Your Questions About Sustainable Energy Technologies

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Professor Andrew Blakers from The Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at the Australian National University will today report to the Greenhouse 2000 Conference in Melbourne that photovoltaic (PV) solar energy conversion can be cost-competitive with any low-emission electricity generation technology by 2030.

His paper describes how extrapolation of the huge economic and technical gains made by photovoltaics over the last 15 years gives confidence that a dramatic shift in electricity generation technology over the next quarter-century is possible.

Worldwide photovoltaic sales are growing at 40 to 50% per year. Government research & market support for photovoltaics of around $400 billion spread over the next 25 years can deliver the technology required to eliminate electricity production as a contributor to climate change. This is a large sum of money – similar to the cost of the Iraq war – but it is dwarfed by the $23 trillion expected investment in oil exploration out to 2030 or the $24 trillion investment in PV systems required to generate half of the world’s electricity by 2040.

Professor Blakers will also describe Sliver solar cell technology, which was invented at Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland, by Dr Klaus Weber and Professor Blakers in 2000 while attending a conference. Origin Energy, one of the sponsors of the Greenhouse 2000 Conference, is commercialising Sliver technology in Adelaide.
Work at ANU shows that Sliver solar cell technology can achieve electricity costs below retail electricity costs within five years, with the right investment. Explosive growth in sales in the commercial and residential sector will then follow.

Professor Blakers said that Sliver solar cell technology “can go all the way.”

“It’s not difficult to envisage Sliver based technology delivering electricity at a cost that matches wind energy, zero-emission coal and other clean energy technologies. No leap of faith is required; just careful engineering and adaptation of existing techniques from other industries,” he said.

Dr Weber added that it is essential to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel based electricity generation in order to limit climate change. The cost of doing this with advanced solar technology will be far lower than the pessimistic forecasts advanced by some analysts.

“The key to a clean energy future is the setting of clear and challenging targets and the provision of reliable, long-term support to the solar industry. The industry will respond and deliver the required technology,” Dr Weber said. Recent solar and fuel cell articles

Organic solar cells will help spur viability of alternative energy October 10, 2005
Imagine being able to “paint” your roof with enough alternative energy to heat and cool your home. What if soldiers in the field could carry an energy source in a roll of plastic wrap in their backpacks?

Harvesting tornadoes as power plants; renewable wind vortex energy October 9, 2005
Engineers are working to use artificial tornadoes as a renewable energy source according to an article in last week’s issue of The Economist. Storms release a tremendous amount of energy. Hurricane Katrina, a category 4 hurricane, released enough energy to supply the world’s power needs for a year, while the typical tornado produces as much power as a large power station.

Danish researchers develop hydrogen tablet; stores hydrogen in inexpensive and safe material September 21, 2005
Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark have invented a technology which may be an important step towards the hydrogen economy: a hydrogen tablet that effectively stores hydrogen in an inexpensive and safe material. With the new hydrogen tablet, it becomes much simpler to use the environmentally-friendly energy of hydrogen. Hydrogen is a non-polluting fuel, but since it is a light gas it occupies too much volume, and it is flammable. Consequently, effective and safe storage of hydrogen has challenged researchers world-wide for almost three decades. At the Technical University of Denmark, DTU, an interdisciplinary team has developed a hydrogen tablet which enables storage and transport of hydrogen in solid form.

High oil prices make Asia pursue green energy September 9, 2005
For energy-hungry Asian governments, the answer could literally be blowing in the wind. Across the region, renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal power is gaining ever greater credence as a way to curb the region’s appetite for oil and cut runaway import bills. With oil prices near $70, and expected by many analysts to stay over $50 through the end of 2006, governments believe alternative energy will help keep their economies growing.

Cockroaches and rats used as batteries? August 24, 2005
An article in today’s Manilla Times highlights some local research into using common household pests as energy sources. A group of scientists from Feati University recently devised a biological fue

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The greatest technological challenge of the 21st century is to meet energy demand in an environmentally sustainable way. Nuclear energy is a carbon free energy; however, current fission technology leaves a deadly legacy – radioactive waste that is toxic for tens of thousands of years. To put the energy demands of humans in perspective with nuclear energy, please see the lecture by Nate Lewis (California Institute of Technology). In 2006, humans are consuming energy at a rate of about 14TW (14 trillion watts). Using current technology, in order to generate 10TW of energy, we would have to build a new reactor every single day for the next 50 years. This would be a monumental effort in stupidity and futility. Furthermore, this would not meet growing energy demand, which is predicted to be ~28TW in the year 2050. The clearest alternatives are wind energy and solar energy. Practically, wind energy used globally can potentially provide ~2TW energy, meaning that solar energy is going to be our primary energy source. The energy that strikes the Earth in 1 hour as sunlight is enough to provide humanity’s energy needs for 1 year (~14TW). However, this energy is diffuse, and we still need to develop low cost, efficient methods to convert solar energy to fuels and electricity. Research is progressing rapidly in this topic. The world needs to committ massive resources to this right now.

The second part of your question relates to cold fusion. Interestingly, fusion is the source of sunlight, so using solar energy, is in a way, using fusion energy (we don’t have to worry about the problems of containment and generating fusion pressures and temperatures). There are a few research projects around the world that are working on finding useful methods for controlling fusion reactions for energy. Perhaps the most well known involves a giant room with thousands of high energy lasers that are focused at a pelletized source of fusionable material. In this scheme, the energy input from the lasers initiates fusion. This technology is promising, but is far from being economical. Research efforts should continue.