IceBank – Storing Wind Energy As Ice
People are always searching for more efficient and economical solutions, always trying to keep things simple but also with a thought on energy costs. From an early time, man used ice to keep their food cooled. The ice was collected at so called “ice harvesting” sites and was the only way to refrigerate food, until the discovery of electricity.
The Capital Wind Farm can Boost Australia’s Wind Power Capacity by 10%
We talked several times on MyGreenTreasure.com about wind farms or how to build the most efficient wind farm and today we can finally talk about one of the largest wind farm in New South Wales, Bungendore. Australia seems to be a good place for these wind farms(because of the relief), and over time, investors have tried to implement various wind projects in this area.
Ford’s Genk Plant uses Wind Turbines for Renewable Energy Generation
Nowadays people tend to use increasingly more renewable energy sources. Factories and all big companies have also started to use renewable energy for several reasons. First of all, any big company take into account their production costs (in many cases these costs can increase significantly, so a renewable source of energy would be perfect to reduce costs). Second, environmental protection is something that all big companies have begun to consider.
The Fastest-Growing Wind Power Market in the World
U.S. Department of Energy recently announced that wind power market has grown very fast in the last 4 years. The use of wind power increased by 60% in United States in 2008 which means that Americans invested $16 billion in wind projects. “At this pace, wind is on a path to becoming a significant contributor to the U.S. power mix…” Ryan Wiser from Berkeley Lab said. The electricity produced from wind energy currently represent 2% of the whole energy in U.S. This thing has an explanation: the need to reduce the cost of electricity production and electricity consumption has led to intense use of alternative energy sources.
Wind-Harnessing Device Sol-Air Use Hand Winder System If Wind isn’t Blowing
Nowadays, electricity is a necessary element, a very used element in many activity fields, for example, in telecommunications(mobile phones). Not only mobile phones,but any other electronic devices such mp3 players, ipod’s, laptops need power when we are outdoor. For these devices were created many models of chargers, with alternative energy, solar, kinetic, and wind energy.
540 MW Shetland Islands Wind Farm Could be Closed due to Disappearance of Local Bird Populations
Alternative Energy Sources represent the energetic future of our planet.People realized this, so they try to create more plants, to produce electricity from the sun or wind.Few months ago was opened 540 MW wind farm in the Shetland Islands but now it faces several problems that could close it.
Wind – capable of powering the entire world
The solution to planet’s energy problems is right at hand. Although this might come as a surprise to some, according to a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, if the world turned to wind for it’s energy demands, there would be so much of it available, that would make the search for other sources seem senseless.
In the study, the Earth was divided into surfaces of 3,300 square kilometers (1,274 square miles) to be able to appreciate the wind power capability, while monitoring wind velocity every six hours. Excluded from the calculations were “areas classified as forested, areas occupied by permanent snow or ice, areas covered by water, and areas identified as Read more
Europe to get powered by solar panels placed in the Sahara
In the perspective of a “greener” future, today’s projects bring us closer to that reality and make big promises: covering only a small portion of the Sahara dessert, having a probable size of a regular European country, with solar cells will potentially provide the whole of the European continent with electricity. That is what Anthony Patt, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria, declared at the International Scientific Congress on climate change under the title “Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions”, held at the University of Copenhagen in March this year.
Choose the Best Wind Turbine Rotor System
Rotor is the most important part of a wind turbine. The rotor recives the kinetic energy from the wind stream and transforms it into mechanical shaft power. Components of a wind turbine rotor are blades, hub, shaft, bearings and other internals. Blades of the wind turbine have airfoil sections and through it is possible to design the rotor with a single blade, balancing of such rotors would be a real engineering challenge.Rotors with a single blade run faster and thus create undue vibration and noise. Further, such rotors are not visually acceptable. Read more
Wind Turbines-Blade Element Theory
Growing energy demand and environmental consciousness have re-voked human interest in wind energy.As a result, wind is the fastest growing energy source in the world today.Policy frame works and action plans have already been formulated at various corners for meeting at least 20 per cent of the global energy demand with new-renewables by 2010, among which wind is going to be the major player. Read more
How to Measure Wind Velocity by Sensing the Speed of Sound in Air
Sonic anemometers measure the wind velocity by sensing the changes in the speed of sound in air.It has three arms, mounted perpendicular to each other, as shown in the picture.Transducers fitted at the tips of each arm emit acoustic signals which travel up and down through the air.Speed of sound in moving air is different from that through still air.Let Vs be the velocity of sound in still air and V is the wind velocity.If both the sound and wind are moving in the same direction, then the resultant speed of sound waves (V1) is: V1=Vs + V .Similarly, if the propagation of the sound waves is opposite to the wind direction, then the resultant velocity of sound (V2) is: V2=Vs – V . Read more
Wind Powered Plastic Mutant Robot
Wind energy is one of the main sources of alternative energy, and until now researchers have tried to use it in many applications to reduce electricity consumption and to protect the environment.But this energy source can be used also for production of “art works”. In the next movie you will see a concrete example of a robot powered by wind energy, made with cheap plastic materials,moving due to a quite “simple” system.This robot give the impression of a real living creature movement.Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ,Insensitive to Wind Direction
Optiwind Compact Accelerating Wind Turbines for Low-Wind Areas
The hill or ridge causes the wind to accelerate as it is forced over it.The additional wind speeds gained in this way make large differences to the amount of energy that is produced.Wind farms or wind parks usually have many turbines can installed.Each turbine affect the wind turbine recived by the behind.Since each turbine extracts some of the energy of the wind, it is important to provide adequate spacing between turbines to avoid excess energy loss by interaction effect.” - http://www.mygreentreasure.com/2009/05/how-to-build-the-most-efficient-wind-farm/
Wind Turbine Operating Advantages and Disavantages
The advantagess of wind turbine operating:
-the main advantage of the wind energy is the 0 emission of pollutant substances and greenhouse gases, because of the fact that they do not burn combustible;
-the wind energy production does not imply the refuse production;
-the electric produced energy cost in modern wind power plants decreased substantially in the last years, getting to be in the USA smaller than those in the case of energy generated from combustibles, even if it does not take into account the negative subsistent externalities of the classical combustibles use;
-in contrast with the nuclear power plants, for example, where the retirement cost can be four times bigger than the plant costs, in the case of wind generators, at the end of the normal operating period, are minimal, these could be integral recycled.
Disavantages of the wind turbine operating:
-at the beginning, an important disavantage of the wind energy production was the big price enough of energy production and reliability relative reduced of the turbines.In the last years, the production per electric energy unit price has drastic dropped, reaching figures of 3-4 eurocents/kWh, thought the improvement of the turbine techniques;
-a disavantage is the visual pollution(a landscape is not always pleasant) and the sonant pollution(are noisy).There are opinions that the turbines affect the environment and the ecosystems from the surroundings, killing birds, and the need of big blank grounds for their installation.Arguments against those are that the wind modern turbines have an attractive stilled appearance, that the machines kill more birds per year than the turbines and other energy sources, like electricity generation using coal, are much more harmful for environment, because it creates pollution and leads to the greenhouse effect;
-a practical disavantage is the wind speed variation.Many places on earth cannot produce enough electricity using wind power and because of this the wind energy is not viable in any location.
How to Build The Most Efficient Wind Farm
Wind is the air in movement with a certain speed due to the pressure gradients over the earth surface produced by solar radiation.In Equatorial Regions the air temperature is greater than in Polar Regions, and air pressure gradient results.Therefore a mass of air flow with a certain kinetic energy is developed.Kinetic energy of the wind can be converted into mechanical energy using wind turbines.Shaft of wind turbines can drive electric generators producing electrical energy.
Wind energy is plentiful renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces toxic atmospheric and greenhouse gas emissions if it is used to replace fossil fuel power plants.Wind-powered generators currently with a total worldwide capacity 75 GW produce just over 1% of world-wide electrical energy.Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled in the last four years.
Onshore turbines installations in hilly or mountains regions tend to be about three kilometers or more inland from the nearest shoreline.These areas tend to be windy and are good sites for turbine installation, because a primary source of wind is convention caused by the differential heating and cooling of land and sea over the cycle of day and night.
The hill or ridge causes the wind to accelerate as it is forced over it.The additional wind speeds gained in this way make large differences to the amount of energy that is produced.Wind farms or wind parks usually have many turbines installed.Each turbine can affect the wind recived by the turbine behind.Since each turbine extracts some of the energy of the wind, it is important to provide adequate spacing between turbines to avoid excess energy loss by interaction effect.Where land area is sufficient, turbines are spaced three of five rotor diameters apart perpendicular to the prevailing wind, and five to ten rotor diameters apart in the direction of the prevailing wind, to minimize efficiency loss and “wind park effect”.
The kinetic energy of a given mass flow of air m(kg) that travels with the velocity v(m/s) through the swept area A of a wind turbine has a mass per unit of time pAv (kg/s), where p is the specific mass of the air (p=1,201 kg/cubic meter) at atmospheric conditions of pressure and temperature(NTP).
The mass flow of air that travels through the swept area A of wind turbine varies with the wind speed and air density.The relation gives the absorbed power by the turbine due to mass per unit of time traveling at speed v,Pabs measured in watts: Pabs =1/2(pAv)v*v=1/2pAv*v*v , which is proportional to the swept area A and the cube of the wind speed v.The equation shows that for a given wind speed when the area is doubled the absorbed turbine power is also doubled.However for a constant area A if the wind speed is doubled the turbine power increases eight times, but if the speed is halved the turbine power reduces to 12,5%.
This example shows the importance to keep the wind speed as constant as possible.Due to the reduced influence of drag of the surface (rea or land) the wind blows faster at higher altitudes.Near the surface wind speed is affected by topography, surface roughness, and upwind obstacles such as trees or buildings.The increase of wind speeds versus height follows typically a logarithmin profile.This means that doubling the altitude od a turbine it is expected that the wind speed increases by 10% and consequently increasing power by about 34%.
Fujitsu FMV Wind-Powered Laptop at $1200
What you see in the picture below is just another usual laptop.The only difference between an usual laptop and this FMV-BIBLO LOOX U/C50NA is that cause, for this one, was calculated how much will reduce carbon emissions in its total life span.For every laptop manufactured and sold the company Fujitsu receives wind-power credits from “Japan Natural Energy Co”.In conclusion we can say that this leptop works with wind energy(theoretically).Rather we could say that this project, about launching ecological-laptops on the market, is sponsored by wind power credits.Ever it seems like everything here is free, Fujitsu has already launched this product in Japan at a price of almost $ 1200, which includes the wind-energy credits used for this laptop.