The global energy demand will at least double and possibly quadruple by 2100, energy experts project.(1)
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Our dependence on fossil fuels to provide our energy is polluting our air, contributing to ozone depletion and is a finite resource.
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Many now are researching alternatives.
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Innovations that harness what is freely given to us by way of sun, wind and ocean waves are making their way into the foreground of energy production making way supporting not only us but the health of our planet.
Current Energy Trends
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California
California Releases Report Charting Path to 100 Percent Clean Electricity
THE FUTURE OF ENERGY:
The Energy Internet
The Third Industrial Revolution: “Energy regimes shape the nature of civilizations… how they are organized, how the fruits of commerce and trade are distributed, how political power is exercised, and how social relations are conducted. The locus of control over energy production and distribution is beginning to tilt from giant fossil fuel based centralized energy companies to millions of small producers, who are generating their own renewable energies in their dwellings and trading surpluses in info-energy commons. The shift in energy regimes from elite fossil fuels to distributed renewable energies will redefine the very notion of international relations more along the lines of ecological thinking Because the renewable energies of the Third Industrial Revolution are ample, found everywhere, and easily shared, but require collective stewardship of the earth’s ecosystems, there is less likelihood of hostility and war over access and a greater likelihood of global cooperation. In the new era, survival is less about competition than cooperation, and less about the search for autonomy than the quest for embeddedness.”
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Venus Project
Jacque Fresco’s vision
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Conservation
The Energy Internet
The Third Industrial Revolution
“Today, Internet technology and renewable energies are beginning to merge to create a new infrastructure for a Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) that will change the way power is distributed in the 21st century. In the coming era, hundreds of millions of people will produce their own renewable energy in their homes, offices, and factories and share green electricity with each other in an “Energy Internet” just like we now generate and share information online”.
One cannot ignore the obvious benefits harnessing the sun for our energy needs provides. Solar energy, after the initial investment, provides a free source of energy that produces no greenhouse gases, allows us to potentially unhook from the grid and moves us closer to self sufficiency.
Every day the sun provides approximately 170,000 terawatt hours of energy –
About 2,850 times the energy required by people around the world.
In 40 minutes of daylight the sun releases upon the earth the amount of energy that is consumed by the entire population of the planet in one year.
All the energy stored in Earth’s reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas is matched by the energy from just 20 days of sunshine.
Currently we harness about 1% of this energy.
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New Materials
The production of solar panels usually require the use of rare metals that are scarce and expensive, such a indium and gallium. Recent tests suggest that we may be able to use materials like Zinc phosphide and copper oxide within the next 20 years which would bring the cost of production of panels down and would spare resources
Concentrating Solar Power
Taking the Power of the sun and concentrating it for the production of energy: Concentrating Voltaics, Power Towers, Parabolic Dishes, Parabolic Troughs, Concentrating Solar Thermals: In the U.S., the Southwest has the most favorable conditions and solar resources to deploy.
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Concentrated Solar Power Technologies
In fact, a study done in 2005 by DOE NREL for the Western Governors’ Association determined that seven States in the Southwest (AZ, CA, CO, NV, NM, TX and UT) have a the combination of solar resource and available suitable land to generate up to 6,800 GW of solar capacity. Today, the entire electric generating capacity of the entire U.S. is about 1,000 GW.
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Concentrating Photovoltaics
….uses Fresnel concentrating lenses to focus direct sunlight onto high efficiency solar cells that are designed to operate with concentrated sunlight and convert the light directly into electricity. Fresnel concentrating lens can also be used with conventional PV panels. These magnifying lenses focus and concentrate sunlight approximately 500 times onto a relatively small cell area and operate similarly to glass magnifying lenses. Through concentration, the required silicon cell area needed for a given amount of electricity is reduced by an amount approximating its concentration ratio (500 times). In effect, a low cost plastic concentrator lens is being substituted for relatively expensive silicon.
Australia- Solar Powered Supercritical Steam
“Instead of relying on burning fossil fuels to produce supercritical steam, this breakthrough demonstrates that the power plants of the future could instead be using the free, zero emission energy of the sun to achieve the same result.”
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United States: Rapid Growth of Solar
Solar Statistics
According to the Official Day Guide to Planet Repair, the wind alone in North Dakota could produce a third of America’s electricity.
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Generation Gap
Wind Opens Big Lead over Nuclear in China
In China, wind power is leaving nuclear behind. Electricity output from China’s wind farms exceeded that from its nuclear plants for the first time in 2012.
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Bladeless Wind Generator
Thinking Outside the Box…….
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Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Zero-emission fuel cell-powered buses
Delivering economic, operational as well as environmental benefits, when compared to traditional diesel or diesel hybrid systems. Economic benefits are a direct result of increased fuel cell efficiency and reliability. And fuel cell buses emit only water vapour, eliminating air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and particulate matter. Fuel cell buses can also significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a “well-to-wheel” basis, when compared to conventional technologies.
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Ballard’s ClearGen Fuel Cell system
A complete solution, designed to generate clean energy right at the point of demand. Modular 500kW PowerBanks are combined to produce multiple megawatts of zero-emission electricity, with heat created by the system providing hot water and space heating. The system can operate continuously to meet baseload power needs, or intermittently to provide peak power during times of high demand.
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Nuclear Fusion
“Nuclear fusion has similarities to conventionally produced nuclear power in that it produces zero carbon electric power, but its big advantage over fission nuclear power is that it generates no nuclear waste, the bane of fission nuclear power plants. Recent research breakthroughs are bringing closer the day that power generation from fusion reactors will become a reality.”
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Urine Powered
Africa
Generator Produces Electricity For 6 Hours on 1 Liter of Urine.
Ocean Powered
Tidal Wave Alternative Energy
Tidal Barrage, Tidal Stream Power, Wave Farms
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Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
The use of the ocean’s natural thermal gradient to generate power. In geographical areas with warm surface water and cold deep water, the temperature difference can be leveraged to drive a steam cycle that turns a turbine and produces power.
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Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project
United States
30 turbines are being installed along the strait that connects the Long Island Sound with the Atlantic Ocean in the New York Harbor. The project, led by Verdant Power, Inc., is the first ever commercially licensed tidal energy project in the United States. The turbines are scheduled to be fully installed by 2015 and will use the flow of the river and tides to generate 1,050 kilowatts of electricity — this power will be delivered to 9,500 New York residents.
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creating new energy sources and production on the planet!