Solar energy

[Michaelangelica]

I was wondering, is a space elevator logical? Our satilites orbit around the earth at thousands of miles per hour, how are we going to build a space elevator to a satilite that is orbiting around the earth?

I have never really "got" this idea either.

I think it was first proposed by Fred Hoyle?

[Kayra]

This page has a nice animation of it

 

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf5-1.html

[learnin to learn]

dang now that is interesting!!!

[Michaelangelica]

some interesting new solar/energy/water developments

(for Sale - Of course!)

http://www.export.gov.il/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?CategoryID=354&ArticleID=2520

Edited October 17, 2014 by CraigD
Repointed broken link to archive

[CraigD]

some interesting new solar/energy/water developments

(for Sale - Of course!):)

http://www.export.gov.il/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?CategoryID=354&ArticleID=2520

The Engineuity company’s idea and development of a device that creates hydrogen and heat from the high-temperature transfer of oxygen from water to a light metal such as aluminum or magnesium is intriguing indeed, potentially lending new meaning to an old automotive term. The system collects spent [math]Al_2O_3[/math] or [math]MgO[/math], to be removed “by vacuum suction” during refueling. I can think of no better term for the place where the oxide collects than “the rust bucket”. ;)

 

In the case of aluminum, which is refined from [math]Al_2O_3[/math] (also known as alumina) extracted from bauxite ore, the system can be viewed as a means of recovering a fraction of the considerable energy required to convert alumina to aluminum metal. After the aluminum wire is oxidized back into alumina, all one need do is re-convert the alumina back into aluminum and draw it into wire to complete the recycling process.

 

The only fault I can find Amnon Yogev’s description (brief audio recording available here) of the technology’s potential, is that I suspect he is dramatically underestimating the cost of the aluminum. Currently, the cost of aluminum can be reduced by about 95% by recycling. To recycle aluminum metal, one need only melt it, skim off non-metal impurities, and reform it as desired. If the aluminum is oxidized back into alumina, as it must be to generate power using Engineuity’s system, it must be re-refined, a much more energy and facility-costly process.

 

Still, the technology appears very promising, and better still, sounds as if it would lend itself to hobbyist experimentation. I’m already thinking about where to get a really hot, water-proof heater, and what gauge wire to use to duplicate Engineuity’s system!

 

:Exclamati Like batteries, hydrogen, and similar approaches, however, this one only stores energy – it doesn’t extract it from a freely occurring natural source, such as solar, nuclear, coal, or oil, so it’s not in the same category of solutions as solar power.

[tarak]

Energy perse is universal but the way we harvest it and the methodologies adopted to deliver it and more essentially the renewability of the original resource arein a process of scientific evolution and one day we will solve our problems

[Kayra]

One issue not taken into account is the true cost of aluminum.

 

The process is HIGHLY subsidized. Mining is so cheap, and processing so expensive that the companies that make it will only set up factories where the local government will guarantee LONG term subsidized electricity.

 

If we start using aluminum en-mass, it will likely not be very long before the true cost rears it's ugly head.

 

Is this also true for Magnesium?

[CraigD]

One issue not taken into account is the true cost of aluminum.

…

Is this also true for Magnesium?

From the perspective of the energy required for recycling of metal oxide back to pure metal, aluminum and magnesium appear very similar. Aluminum and Magnesium metal have similar market prices, about $2/kg. Both are tightly bound to electricity cost.

 

As best I can estimate, metal oxide-metal systems are currently about 20% energy efficient, compared to 50-95% for H2O-hydrogen systems.

 

From the perspective of material input and output, oxide-to-pure metal recycling for aluminum requires carbon, and generates CO2. The best and most common magnesium process requires silicon, and generates CaSiO3 (Wollastonite).

 

Since CaSiO3 is benign and useful, while CO2 is a problematic waste, there appears to be some basis to favor magnesium over aluminum in Engineuity’s energy storage scheme. However, world production of aluminum is about 40 times that of magnesium, so medium-term, supply limitations force the use of aluminum

 

Despite looking less energetically efficient than H2O-hydrogen systems, metal oxide-metal has the attractive quality of engineering practicality: as a fuel, metal wire is inert and can’t leak. It has a storage life better even than gas or diesel – practically forever. Hydrogen is one of the most reactive elements, and the hardest stuff to keep from leaking existent.

 

I’m very enthused by this technology.

 

The wikipedia articles for aluminum separation, the Hall-Heroult process, magnesium sources, and the Pidgeon process seem good research entrypoints.

[Turtle]

Here's something new(?) in solar energy:

http://www.worldsnest.com/html/solar.html

Two scientists who joined Angels Nest in the winter of 2006 will change the face of the way we produce solar energy forever. Robert R. Walters, VP of Corporate Business Development and Marketing for Entech Solar in Keller Texas, and Michael L. Fulton at Ion Beam Optics have found away to double the power output of a solar panel per square meter by concentrating sunlight through a Fresnel Lens and magnify it onto a concentrated solar energy chip.

[Michaelangelica]

Is this new tecnology of interest?

 

FROM

http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2004/aug/Solar_hydrogenMNE.html

 

Solar hydrogen - energy of the future

26 August 2004

 

A team of Australian scientists predicts that a revolutionary new way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a reality within seven years.

 

Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.

 

It would be the cheapest, cleanest and most abundant energy source ever developed: the main by-products would be oxygen and water. Rooftop panels placed on 1.6 million houses, for example, could supply Australia's entire energy needs.

Qedit: a brief excerpt with the link is enough, especially with copyright material.

[Michaelangelica]

This article talkes about the costs of Solar Panels going UP, not down as has been predicted.

This is due in part to the demand from Germany and the shortage of silicon (!??)

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=43569

 

There is an interesting discussion at the end of the article too

eg

- Bob Russell, February 17, 2006

There is no shortage of silicon. Go to any beach and pick up all you want. the shortage na dhigh cost are in the crystalline used for most PV products.

[Qfwfq]

There is no shortage of silicon. Go to any beach and pick up all you want. the shortage na dhigh cost are in the crystalline used for most PV products.

Look up the cost of monocrystal silicon, pure and ready to be doped. :ud:

[Michaelangelica]

Look up the cost of monocrystal silicon, pure and ready to be doped. :)

Looks like about a$1 a kilo. Is that right?

http://www.tradekey.com/selloffer_view/id/110062.htm

That does not seem expensive(I was quoting from the article)

[Michaelangelica]

Google strikes in unexpected places?

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17025&ch=biztechLarge-Scale,

Cheap Solar Electricity

 

A well-financed California startup is promising to build a solar-cell factory that could finally make solar power affordable.

 

By Kevin Bullis

Part of a solar-cell printing machine in Nanosolar’s pilot manufacturing plant. The technology might make solar power competitive with electricity from the grid. (Courtesy of Nanosolar.)

 

This week, Nanosolar, a startup in Palo Alto, CA, announced plans to build a production facility with the capacity to make enough solar cells annually to generate 430 megawatts. This output would represent a substantial portion of the worldwide production of solar energy.

 

According to Nanosolar's CEO Martin Roscheisen, the company will be able to produce solar cells much less expensively than is done with existing photovoltaics because its new method allows for the mass-production of the devices. In fact, maintains Roscheisen, the company's technology will eventually make solar power cost-competitive with electricity on the power grid.

 

Nanosolar also announced this week more than $100 million in funding from various sources, including venture firms and government grants. The company was founded in 2001 and first received seed money in 2003 from Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

 

Today, the lion's share of solar cells are based on crystalline silicon, which is about three to five times too costly to compete with grid electricity, Zweibel says.

 

Nanosolar's technology involves a thin film of copper, indium, gallium, and selenium (CIGS) that absorbs sunlight and converts it into electricity. The basic technology has been around for decades, but it has proven difficult to produce it reliably and cheaply. Nanosolar has developed a way to make these cells using a printing technology similar to the kind used to print newspapers, rather than expensive vacuum-based methods.

[learnin to learn]

hmmm interesting!

[void_stuff]

hello...

 

I have quickly read all the opinions.

 

I think Nuclear can be kept under control. Maybe the future will bring us a better way of security for nuclear fusion plants. I heard Eourope gets his enery mostly from nuclar power (correct me plz if incorrect). Nuclear is worth having due to it's efficiency and the energy it provides.

 

Anyway, solar is much safe and the sun must be used <the light rays' energy is not being used by humans> I also had heard about new techniques on solar-cell developement before and if improved (the efficiency) then solar is exellent.

 

note: no one has mention tidal. (it is free) :hyper: would it be possible and plausible to have a big wreck ship going up and down by the tides while converting it's momentum to electricity?? - kind of a new idea-

[learnin to learn]

hello...

 

I have quickly read all the opinions.

 

I think Nuclear can be kept under control. Maybe the future will bring us a better way of security for nuclear fusion plants. I heard Eourope gets his enery mostly from nuclar power (correct me plz if incorrect). Nuclear is worth having due to it's efficiency and the energy it provides.

 

Anyway, solar is much safe and the sun must be used <the light rays' energy is not being used by humans> I also had heard about new techniques on solar-cell developement before and if improved (the efficiency) then solar is exellent.

 

note: no one has mention tidal. (it is free) ;) would it be possible and plausible to have a big wreck ship going up and down by the tides while converting it's momentum to electricity?? - kind of a new idea-

 

just a small correction, I think that you meant to say nuclear fission, because have not yet been able to create a nuclear fusion plant hear on earth.

 

I never considered tidal. But I think we get more energy through the use of dams.