EV Charging Station Now Available!

First Public Charging Station for EVs

The first public charging station for electric vehicles opened April 25, 2009 in East Woodland, California at the Gateway Center! A low-key ceremony was held to inaugurate the station. At the inauguration Tesla Motors demonstrated how use the chargers on six of their very own Tesla Roadsters.

There is one Tesla charger, two AVcons chargers, a small paddle inductive charger, in addition to two neighborhood EV standard outlets where – in approximately an hour – those eco-friendly car users can come and charge up their electrical vehicles.
It is the first station made available of its kind. We have the city of Woodland and other developers to thank for that. There are also hopes that in the future many more stations pop up following its lead. In fact, currently Tucson and Phoenix Arizona are in talks of opening EV-charging stations.

There are concerns, however, on how successful the stations will be. Consumers are left wondering how the minimal number chargers will be shared if an increase in purchases of EVs are expected of auto shoppers. Once a car is done charging, will the person next in line have to wait until the other’s car gets picked up? And how is someone supposed to occupy their time while waiting for their vehicle to charge? Some feel that more technology is needed before the new stations become more widely used.

Others are concerned that this step forward may end up being a step backward. It may delay research and possible advances in finding a renewable energy source for vehicles if they do become gradually more accepted by society. And not only that, but jobs could possibly be in jeopardy if these public charging stations become customary.

Without a doubt, charging stations are an improvement considering the current status on the world’s dependency on gasoline – especially in the United States. Yet, there are still a few flaws here and there regarding the technology and availability of the charger that still will need to be advanced before becoming accepted across the United States, as well as across the world.

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/first-public-charging-station-for-electric-cars/

http://gas2.org/2009/05/01/first-public-electric-car-charging-station-inaugurated-in-woodland-california/

EPA tries to slam corn... but can't bring themselves to do it. Yet.

CNN recently published a news article about the EPA’s newly proposed ethanol law. They want to push more advanced biofuels over the use of corn-ethanol because they claim that the production cycle of ethanol emits too many emissions, and that ethanol itself produces too many fuel emissions when in use. The EPA gave two energy-use scenarios on which to base the legislative decision; one that favors corn-ethanol and one that would prohibit all but one corn-ethanol production process while favoring other alternatives like cellusic ethanol energy.
The reason the EPA gave two very different scenarios and has not yet favored either of them is to buy time for the agency to meet within itself and determine how to calm its corn-based ethanol industry as well as increase lobbying efforts.
The corn industry is concerned about what information is being used to determine that ethanol emits more emissions than it saves. RFA President Bob Dineen said there was too much uncertainty about how the EPA made the indirect land-use calculations and questioned the validity of the data the government used in those calculations.
"The science of market-mediated, secondary impacts is very young and needs more reliance on verifiable data, and less reliance on unproven assumptions. Done correctly, such an analysis will demonstrate a significant carbon benefit is achieved through the use of ethanol from all sources," Dineen said. There are so many different factors that contribute to how many greenhouse gases are actually emitted, that any scenario would be difficult to plot. One must consider the fuel for tractors and transportation, which are coal-based, but also that pastures and cornfields are a huge source of greenhouse gas sinks. It is almost impossible to tell if ethanol, including the production process, is any better or worse than using coal and oil-based energy.
This problem of data accuracy and predictions seems to be a common theme among scientists and in the EPA. We read about this issue in State of Fear, but right now we are also able to see it in action. The EPA has many supporters to please, and by reducing the corn industry they are hurting many people economically, as well as loosing support. This is why they have not made any decisions yet, they have only proposed the idea that a law may need to be changed.
However, the US department of Agriculture is providing credit programs for ethanol firms, and the Department of Energy is giving the corn ethanol industry an $800 million stimulus package. Maybe the EPA will not have to worry about losing its corn-growing support base, since the farmers will be too busy spending all that money to notice.

The news article can be read here: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200905051317DOWJONESDJONLINE000557_FORTUNE5.htm

The Pros and Cons of Coal Gasification

As we have learned in class, of the natural fossil fuels we have at our disposal, coal is pretty much the left handed, red headed step child of the group. It's the dirtiest, the hardest to harvest, and has less energy per kg than our other options, but it does have one thing going for it: it's really plentiful. Compared to the skyrocketing prices of natural gas and petroleum, coal is looking pretty good right now and as many proponents tout, it's a step towards energy independence. 

Now, we have talked in class about how much of the coal we have is laden with sulfur, which quite frankly, is not so hot for the environment and the process for cleaning coal can be expensive. Thankfully we have a "new" process called coal gasification that may just be the answer to our dirty coal needs. At least for now. Here is a summary of the coal gasification process, as well as the pros and cons of utilizing it.  (from popularmechanics.com)

1. The heart of gasification lies in (shocker) the gasifier, which takes coal, water and air and applies heat under high pressure to make "syngas"-a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Minerals in the fuel (i.e., the rocks, dirt and other non-carbon-based material) separate, leaving the bottom of the gasifier either literally in ashes or as an inert, glass-like slag-materials that can be reused for materials such as concrete and road fill.

2. The crude syngas leaves the gasifier piping hot and full of contaminants (hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, mercury and nasty particulates, to name a few). A combination of heat exchangers, particulate filters and quench chambers cool the syngas to room temperature and remove most of the solids.

3. Syngas then passes through a small bed of charcoal to capture mercury, removing over 90 percent of this toxic metal (click here to learn more). Used charcoal containing captured mercury leftover is sent to a hazardous landfill for disposal.

4. The final step for cleaning in gasification is the removal of sulfur impurities in acid gas removal units, where the impurities are converted into sulfuric acid or elemental sulfur-both valuable byproducts.

5. A combustion turbine then reheats the clean syngas, dilutes it with nitrogen for control of NOx (the greenhouse gas that makes smog) and burns it, driving a generator to make electricity.

6. Leftover heat from combustion is recovered in a Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG), which generates steam to power the internal turbine. Some of that air is compressed and can be channeled back to the air separation unit for oxygen, which is then reused within the gasifier.

7. The steam generated in the HRSG and the steam made in Step 1 combine to drive a steam turbine for even more power production. The steam then cools and condenses into water, which pumps back into the steam generation cycle. In an IGCC plant, two-thirds of the total electricity produced comes from the gas turbine and one-third from the steam turbine.

The great thing is, once coal is converted to a gas, it's fairly straightforward to remove pollutants. Mercury, sulfur, and particulates can be stripped out and sold commercially. This "clean" gas can then be used for a variety of fuels such as oil for heating homes or fuel for cars. "The gas can also sub for natural gas, fueling "integrated gasification combined-cycle" (IGCC) power plants to create electricity. Pennsylvania hopes to replace many of its filthy coal-fired power plants with IGCC plants."

""You could put a million scrubbers on an old coal-fired power plant and never even approach the environmental performance of a coal gasification plant," says Kathleen McGinty, secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection."

So the benefits work out as a reduction of air pollutants, a solution to the waste-coal problem, and a boost to economy.

So what are the drawbacks?

"There are three drawbacks, and they are substantial:

• If gasification takes off, there isn't enough waste coal in the country to feed the beast. Thus, you're back to coal mining, which is a nightmare.
• Gasification is largely untested and unproven, at least in the U.S. And IGCC plants are more expensive than old-fashioned dirty coal-fired plants. Thus, gasification relies heavily on subsidies. State and U.S. Dept. of Energy tax incentives for the Penn. plant, for instance, add up to over $140 million. More big industries getting chummy with gov't; more semi-permanent corporate welfare recipients.
• Carbon dioxide. Global warming. That whole thing. IGCC plants are certainly an improvement over dirty coal-fired plants -- they use less coal to create more energy -- but they still produce plenty of CO2. They do make the CO2 fairly easy to capture, which is nice, but the question is what to do with it once it's captured. The big idea is to sequester it: pump it underground or into plant tissues and soil. However:

"The effectiveness of CO2 storage in those systems is completely unknown," says Anne Hedges, program director for the Montana Environmental Information Center. "It's a nice theory, and I sure hope it works. But there's absolutely no evidence it does on a long-term basis." "

To sum it up, as an alternative energy solution, don't waste your time with coal gasification. However, as an improvement to dirty coal, gasification is just that: an improvement. We need to look to other technologies, but as it is, this is a good step in the right direction.

sources:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4218251.html

http://www.grist.org/article/coal-gasification-clean-coal-or-subsidy-hungry-boondoggle

A Few Cartoons

I thought this was a humorous cartoon. It compares our use of fossil fuels to a person addicted to smoking. The smoker realizes smoking is a problem and is harming him, but is addicted, so he won't/can't quit. Similarly, we are addicted to using fossil fuels, and we can't cut our dependency from them.
























I thought that this was pretty funny, because I could actually see it happening. A solar tanning-powered tanning bed...a very amusing concept. I could seriously see a shop on a beach that advertised "green" tanning, and it being a huge hit!

















A crack at Americans tendency to take everything and make it bigger. We obviously have bigger cars than most of the rest of the world. This cartoon has taken an entirely electric Segway scooter and turned it into something that looks like it could plo
















Another entertaining cartoon. This cartoon comments on the price of producing alternative fuels. It jokingly states that people don't even realize that it takes as much energy to produce ethanol and hydrogen as it produces.



























I thought this cartoon was kind of cute. The young boy is looking outside of an airplane window to find a reindeer powering the plane. His mom is conveniently reading a news paper article about alternative energy.

just a few links

http://www.alternative-energy-resources.net/

This site is not an informative site. Rather it is a site that points you in the right direction. It has very basic summaries about the most popular of the alternative sources and for those that are not as popular there are many links that provide resources for them.

http://www.icax.co.uk/alternative_energy.html

Since we all have been writing about alternative energies and since oftentimes those energies can be very... technical, I found a glossary that defines many of the terms that have anything to do with the ideas behind the energies as well as global warming.

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-10/ff_plant

After our ethanol debate I became really interested in the prospective use of cellulosic ethanol. This site gives all you would ever need to know about the pros and cons, the process used to convert the cellulosic into fuel and the likelihood of it actually being used.

Heres a short post of a few cartoons.

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I really enjoy the one mocking the prospect to drill oil in Alaska. I have always been against this because of the pipelines imposition on the region's preserved natural state. There is simply too much risk involved in that plan of action for me to accept it as a viable option.

Here’s a website that is incredibly informative, as well as interesting…

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/index.cfm

This site provides knowledge for those who would like to learn more on the dangers that could potentially occur, in addition to some that have already occurred, as a result of global warming and the basic science behind climate change. It also addresses what we can do to turn our poor habits into habits that will benefit our Earth so that it is a healthier and better place – and believe me you will want to do all that is possible to help our Earth once you Calculate Your Impact at:

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/carboncalculator.cfm

There is also a blog called Climate411 that is accessible from the website where experts explain the facts, news, and policies relating to climate change:

http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/category/science/

12 Year Old Boy Invents New Type of Solar Cell

Last year, a twelve- year- old boy named William Yuan who lives in Beaverton, Oregon invented a new type of solar cell that puts previous 3D cells to shame. According to Columbia Encyclopedia, a solar cell is a type of semiconductor that transfers light into energy that is made normally out of silicon crystal. From the silicon crystal a specially constructed diode is made. When light strikes the exposed active surface, it knocks electrons loose from their sites in the crystal. Some of the electrons have enough energy to cross the diode junction and, then, cannot return to positions on the other side of the junction without passing through an external circuit. Because the current gained from these devices is small and the voltage is low, they must be connected in large series-parallel arrays or solar panels so that useful amounts of energy can be converted.

The kid’s solar cell can absorb both UV and visible light though. Previous research focused solely on one or the other, but Yuan was able to combine the two. Normally, regular solar cells are only 2D and only allow light interaction once. The newly invented solar cell though can create 500 times more light absorption than current commercial solar cells and nine times more light than existing 3D solar cells. Overall, the solar cell invented by the boy is both more efficient and powerful; William Yuan was very surprised by his results.

According to KATU.com, the boy’s project is a highly-efficient 3-Dimensional nanotube Solar Cell for Visible and UV Light. William invented a novel solar panel that enables light absorption from visible to ultraviolet light. Nanotubes are cylindrical carbon molecules that have properties that make them useful in many applications in nanotechnology, show extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat(physicsworld.com). He also designed carbon nanotubes to overcome the barriers of electron movement. In the end, this doubles the light-electricity conversion efficiency. Yuan also developed a model for solar towers and a computer program to simulate and optimize the tower parameters. Because of the William’s innovative thinking, the Pacific Northwest may have a viable source of alternative energy in the near future. All Yuan needs now is a manufacturer.

It is quite amazing that a twelve- year- old could invent something so complex. William Yuan ended up receiving a $25,000 scholarship and earned the Davidson Fellow award, which is for those 18 and under. Even though William is so young he has already done great research in nanotechnology and nuclear fission, and it seems that he is on his way to solving the energy crisis we currently have at hand.

http://www.katu.com/news/28432984.html
http://plus.aol.com/aol/reference/solarcel/solar_cell?flv=1
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/1761

So you want to use solar energy...

Alternative energy is a great idea, but how many people actually know how to go about powering their home using renewable energy sources?
One of the most popular ways to alternatively energize your home is solar power. Not only does it reduce pollution but once you have the equipment set up, it doesn’t cost any more money because you don’t have to pay the sun a bill.
Conservation and Efficiency are the first two ways to begin reducing the need to use energy. Doing things like turning off lights when you don’t need them, unplugging phone and lap top chargers once the appliance has been fully charged, save energy, and are considered conservation. Energy efficiency comes from using ‘efficient’ appliances, like compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent. Conservation and efficiency are important when it comes to powering your house with alternative sources because for each dollar you spend on efficiency, you save $3-$5 on the equipment costs of renewable energy systems.
Solar energy is particularly useful because it can be stored, so the solar grid will soak up more than enough energy when there is sunlight, then you’ll still have electricity during seasons when the sun doesn’t shine as often. Another great thing about solar energy is that it’s actually really easy to set up - you basically attach the solar grid to a battery bank, which sends energy directly to your house’s main power grid -and voila! - you have electricity without the utility bill or pollution. Some types of grids also have a back-up generator, just in case you use a lot of electricity or the solar grid doesn’t produce enough, you won’t be without electricity.
A single solar panel probably won’t power your entire home. Using solar energy to its maximum is a process, as the solar grids can be somewhat pricey. Most grids are between $1500 and $2000, and you’ll need a few of them to power your entire house. Many companies will install them for you, though, and they don’t require much maintenance. Despite how expensive the solar grids seem, once you can power an entire home with them, the electric bill is nearly nothing, so the money saved may eventually pay back the money spent. And either way, a solar panel is great for the environment.

Reference
http://www.homepower.com/home/


http://www.earthtechproducts.com/grid-tied-solar-kit.html?gdftrk=gdfV2538_a_7c634_a_7c2338_a_7cgrid_d_tied_d_solar_d_kit

This is a link to what a solar grid looks like, and how it is installed in the home.

http://www.mrsolar.com/

This link will take you to an online retail store for solar panels which produce energy for residential and industrial use. They also have a calculator that will tell you how much solar power your house needs… but you have to insert the voltage and use information about all of your appliances and electricity usage so it’s kind of involved. However I think that for people who are serious about solar energy this is a great resource. Plus its kind of interesting to look at.

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Also, I realized while I was writing this that today is Earth Day. Interesting that the earth only gets a day of our lives while we've been using its resources for thousands of years...

POWERleap!

I was interested in finding new, modern sources of alternative energy. After a quick search, I stumbled upon a concept called POWERleap. POWERleap is a flooring system that converts wasted energy from human foot traffic into electricity. The system uses piezoelectric technology and advanced circuitry design to convert the energy from footsteps into electric energy. The product will be among the first of its kind to take advantage of the unique properties of piezoelectric materials to actually produce usable amounts of electricity.
Besides transferring our wasted energy, how exactly does this alternative energy source work? Well, in simpler terms the product measures pressure, acceleration, strain or force by converting them to an electrical signal. Then, the energy harvesting components are housed in a flooring product that can be custom designed to suit specific applications.
In using piezoelectric technology, the energy source has an extremely high natural frequency and an excellent linearity over a wide amplitude range. Piezoelectricity is a naturally occurring occurrence exhibited by certain materials that generate an electric field when distorted. These materials range from crystals to ceramics and even some polymers, and in these materials, when no force is applied, the atomic structure is in equilibrium and there is no net electric charge. However, when a force is applied, an electric incline is created which generates a voltage across the material. When the material is integrated into a circuit, this voltage will create a DC current. The great advantage of piezoelectric technology is that it is insensitive to electromagnetic fields and radiation, enabling measurements under harsh conditions.
After learning how the product works, I wondered how much electricity the POWERleap could actually produce. According to POWERleap.net, the energy source can generate between 1-5 Watt hours per square foot, depending on the foot traffic volume. Over a 100 meter stretch of sidewalk in daily city traffic, pedestrians can generate around 1 kW of electricity each hour. That’s a lot of energy!
Not only is this particular energy source effective but the electricity generated from this product can be used on a wide variety of applications that meet client needs and create a closed loop system. The energy source can be installed into city sidewalks, public parks, university campuses, and in corporate campuses. It can be put into more entertainment- like atmospheres such as dance clubs, gyms and fitness clubs, sports stadiums, and retail chains as well. In the near future, we could be walking down the sidewalks of Chicago and be creating a new form of alternative energy on-site for immediate use.
The only problem with POWERleap and using piezoelectricity is that this type of technology cannot be used for true static measurements. A static force will result in a fixed amount of charges on the piezoelectric material. Working with conventional readout electronics, imperfect insulating materials, and reduction in internal sensor resistance will result in a constant loss of electrons, and yield a decreasing signal. Another problem concerning piezoelectricity is that elevated temperatures cause an additional drop in internal resistance(concept that helps model the electrical consequences of the complex chemical reactions inside a battery). This means that at higher temperatures only piezoelectric materials that maintain a high internal resistance can be used.

http://powerleap.net/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectric_sensor
http://www.electronics-manufacturers.com/products/sensors-transducers-detectors/piezoelectric-sensor/