Here’s an approach to extracting the energy from ocean waves whose inventor asks my opinion. I love looking at new ideas. Here goes:
Will this generate electricity? Certainly.
Will it provide a viable approach to solving the problem of cost-effective wave energy? I’m not an expert in hydrokinetics, but this design appears to me to contain the following drawbacks: (more…)
It’s no secret that Google is the world’s most rapidly diversifying company, and I found further proof of this yesterday when I had the pleasure of meeting Rick Needham, Google’s Director of Energy and Sustainability, at the Low Carbon Investing conference. One of Rick’s most important goals is to electrify the developing world. Of course, I was very keen on this, as electricity means an end to burning kerosene lanterns, and provides the basis for education, which in turn means greater productivity and self-sufficiency, and ultimately fewer children. (more…)
A few other quotes from the conference, which provided me a great excuse to be in San Francisco, one of my very favorite cities. I couldn’t resist adding my comments.
• Renewable energy has not fully recovered from the Carter-Reagan transition. (more…)
Here’s an interesting bit of conversation from the Low Carbon Investors conference: a session moderator noted the following about divestiture: Divestment from all fossil fuels is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Natural gas plays a role in replacing coal.
True. Its presence also enables integrating large amounts of variable resources into the grid-mix.
Another speaker whose company manages the money of a large Protestant church, an organization that is pushing to divest its portfolio of all fossil fuels said, “I’ll do that as soon as you yourself stop using fossil fuels.” That’s a good, clever point IMO.
A quick note from the Low Carbon Investors conference: a speaker noted, “Investing in water is a contact sport” meaning that you’re going to be dealing with individual people and communities who may not approve of what you’re doing. That certainly is a great metaphor, and it’s completely obvious that the speaker is correct here. (more…)
I met a very interesting guy yesterday at the Low Carbon Investors conference: a professor at Stanford whose discipline is disruptive technologies. Among other things, he’s an advisor to several different groups of students who are working on new approaches to energy and transportation, some of which sound like they have real merit.
Discussions of the future of transportation bring to mind the current sad state of affairs that exist in the U.S.; there is an ongoing debate here with respect to our crumbling infrastructure: our highways, bridges, railroad tracks, airports, etc. (more…)
I’m up in San Francisco at the Low Carbon Investors conference today. I like to cover events like this for 2GreenEnergy readers, and I aim to do that in this case with all my might. There is a slight problem, however, (more…)
Reading has long been established as one of the best ways of improving vocabulary and of lowering levels of stress in your body. The time spent reading removes you completely from the world around you and allows your mind time to become creative. It has even been shown to improve your intellect. Here are some tips on how you can read more, despite a busy lifestyle.
Borrow books (more…)
According to the article, the state’s environmental groups aren’t happy, which is predictable. In fact, if there is any surprise here, it’s that environmental groups exist in Kansas at all.
For those of you outside the U.S. who might not understand this remark, Kansas is arguably the most regressive state in our Union. (more…)
If we have any heavyweights in fluid dynamics out there who would like to comment on this concept, I would appreciate it. It’s a bladeless wind turbine, one that captures energy from the moving air by shaking rather than turning.
My take: I’ll be stunned if this actually has the potential to lower the levelized cost of energy (as they claim). Today’s turbines are over 80% efficient in converting the incident kinetic energy from a certain swept area into electricity. (This is incorrect; in my haste, I omitted a whole bunch of considerations here; my bad; see comments below. This should have read: …”80% of the theoretical maximum”.)
What would be an effective configuration of these devices to achieve a large swept area? How are they going to top 80%? Good luck.
