Earth!
Hi Chris, I am living in the Hunter Valley in N.S.W. Australia, we are a coal mining area,when you take an air view of our once beautiful landscape and see the moon like deep pitted earth it is just pathetic.Now with coal more in demand all over the world they are getting it out as quick as they can now the mines can be seen very close to the highway,even though it was always promised they would not be seeable.This alone would make me want another sourse of power. The other downside of our area that they never thought of was ordinary young tradesmen,as they finish their trade the mine nabs them, the mines pay astrinomical wages and so the regular workforces miss out on everything from mechanics to electricians.Our neighbours grandson is in his 3rd year apprentiship with the mines and got his first home loan for $425,000 thats right! no wonder the people love the mines...well thats the ones that work there,you cannot rent a home in our tiny town,all taken from workers from all over,if you want to sell the house only is on the market a few weeks, (the mine companies themselves buy the houses place up to 10 men in them as they work different shifts so some at work while the others sleep,the rotten thing is that their real homes are in the city so their pay does not even get spent here it goes away so economically once the house is paid for no more money for here),but our future generations are going to be living in pits!! very sad but it seems everyone has given up protesting and when our PM mentions nucleur power everyone is scared of it...please bring it on fast!!! a really good blog Chris,I am a over 60 blogger and this was really thought provoking and not many places to give our say...keep it up..blessings to you Carole
ReplyDeleteHi, Thanks very much for my first comment.
ReplyDeleteI think the energy race is a huge area for discussion, i don't profess to know all about it. But i have worked in the power generation industry in the UK and i know how much energy they waste through sheer loss.
I think what you have hit upon is the wider issue with depleting our 'natural resources' coal, oil etc. The effect on the environment is not only from direct pollution, as you say it is also an economical and environmental concern.
Nuclear is a dirty word with most non engineers/scientists and i understand why of course. Fission (splitting atoms apart) is a dangerous business in itself, but mostly the danger exists with the waste left behind!
Fusion, the other 'nuclear' process is far more efficient, no waste by-products and best of all is a self collapsing reaction so cannot cause any dangerous production issues as fission does.
Its essentially how all the stars in our universe work, only drawback is that we cannot re-create the immense power that the gravity provides in our sun for example. So there is a way to go yet, but we are getting there. Researchers in Oxfordshire in the UK have managed to replicate a similar reaction using very powerful electromagnets.
I will dig out some links...meanwhile carry on blogging..:-)
Love your new blog. I just watched a show on Nova that talked about using natural resources.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/making-stuff.html
Seems to fall along the same lines as what you are talking about. I look forward to more intersting blog topics.I am glad your wife turned me on to you.
Hi Andi,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much.
Thanks for the link i will have a look at it.
Some of the power stations where you are in the US are real pinnacle of engineering efficiency. I just wish we all took that approach. Its ok saying that we can get fusion working in 30 - 40 years but what are we to do about reducing CO2 emmissions during that time why we wait for the new 'fuels'?
Wwind and solar will never fully replace coal and oil as they simply cannot provide enough power for our needs.
An interesting debate me thinks...