Commercial Solar Power
Solar energy is a form of renewable energy that is gaining popularity all over the world.
This is because solar energy is free, and though the installation costs may be high, in the long run, one saves on fuel consumption costs. In addition to this, as there is no burning of fuels involved for solar energy, there is no elimination of harmful gases that cause global warming.
Moreover, the amount of non-renewable natural resources is becoming more scarce and scarce by the day. And with this, there is an increase in the rates of these resources.
This is why people try to establish a means of providing for their power needs locally and the most practical means of doing so is through solar power.
Solar power is now harnessed individually in houses and in commercial establishments through solar power stations.
However today, commercial solar power is something that is growing fast in the arena of green energy where a persons or company that creates more solar energy than it uses can connect to the power grid, and sell it to the grid for others to use.
In fact, in a bid to encourage commercial solar power, the US Department of Energy has funded the Solar Power Solutions and other incentives to encourage both residences and businesses to provide excess solar energy that is produced to the power grid.
JP900 a thermally stable coal based jet fuel
Fueling the many jet planes found in most countries across the world is a great concern, with the depleting sources of available fuel. In addition to this, global warming that is increased with carbon emitted fuels has formed the basis for many researchers and scientists to produce various alternate energy sources.
And with this research, researchers have found out that coal can be used as the renewable source of energy for fueling new generation jet planes.
A group of researchers have produced a thermally stable coal based jet fuel that absorbs significant amounts of heat, while remaining stable at 900 degrees Fahrenheit.
The additional benefit of this newly discovered fuel is that it does not decompose at high temperatures. Fuels that tend to decompose at high temperatures also bring about deposits of carbon that spoils foul valves, nozzles and other engine parts of jet planes.
With this high temperature stability in the fuel, the fuel has been designated jet propulsion 900, or JP900.
This fuel is designed for use in new generation, high performance engines found in aircrafts like F35 joint strike fighter and the U.S. Air Forces’ VAATE program.
However researchers claim that pretty soon, this fuel can be used in conventional jet engines found in current aircraft.
The air compressor of a jet engine is found in the front portion of a jet engine where these engines compress air at high pressure.
This compression generates large amounts of heat ad as the outside air is not a good cooling medium; researchers have designed this fuel as a heat sink where you find high temperature stability to be a necessity.
China Wind power industry
With the rising costs of non-renewable fuels because of increased demand with lowered availability of these fossil fuels has led to a demand for renewable sources of energy.
A form of renewable energy is wind energy, which has been harnessed for producing electricity for quite some time now.
Many countries around the world have wind power industries, including China.
The main reason China had immediate needs of harnessing wind power for producing electricity is because of the frequent summer power shortages in China. In fact, many people in east Zhejiang, China have to cope without any electricity for three days a week because of its power shortages.
The answer to these problems today is the use of wind turbines to generate power. Wind power is a great alternate source of energy as wind is a permanent source of energy, unlike water and coal, which are sources of energy which may run out soon. The main thing required to harness wind power is a continuous source of wind energy, which is found in many areas in china.
In some regions in China like the 1,200 meter Kuocang mountain, there is a gale all year round. This is why you find a wind farm here that has a band of workers maintaining 33 turbines, which has been running at a profit for six years.
However as China has to always rely on imported technology, this is not always a wise option for the people in China as it proves to be rather expensive. Moreover Danish generators can’t cope with the humidity wherein China suffers an annual loss of 1 million yuans because of frozen fans.
Butanol Fuel is a great alternative renewable source of energy
Butanol is a fuel that can be produced by fermentation of biomass and fossil fuels. It si basically an alcohol with a 4 carbon structure that is used as a solvent in chemical synthesis.
As is is similar to gasonline and ethanol, it is also used in internal combustion engines. In fact, it can be used in vehicles meant for gasoline use, without much modifications.
There is not many changes in the production of butanol from ethanol production.
The only difference that can be stated is the fermentation of the feedstock and minor changes in the distillation process.
Feedstocks used for fermentation of butanol is similar to that of ethanol where energy crops like sugar beets, wheat, sugar cane, corn grain, cassava and some by-products of agriculture like straw and corn stalks are used.
Butanol is better than ethanol as a source of energy as it tolerates water contamination better and is less corrosive than ethanol.
Morever, it is possible to retrofit existing bioethanol plants at a reasonable cost so that it starts producing butanol instead of ethanol. It is because ethanol has an energy content that is similar to that of gasoline that many people prefer using butanol as a fuel.
Butanol need not be stored in high pressure vessels like natural gas nor does it have to be blended with fossil fuel to reap its benefits.
It is possible to transport butanol through existing pipelines for its distribution purposes. morever, butanol can be easily reformed for its hydrogen content, so that it is distributed with the require purity for fuel cells or vehicles at existing gas stations.
Blend fuels from trees with biodiesel to power engines
The need for energy is increasing day by day with increased equipment needing fuels for its working. Petroleum and coal are some of the non-renewable fuels available today that prove to be harmful as it induces global warming. Moreover its stocks are decreasing day by day, proving a need for finding alternative sources of renewable energy.
This is why researchers in Georgia have come across a new biofuel that is derived from wood chips. Though wood has produced different fuels over the years, this new fuel that is unnamed, is blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel so that it can be used to power conventional engines.
This new method of producing fuels from wood is much cheaper than previous methods where the oil is treated inexpensively to use both in unmodified diesel engines and be blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel. Pellets which are quarter an inch in diameter and six-tenths of an inch long are heated with wood chips at a high temperature, in the absence of oxygen. This process is called pyrolysis.
About a third of the wood’s dry weight turns into charcoal and the remaining, gas. This gas is condensed into liquid bio-oil to be chemically treated. Once this process is over, 34% of the bio-oil is used to power engines. Work is still going on to find means of getting more oil from the wood.
With Georgia having about 24 million acres of forest land, this process of producing fuels will provide increased employment and tax revenues. In addition to this, the fuel also reduces the amount of fuel that has to otherwise be imported form other states and countries.
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