[Closed] So where is this miracle source of unlimited green energy?

I could tell you but 'they' would come for me.

it's called the sun. it'll last my life time.

The hot air generated on here?

It's called "The Sun", assuming you're not being a pedant and claiming that a few billion years isn't unlimited.
The issue is harnessing it.

er, wind and sun.

Both are 'unlimited' as long as the sun and the atmosphere exists.

The issue is harnessing it.

We must have 1000s of unemployed miners, can't be use them to mine it?

The issue is harnessing it.

But people don't want fields of those terribly unsightly solar panels.

I'm eating chilli , give it an hour or so and there'll be plenty of gas round here !!

*breaks wind*

Energy is all around us. Unfortunately the concept of high energy density = affordable conversion is one missed by the vast majority of people. Oil, Coal & Gas are in effect the result of a natural stockpiling of a distributed energy source (the sun), and mother nature has conveniently spent the last couple of millions of years capturing that low grade heat and storing it underground for us to access. That process was in effect "free", our capitalist economy has not had to spend any money on that original packaging, and has simply leveraged those vast high density stores of energy. So, going forwards, and moving away from that naturally conglomerated source, we will have to in effect work at least twice as hard as previously, and that means at least twice the cost.

It seems to me that alternate energy sources will not necessarily get any more economically viable, just that conventional ones like oil will get LESS economically viable........

I am currently deep in my R&D lab, will let you all know when its ready for release, cant tell you much at the moment, all a bit hush, hush y'know !

It seems to me that alternate energy sources will not necessarily get any more economically viable, just that conventional ones like oil will get LESS economically viable........

so best start planning to use as little less of it then if & when you can

 

The issue is harnessing it.

I thought the issue was storing and transporting it.

We have massive deserts that stretch across continents. Nobody would give a tinkers cuss if we filled them with solar panels but how would we get all that effectively unlimited energy back to population centres?

Coal, gas and oil are easy to transport and convert to usable energy closer to where it is needed.

The miracle source of green energy is to stop using the stuff so greeedily

My last deposit felt like it was hotter than the sun. Really had hopes for charging my iPad.

In reality I found that my toilet potato was not as nearly conductive as a real potato.

Energy is energy, you can't make it, you can't break it.... You can only convert it.

er, wind and sun.

Both are 'unlimited' as long as the[s] sun and the atmosphere exists[/s] its daytime and its windy.

FTFY

Pussywillows awesomeness.

Oh hello Zulu.

It's always windy somewhere. And it's always daytime somewhere.

[img] [/img]

Fusion is almost certainly the answer.

The problem is that it's 50+ years off and has been for a while... the real issue is what we do between now and then as carbon energy sources become increasingly expensive.

Sorry for the serious answer...

In the words of Dylan . The answer is blowing in the wind

Any idiot can protest and be idealistic and misunderstand the intricacies of energy production and geo-political power...

I'd like to do a poll about how they got themselves to Balcombe, and what their personal energy use levels are...

Any idiot can protest and be idealistic and misunderstand the intricacies of energy production and geo-political power...

And they let these people vote. Makes my blood boil. It really is about time that they restricted protesting to just clever people.

As long as rain keeps falling from the sky my mate will continue to have free energy for his farm (mini hydro scheme), a series of three tiered ponds on a hillside with a central drainage overflow pipe just below the surface on each of them, water flows over the overflow and down the pipe with the aid of gravity and the venturi effect increases the pressure and turns small turbines on the outlet and feeds the water into the lower pond (same thing happens), then into the lower pond (same thing happens) and out to the burn - home made system and quite ingenious, i admit there is one drawback - not everyone has a 1200acre farm on a Galloway hillside to collect rainwater.

The tide. Underwater turbines is where is should be at.... surely the energy of billions tonnes of water that moves every 6 hours could be harnessed. Also why not put smaller turbines on drains and sewers, large buildings down pipes etc.

Crap trolling by the OP. Try a bit harder won't you?

I thought the issue was storing and transporting it.

There are issues with all of it. Current rooftop panels are about 17% efficient, meaning they only capture and convert 17% of the total solar energy hitting that panel. If they could get that a LOT higher, we'd need a lot less panels for the same effect.

[url= http://www.worldometers.info/ ]This is an interesting site which puts energy use/whats left etc... into perspective.[/url]

As mentioned, mini sun / fusion, they are building a powerstation or a prototye anyway in France: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/sep/16/nuclear-fusion-iter-jet-forshaw

Or mirrors in space, that would work but would probably get skyjacked by the Koreans and used to blow up the White-house.

What ever happened to Irish perpetual motion with magnets machine? I wonder what the maths add up like for self sufficiency growing biofuel? I reckon the only thing holding that back is the oil companies, under the guise it would be bad politically to import all your food as a consequence, and environmentally poor from a diversity perspective.

i read today that gemany is closing down its nuclear and fossil fuel power plants because they are financially unable to compete with its renewable energy production.

meanwhile sweden is being [i]paid[/i] to take waste from other eu countries since many of their powerstations run on waste and they are running out of fuel for them.

it would be crap if we took this kind of approach in the uk though, what with us having the highest tides and wind in europe, and a serious problem with landfill.......best just do some experimental fossil fuel extraction, its worked really well in texas after all

here is an article quoting goldman sachs take of the unprofitably of fossil fuel powerstations before i get called a hippy and told to get a job http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/19/graph-how-wind-power-displaced-coal-power-in-spain/

i read today that gemany is closing down its nuclear and fossil fuel power plants because they are financially unable to compete with its renewable energy production.

Germany can only do that because it has French nuclear power to rely on for baseload. I'm sure it's not actually shutting down all it's fossil fuel plants either, as otherwise how does it cope with variations in demand and supply. Of course the renewable sources which can't be competed with aren't subsidised at all, are they?

well ok ill accept that it has imported energy as peak demand times, but it is on a path, not at the end of it. as a country germany is a net exporter though and it doesnt have the option of tidal/wave energy that the uk does, which could easily provide a totally predictable base load.

for me however, your subsidy argument holds no weight though since all energy production is subsidised. coal, gas, nuclear and all 'green' forms of power production all draw government subsidies.

this experimental fossil fuel fuel which is apparently going to be so cheap has to have huge tax breaks to be viable, which lets be honest amounts to a subsidy does it not?

i read today that gemany is closing down its nuclear and fossil fuel power plants because they are financially unable to compete with its renewable energy production.

They have an ageing fleet of power stations and a green party that is actually in government. They were very worried after Japan about Tsunami & Earthquake damage because they failed to spot those events are at the most extremely unlikely in Germany. People dislikes nuclear power and complained. Now as posted above they get it from France, of course if it ever went wrong in France the chances of problems in Germany are slim to LOTS.

Back to the OP, what do you call green?
Bio Fuels - deforestation, the world's poorest growing fuel not food, exporting/transporting the fuel/food round the world.
Hydro - Dams, Flooding, Changed to rivers etc. space it takes up
Wind, massive amount of turbines required with associated cost of moving power from windy rural locations to places it's needed
Solar - covering land with panels massive grid distribution, construction, manufacture/disposal
Nuclear - Construction/Waste
Fusion - No idea, not invented yet

Using any fluctuating source requires something as a back up that can ramp up quick, if that fossil then it's bad news.

[url= http://inhabitat.com/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/ ]click[/url]

Article about a village in Germany

I wonder what the maths add up like for self sufficiency growing biofuel? I reckon the only thing holding that back is the oil companies, under the guise it would be bad politically to import all your food as a consequence, and environmentally poor from a diversity perspective.

In a world where we're struggling to grow enough food for a growing population, do you think it's just an oil company cover-up that suggests stopping growing food to grow food for our cars is a wise idea?

And good on Germany if what they're doing is kosher. But, the bit they're not doing (baseload thanks to neighbouring fossil / nuclear), is the hard bit. And pretty much out of their control as clearly they can't tell the French to build another power station so they don't have to.

to my mind its about investment

space race as an example, sending men to the moon was fantasy , then along came the cold war, $ billions were pumped into it and in a few years it happened

the uk's (let alone the world's) contribution to [url= http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER ]
ITER[/url] is a tiny fraction of GDP

Tidal aways seemed like a good idea to me, easy to capture could be stored in closed sections to release on demand and are predictable for the next hundefed odd years.

Would make interesting tv sheduling aligning with phases of the moon for high/ tides.

i admit there is one drawback - not everyone has a 1200acre farm on a Galloway hillside to collect rainwater.

Germany is closing gas power stations not because they can't compete but because they are not allowed to compete. Power companies have to buy all the energy generated by solar panels from private individuals at subsidised prices. During the summer this means other sources of power stand idle making them inefficient and uneconomic. The irony is that the only power source that can compete against subsidised renewables is coal and Gemany's CO2 emmisions have actually risen. Shale gas in the US has displced coal and their emmissions have gone down. It's all to do with unintended consequences.

[url] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23127175 ]null[/url]

for me however, your subsidy argument holds no weight though since all energy production is subsidised.

That may be the case, but in a world where wind farms are not only paid not to produce energy, but also the back up to them for when the wind isn't blowing gets huge payments, the market is sufficiently distorted that your argument about non-renewable plants being shut down because they're not economically viable carries no weight at all.

but it is on a path, not at the end of it. as a country germany is a net exporter though and it doesnt have the option of tidal/wave energy that the uk does, which could easily provide a totally predictable base load.

Net exported at the moment maybe - I doubt that will be the case when it shuts down lots of current plants. I am also pleased to see the good old argument about how easy it is to do something we can't actually do yet - given you mention wave energy, can I also check you understand what base load is? I agree that harnessing tidal energy is a potential means to generate reliable energy, but we're nowhere near there yet - and one thing the "greens" who propose such things always seem to ignore are the potential environmental impacts of such schemes - Severn tidal barrage anybody?

and one thing the "greens" who propose such things always seem to ignore are the potential environmental impacts of such schemes - Severn tidal barrage anybody?

Think under-water wind turbines, rather than barrages

Counter-rotating magnets. With the added benefit of anti gravity.

I'll get my foil covered hat........

It's a two pronged attack, isn't it?

Teaching people to use less energy and getting them to do it, while at the same time developing viable alternatives.

All the business parks/shopping centres/industrial estates around the country/world that leave their lights on all the time. Office blocks lit up all night, computers left on constantly/roadway lighting everywhere.......the govt bans incandescent bulbs and forces people to switch to low energy while round the corner on the nearby industrial estate all the loading bays are lit up with massive lights all night but the whole place is closed. Security reasons? Perhaps. But fit motion detectors....

The landscape is covered with pilons, they already have to be accessed and maintained and they already have cable routing options to and from power sources/switching stations. So why not add an array of VAWT turbines on each one. That would seem logical.

Add to that, a small HAWT turbine on each streetlight, it could even generate and use its own power if converted to LED, if they can do it for 'slow down' smiley signs it must be doable for streetlights.

A friend has mentioned that there is a type of horizontal wind turbine that can be retrofitted to the apex of a roof.
The theory is that the wind is forced upwards by the roofline, much like the effect on an aeroplane wing and drives the turbines at the top, thus maximising the wind energy harnessed. Couldn't find any info on't web though. Anyone else with a bit more knowledge?

Think under-water wind turbines, rather than barrages

Well, yes - if that wasn't the case I'd be shouting my opposition, rather than being generally in support, but even those have environmental impact. Maybe not significant for the number being deployed at the moment, but if you expect them to provide a significant proportion of our power requirements, then the numbers required could have an impact. I mention the Severn barrage, because there does still appear to be significant support for that though.

So why not add an array of VAWT turbines on each one. That would seem logical.

If you look at it from a very trivial perspective rather than performing a proper analysis of the scales and costs involved maybe it does.

The most important area to concentrate on is clearly reduction in usage - unfortunately that sort of thing isn't sexy large scale infrastructure, so as a result doesn't attract the same level of subsidies.

I think the balance is the damage caused by continuing to burn fossil fuels. beyond that, I guess there just have to be decisions made on a case-by-case basis. But how you do that, whilst working at the national level to ensure energy security is anyone's guess.

Doing nothing and carrying on with BAU will have big, unpredicatble effects on a large number of ecosystems, but how you balance that against local damage directly caised by the the establishment of some form or renewable energy is the problem

If you look at it from a very trivial perspective rather than performing a proper analysis of the scales and costs involved maybe it does.

Well that will teach me to keep my trivial thoughts to myself!!! 😯

couldn't we just burn all the straw men?

Doing nothing and carrying on with BAU will have big, unpredicatble effects on a large number of ecosystems, but how you balance that against local damage directly caised by the the establishment of some form or renewable energy is the problem

For projects like the Severn barrage, you're creating a known major environmental impact, the potential environmental benefit of which will be tiny - that's if you bother to work out what difference it will make to CO2 emissions on a global scale, something the supporters of the scheme don't seem too interested in.

couldn't we just burn all the straw men?

The energy density is a bit low.

Dynamos, dynamos everywhere.

The energy density is a bit low.

We just need bigger straw men to compensate.

For projects like the Severn barrage, you're creating a known major environmental impact, the potential environmental benefit of which will be tiny - that's if you bother to work out what difference it will make to CO2 emissions on a global scale, something the supporters of the scheme don't seem too interested in.

So... what do you propose?

I reckon if we make this nernenergy so obscenely expensive to buy, people will use less of it.

Or, maybe we could start off by burning all the hippies.

Erm. Serious thought; cover desert regions with solar panels or those mirror based sunlight focusing steam turbine power station thingies, and begin producing a metric ****ton of hydrogen. That might substitute a bit of oil for transport issues.

Geothermal

http://www.pppl.gov/news/2013/02/scientists-discuss-progress-toward-magnetic-fusion-energy-2013-aaas-annual-meeting

Geothermal

And accelerate the cooling of the earths core, are you mad? That will trigger the next ice age. Unless of course we burn enough fossil fuels to balance it out 😉

Thetallpaul - it's called Ridgeblade. They're based near Harrogate. If you're interested I have contact details for one of their directors. And yes it looks like an interesting solution for roof lines across the prevailing wind (it has a limited angle of wind that produces a good result as I recall).

Muppetwangler - correct storage and transportation are the real issues. Particularly storage. With decent storage solutions you could almost run your house from a G83 microgram installation. Some interesting work being done at present on this which if it doesn't work should at least reliable seat tubeless tyres.

Rogerthecat - somewhere I have the drawings of turbines on pylons some where that a design agency did, presumably as a joke. The problem is that a turbine that might go on a pylon would be pretty small probably generating at 415 or 690V at a stretch maybe a few kV (something like that). Pylons in the UK carry 132kV, 275kV or 400kV (ignoring the handful at 33 & 66kV) so you'd need a large and expensive transformer to go with. The energy and cost burnt in manufacture and installation would not be justified by the output of the wind turbine.

And all those who said reduce your energy use are right too.

aracer - Member
couldn't we just burn all the straw men?
The energy density is a bit .

Actually some people make a decent living out of burning straw to generate electricity.

Not many to be fair.

Time to stop looking for "The Answer" and start looking for lots of partial answers I think.

Article about a village in Germany

Lolz.. crap article. It seems they are generating enough to cover their domestic housing usage. I see nothing about powering their cars, or powering large factories and mines, transporting the goods they use, or the workers to and from those factories to make the stuff they buy etc etc etc etc.

Erm. Serious thought; cover desert regions with solar panels or those mirror based sunlight focusing steam turbine power station thingies, and begin producing a metric ****ton of hydrogen. That might substitute a bit of oil for transport issues

Well this is a good idea except for 2 issues: Desert regions have little water from which to make hydrogen, and transporting hydrogen is incredibly difficult. It tends to leak out of any container in which you put it, and it also has extremely low energy density. A tanker of crude oil gives you a load of petrol, diesel, ship fuel, heating oil etc and tons of useful chemicals including the stuff we use to make plastics and all sorts of other things. A tanker load of hydrogen would only carry one of those things (and not much of that either), so could only be sold once.

Nice idea in principle though. A better idea would be to fix hydrogen and carbon out of air and water to make your own hydrocarbon fuels. This can be done with machines (powered by solar electricity I presume), with algae, with some kind of fungus or lichen, or simply with plants.

The Molgrips Special Plan for Economic Development and Renewable Energy invests heavily in fusion long term, but in the short term piles a shitload of money into salt-water tolerant algae which can be farmed in huge rafts out at sea to produce biomass and/or biodiesel; and bioethanol from cellulose which would allow trees, grass, weeds, food waste and any old thing to be turned into liquid fuel to replace petrol. Oh and medium term, find a way to transport hydrogen from Iceland and the Middle East.

Although.. what about turning biomass into solid fuel bricks to use in steam powered cars? How efficient would that be?

Here's another trivial thought!

It's not going to be a silver bullet, it may have to be lots of localised solutions, if transport and storage are such big issues.

@IGM - thanks for the answer, seems logical.

What about looking at houses deriving as much energy in situ - VAWT on chimneys, ground heat pumps, solar panels and then energy saving/reduction - obviously there is a cost but can that be balanced off against the £xBn required for a new Nuclear Powerstation?

And, I do appreciate that there is an embedded energy cost in the kit, with all the reprocessing costs/energy but that may be easier to deal with than several tonnes of radioactive waste every year?

but in the short term piles a shitload of money into salt-water tolerant algae which can be farmed in huge rafts out at sea to produce biomass and/or biodiesel;

The only problem with this, and why it's not already been done, is the huge amount of nutrients required, the embedded energy in which (N fertiliser) or finite nature (P) make this a bit of a non-starter on any meaningful scale. That, and pumping the oceans full of extra nutrients is probably more destructive that many Severn barrages

@igm Thanks. Have found their website. They look to still be in development, but haven't updated anything since 2011.

@molgrips

Well this is a good idea except for 2 issues: Desert regions have little water from which to make hydrogen, and transporting hydrogen is incredibly difficult. It tends to leak out of any container in which you put it, and it also has extremely low energy density. A tanker of crude oil gives you a load of petrol, diesel, ship fuel, heating oil etc and tons of useful chemicals including the stuff we use to make plastics and all sorts of other things. A tanker load of hydrogen would only carry one of those things (and not much of that either), so could only be sold once.

I admit the idea isn't problem free and doesn't even begin to address the non-fuel aspects of the oil problem.

Pipelines are pretty good at transporting gas, and I think as a rule energy companies are experienced with pipelines. Not sure how well they'd work for (sea)water (huge pumping requirements + does it need purifying?). And of course vulnerable to sabotage, etc.

wikipedia:

Although expensive, pipelines are the cheapest way to move hydrogen. Hydrogen gas piping is routine in large oil-refineries, because hydrogen is used to hydrocrack fuels from crude oil.

Rogerthecat - that might be technically feasible soon. Storage, preferably local, will be the issue, and storing large amounts of energy always has issues - mainly losses (see mil grips comments on leaking hydrogen) and safety (if there's a lot of energy in there and something goes wrong its going to get messy). The halfway house is to generate at home and use the distribution and transmission networks (the grid) to absorb excess or supply the shortfall. This is done now by many people. However the grid was designed (and I'm thinking voltage profiles in the first instance) for power flows from high voltages towards homes and businesses. It has some reverse capacity but its limited. Smart solutions will help but if everyone wants to generate and use the grid to balance its going to get expensive.

Just to declare my vested interest, I work for a distribution company and I've had a hand in connecting generators as designer engineer or design manager for many many years.

Thetallpaul - they aren't too interested in the British market as the microgram certification scheme excludes low level roof mounted turbines (or did - I think they have to be around 7m clear of the roof to qualify, but I may be wrong).
The original design came about because the inventor lived in the North York Moors Nat. Park and wanted a design the planners would let him use. Most of their patents relate to low noise/low vibration bearings - roof=big sound box.

Mrmonkfinger - hydrogen is a very small molecule gas which introduces a load of problems with leakage compared to natural gas that the gas companies send to people's houses

[url= http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/surly-big-dummy-complete-bike-1033-p.asp ]And the transport issue is easy[/url]

This is a cycling website isn't it?

Edit: 😉

Although expensive, pipelines are the cheapest way to move hydrogen. Hydrogen gas piping is routine in large oil-refineries

Yeah and it's one thing transporting it across a site, something else entirely to pipe it from the say, the Red Sea to the UK.

igm - I guess this simply drives up the pipe cost for new massive transport pipelines. I was thinking generation to power station type pipes not necessarily straight to consumers, but now you come to mention that... Does the molecule size rule out using the existing gas network, or could individual installations be rechecked for leaks?

And the transport issue is easy

Ok even if cycling were a feasible alternative for every journey, I reckon persuading everyone to get on their bike instead of into a car would be harder than developing fusion.

Does the molecule size rule out using the existing gas network, or could individual installations be rechecked for leaks?

I think it's more a case of the gas diffusing out of containers and pipes, rather than leaking from cracks.

Does the molecule size rule out using the existing gas network,

Yes

or could individual installations be rechecked for leaks?

Probably futile

Molgrips - what about persuading them to use a fusion powered bicycle?

Does the need for better distribution present opportunities for new developments in technology and infrastructure that have a more demonstrable need that HS2?

Would a stop gap solution for hydrogen be the large gas cylinders used on many remote farms?

Molgrips - what about persuading them to use a fusion powered bicycle?

I think that market is probably limited to Batman.

Would a stop gap solution for hydrogen be the large gas cylinders used on many remote farms?

I think it would require a major leap forward in materials technology, rather than just a new design of tank. Not sure though. Plus those cylinders need to be driven about in trucks.

HS2 is a great idea in the wrong place. It should be a big circle linking Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and back to Manchester. Alternative stops might be considered, but why would we need another line to London that from where I live in York will actually be slower than the existing route? It will be marginally faster to Leeds to be fair.