MeanGene Rants 17
November 2002
Sunlight, lots
of glass, a giant tower and electricity.
Fuel Cells,
Fuel Cells, Fuels Cells
Cool Stuff
·
Laptop
Fuel Cell approved for Airplanes http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/IndustryInformation/IndustryInformationExternal/NewsDisplayArticle/0,1471,1888,00.html
·
Are
Nuclear Powered Laptops Next? http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965640.html?tag=fd_top
·
Wisconsinites
(aka Cheesheads) Make Electricity From Duck Shit http://www.wildlifehc.org/news/othernews/Index.cfm?Page=1&NewsID=22613
Several
people responded to the idea of a fuel cell car with something like
"remember the Hindenberg" the famous German Hydrogen-filled blimp
that went up in flames. Well, it turns out that the flames had more to do with
the paint on the shell of the blimp than the hydrogen inside. A helium-filled
Hindenberg would have burned just as much. http://www.dwv-info.de/pm/hindbg/hbe.htm
Others even claim that Hydrogen is safer than gasoline or diesel. A car leaking
3000 cubic feet per minute of hydrogen when set on fire generates less heat
inside the car than sunshine. http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid536.php
Others
wondered how fuel cell cars can take off before fuel-cell gas stations sprout
up, and why the stations would sprout up if there are no fuel cell cars - a
real catch-22. David Garman, assistant US secretary for energy efficiency, said
30 to 40 percent of US gas stations ... would have to offer hydrogen to make
fuel cell vehicles viable. Most likely fuel cell cars would start with fleet
vehicles, the US Postal service has 400 battery powered fleet vehicles already
in CA and serves as a good model. http://www.wildlifehc.org/news/othernews/Index.cfm?Page=1&NewsID=22456
Daimler-Chrysler will start testing fuel cell powered fleet vehicles in 2003. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/021008/detu012_1.html
Experts
at the Rocky Mountain Institute and elsewhere predict that buildings may become
widespread users of fuel cells before cars. General Motors is betting that this
view is correct and will start offering stationary fuel cell power systems to
mission critical buildings like hospitals, cell phone networks and data
processing centers in 2004. http://www.buildings.com/Articles/detail.asp?ArticleID=965
Whether
it is fleet vehicles, buildings or both, as more and more fuel cells need to be
resupplied, local distribution centers of hydrogen will become more common.
The
solar chimney is a simple idea that is not very well known. The basic
description is here http://www.stirlingengines.org.uk/sun/sola6.html Or a picture can speak a thousand words
about it. http://www.meangene.com/energy/solarChimney.html A quick time movie doesn't add a lot more,
but it's cool. http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm
The
basic idea is that the sun heats up the air underneath a huge spread of glass
around the base of the chimney. The hot air rises and has only one path to do
that, through the chimney. The chimney is lined with turbines that generate
electricity. The speed of the air inside is proportional to the temperature
difference from bottom to top. Therefore, the taller the chimney and the wider
its collection base, the more energy it can produce.
The idea
comes from Germany, but Germany doesn't have a lot of hot desert-like areas to
try it out, so they built a small 30MW prototype in Manzanares, Spain - .
Sri
Lanka also has a prototype, and wants to build a real 200MW system. http://www.gluckman.com/SolarChimney.html
But Australia wants to be the first and may beat them out. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/s359035.htm
If they go through with their plan, they will build the world's tallest
structure, twice as tall as the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
"The
1000m Solar Chimney in Mildura, Australia, will be the highest man-made
structure on Earth, and can produce 200MW of electricity, providing power to
200,000 homes. The cost to build the tower is estimated at AUS$700 million
(US$395 million), about 14 percent more than an equivalent coal-fired power
station, and about 70 percent more per installed megawatt than a comparable
wind farm. However, the investment will pay off in long term because it is more
reliable than wind farm in sun-rich Australia and requires no fuel. By building
the solar chimney power plant, the Australian government target of producing 2%
of energy from renewable sources by 2010 (9500 GigaWatt hours) could be met
easily." http://www.visionengineer.com/env/solar_flue2.shtml
The
energy is free, but 97% of the energy is still lost using the original German
design. This design tries to improve on the original. http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.co.uk/the_solar_chimney.htm
Eric Hu,
a senior lecturer in energy and thermal engineering at Melbourne's Deakin
University, suggests any greenhouse benefits could be a fantasy. "That's
because by trapping heat, such a chimney could reduce Earth's 'albedo,' or
ability to reflect light back into space. Thus, by transforming solar radiation
into heat, a solar chimney might actually contribute to warming earth's
atmosphere even while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.