Approximately 40% of Earth’s population is ‘‘off the grid,’’ mainly in developing countries. Wireless power transmission envisioned by Nikola Tesla a century ago is feasible today. Microwave beams can propagate power efficiently along lines-of-sight over long distances. Orbiting microwave reflectors could form the basis of a global electric grid.
An advanced technology path to electrification is the solar power satellite (SPS) proposed by Peter Glaser. Solar flux is about 10 times higher in space outside Earth’s shadow cone than the long- term average at the surface of spinning, cloudy Earth, and power from space can be beamed by microwave efficiently through cloudy skies to the surface where it is needed. (more…)
The total installed geothermal power generating capacity in the world is approximately 9000 MWe from 21 countries, with the United States leading at nearly 3000 MWe and The Philippines with nearly 2000 MWe (Table II). Other major countries are Italy, Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, and New Zealand, with between 400 and 800 MWe each. (more…)
Electric and gas utilities’ Research & Development activities deal nearly exclusively with energy conversion, distribution, and energy usage (at least to the extent that these firms still focus on these core businesses). Although detailed data on utility Research & Development are not collected systematically, it seems that Energy R&D spending by many utilities has declined during the past decade or so. For example, a 1996 survey by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the combined Research & Development spending of the 112 largest operating utilities in the United States dropped from $708 million in 1993 to $476 million in 1996. (more…)
The solar technology is not only in the flat solar collector or photovoltaic panel. I follow the process ID and proof of this is the prototype plant to produce solar electricity. (more…)
Although the focus of many policy studies of climate change is on establishing the causal links between anthropogenic systems, emissions of greenhouse gases climate change, the line of causation also runs the other way. Short-term fluctuations in climate conditions, particularly in the temperate zones on the planet, affect energy consumption. If the popular expectation that the climate will become warmer becomes a reality, we can expect winters and summers that are warmer than those of the past. (more…)
Today, photovoltaic cells only contribute a small proportion (approximately 0.04 percent) of total electricity in the United States. At the same time the production of solar panels has growth rapidly per year by around 20% growth in the 1990s and photovoltaic panels prices decreases every year. Annual worldwide solar panel production (including solar panels with homemade solar power homes) is about 400 MW per year. Based on the total cumulative capacity figure, it is already reaching 2 GW. (more…)
Hydrogen has many applications when it comes to fuel. It can be used both in internal combustion engines and hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen engines are using the same principle the same way as gasoline fuels or hydrogen natural gas burned combustion, while the chemical energy of hydrogen used to generate electricity and heat transmission. Since the electrochemical reactions produced more efficient energy compare to the combustion energy, fuel cells are created more efficient fuel compare to internal combustion engines. In the long term it will benefit to the more efficient hydrogen conversion process. (more…)
