TOMORROW'S WORLD | ENERGY

In her 'Tomorrow's World' section in Sustained magazine, Melissa Sterry of Societás explores the emerging design, architecture, engineering, technology and scientific concepts of the 21st Century.

In Issue 9 - the Carbon Special, Melissa takes a look at the future of energy, exploring well-known technologies such as solar, wind, wave and geo-thermal, as well as lesser known technologies, such as kinetic, ocean-thermal, hydro-kinetic, biotic and nuclear fusion.

View the Tomorrow's World Energy Special (left) online on pages 18-21 at http://issuu.com/sustained/docs/009 and read the Societás 2009 energy trends report below...

1. PEOPLE POWER

Kinetic energy is one of the fastest evolving renewable energy sectors and if you can think it, there's probably a laboratory somewhere working on it. However, the world-over inspired kinetic devices are already generating electricity from people power. At the Golden Sunbeam School in Essam village, Ghana, students from Brigham Young University have installed an electricity-generating merry-go-round to power rechargeable LED lights used in classrooms, so as the children play they help power their school.

Based on the same principles, designers at Fluxxlab studio in New York have created the 'Revolution Door' - though it looks much like any ordinary revolving door, at its central core is a mechanical system that harnesses the kinetic energy of the doors spinning movement and converts it to electricity to power offices. A similar device is in use at a Netherlands train station, where the 4,600 kW a year generated as a revolving door spins helps to power the station café's LED lights.

Several Yo-Yo powered technologies are also in development to power handheld devices, such as an award-winning yo-yo powered MP3 player designed by Chris Aimone and Tomek Bartczak, which is charged by 10-12 tosses per hour. Other innovative kinetic energy concepts include 'Crowd Farm' by James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, which turns the mechanical energy of people walking or jumping into energy and piezoelectric backpack straps developed by mechanical engineers Jonathan Granstrom and Joel Feenstra of Michigan Technological University, which can be attached to a backpack to harvest energy from the mechanical strain of the straps.

2. GEO -THERMAL

Geothermal energy sources are the legacy of our planet's creation. Radioactive elements in the rocks of the Earth's crust, including Uranium, Thorium and Potassium, are unstable and particles from them fly off and crash into one another, generating heat as they do so. The edge of tectonic plates is where geo-thermal activity is most abundant. Geothermal plants harness the heat of geothermal reservoirs to create electricity. As steam is released (or 'flashed') as speeds of up to 450 m/p/h from a geo-thermal reservoir it drives turbines to create electricity, as water is pumped back in, to create an infinite supply of renewable energy.

Geo-thermal reservoirs may be just a few thousand feet down or as deep as 20,000 feet, at the same depth as oil and gas reservoirs. In Iceland, where just 0.1% of electricity generation comes from fossil fuels, 5 geothermal power plants produce around 26.5% of the nation's electricity, with geothermal also providing heating and hot water for around 87% of the nation's buildings. Geo--thermal systems can also be artificially engineered, wherein a fracture system is created or water pumped down to form an artificial reservoir. Major engineering projects of this type, called 'enhanced geo-thermal systems' (EGS systems) are going on in France, Germany, Australia and Nevada, USA. EGS systems engage techniques, expertise and manpower previously applied to the oil and gas industry. A recent MIT study estimated that if you took all the heat stored in the Earth between 3 and 10 kilometers the USA could supply its energy needs for over 100,000 years. 90-95% less greenhouse gas is created from a geo-thermal electricity plant than from coal-fired power station.

3. SOLAR POWER

The Sun generates energy by the process of hydrogen fusion; when lighter atoms fuse into heavier ones, the mass of the heavier atoms is less than the sum of the lighter ones. The extra mass is lost as energy and radiated into space - the energy conversion represented by the equation E = mc2. Though 150 million kilometers from the Sun, anything up to 1 kW per square meter of power reaches the Earth's surface from the Sun. If we harvested it all, the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth's surface in one hour is enough to power the entire world for a year.

There are two primary ways we can collect that power; Photovoltaics (PV) and Concentrated Solar technologies. Parabolic Trough, Parabolic Dish and Power Tower are the common forms of the latter and each technology uses mirrors to focus sunlight onto central receivers. In a Power Tower a working fluid, such as a high temperature synthetic oil or molten salt, is pumped through the receiver where it is heated to around 550oC. The heated fluid is then used to generate steam for electricity generation. The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico hold the world record for solar-to-grid conversion efficiency, with the PS10 solar power tower in Seville, Spain perhaps the most iconic concentrated solar power plant concept yet conceived.

PV involves light falling on a two-layer semi-conductor device to produce a voltage capable of driving a current through an external circuit. Silicon solar cells, which can come in various formats including amorphous, single crystal, polycrystalline, thick film and ribbon have light-to-electricity conversion efficiencies exceeding 15%. The global market for PV is growing at around 40% per year, driving down prices due to both new technologies and mass production. A pioneering PV concept is Ross Lovegrove's Solar Tree, which is a street lighting system with 'branches' that follow the sun and respond and adapt to the architectural environment and the weather, escaping shadows and following the sun to optimize energy generation. Lovegrove plans to integrate an air purification bubble into the trees to enable them to clean the air around them. The first solar tree prototype has already been tested on the streets of Vienna and it's likely before long we will see solar trees lining the streets of many other cities around the world.

Another revolutionary PV technology is Californian company Cool Earth's concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system. Literally reshaping solar energy their inflated solar concentrators are shaped like balloons and are primarily made of inexpensive materials, radically reducing material requirements, as well as plant deployment costs and time. One CPV plant covering 150 miles by 150 miles would generate enough power to meet all the electrical needs of the United States until 2030. Each 8-foot-diameter concentrator is made of plastic film and has a transparent upper hemisphere and a reflective lower hemisphere. When inflated with air the concentrator naturally forms a shape that concentrates sunlight onto a PV cell placed at the focal point. This means fewer cells are needed to produce a lot more electricity, with a single cell generating about 300 to 400 times the electricity of a cell without a concentrator, meaning each CPV plant will be able to deliver gigawatts of power.

4. WAVE POWER

Oceans cover more than 70% of Earth's surface making them our largest solar collectors. Oceans produce two types of energy: mechanical energy from tides and waves and thermal energy from the sun's heat. In Antartica where we find the world's biggest waves, wave energy potential equates to 80 Mega Watts per mile of wave crest length, which converts to 150 100w bulbs per foot. As an energy concentrator the energy per square meter of a wave along the Northern coasts of Europe can be 200 to 400 times the energy density of the sun at 20,000 to 70,000 watts, compared to around 100 watts from ground-level solar and 1000 watts from wind. However, only a small amount of the ocean's energy can be captured and therefore ocean energy is not a stand-alone renewable energy solution. The British Isles location makes it one of the best-situated nations in the world to harness ocean energy and British and Irish engineers have developed the bulk of ocean energy technologies.

Different technologies have been developed for different conditions, with examples being the Oscillating Water Column (OWC), which is essentially a man-made tunnel on the coast through which waves flow, driving turbines as they do so - a technology suitable for locations with a low-tide range, but large waves, such as the Outer Hebrides; the Pelamis Attenuator, suitable for areas with very high waves and currently in use off the coast of Portugal, which has long lines of cylinders joined with universal joints that can bend to follow the surface contour of ocean waves, when bending occurs hydraulic cylinders are squeezed and extended, driving motors to create electricity; the Wave Dragon, currently in use off the coast of Denmark, steers waves to its centre, where they run up a ramp into a central reservoir maintained several meters above sea level, as excess water runs off the reservoir it drives turbines to generate electricity; the AquaBuOY wave energy converter floats on the ocean, converting the vertical component of wave kinetic energy into pressurized seawater through two stroke hose pumps. The pressurized seawater is then diverted into a conversion system consisting of a turbine driving an electric generator. AquaBuOY clutters, also known as wave parks, are located several kilometers off shore where wave power is greatest and are in use off the Oregon Coast, which has the biggest waves in the US. The main challenge attached to wave energy is the maintenance of machinery, which is constantly battered by waves and storms.

The future of wave energy is likely to be the Anaconda - a 200m long flexible rubber tube filled with seawater and sealed at both ends that sits on the ocean surface. Each passing wave squeezes the rubber, producing a bulge that ripples down the tube, powering an electric turbine at the end. Scaled down versions of the concept are currently being tested in wave tanks.

5. OCEAN -THERMAL POWER

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems engage thermodynamic engineering processes to generate electricity using the temperature difference between deep and shallow water. There are 3 types of OTEC: closed-cycle, open-cycle, and hybrid. Closed-cycle systems harness warm surface water to vaporize a working fluid with a low-boiling point, such as ammonia. The vapor expands turning a turbine attached to an electric generator. Open-cycle involves flash evaporation of a fraction of warm seawater by reduction of pressure below the saturation value corresponding to its temperature; thereon expansion of the vapor through a turbine generates power. Hybrid combines both systems. The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is one of the world's leading test facilities for OTEC technology. Hawaii is an ideal location for OTEC due to its warm surface water and easy access to very deep, very cold water. India has a 1 MW floating OTEC plant near Tamil Nadu and its government is sponsoring research into floating OTEC facilities.

6. HYDRO-KINETIC POWER

Brits may complain about how much rain we get, but it could be a blessing in disguise. Scientists at French laboratory CEA/Leti-Minatec have developed a system that recovers the vibration energy from raindrops. The system works with raindrops ranging from 1 - 5 mm in diameter falling onto piezoelectric landing pads. Research shows it is possible to recover up to 12 milliwatts of power from one of the larger "downpour" drops.

Another visionary development comes in the form of the Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy machine (VIVACE) developed at the University of Michigan and in commercial development at Vortex Hydro Energy. Most of the Earth's river currents are less than 3 knots, yet most turbines and water mill systems need an average of 5 - 6 knots to operate efficiently. The VIVACE applies the same principles fish use to swim in order to generate power from currents of less than 2 knots, by harnessing what are known as "vortex induced vibrations", which are caused by the flow of liquid over a cylinder-shaped object. The prototype uses a cylinder suspended horizontally across the flow of water in a tank, however future versions will have the equivalent of a tail and surface roughness like scales, mimicking the fish technology the VIVACE is based on. The slowly oscillating VIVACE will, its developers believe, pose no threat to marine life.

7. H2 POWER

Hydrogen is the lightest element with an atomic mass of just 1.00794 g/mol and makes up 75% of the universe's elemental matter. The third most abundant element on the earth's surface, it is generated from water by `splitting' it from oxygen, usually via electrolysis. However, it is not an energy source in it's own right, but a carrier of energy. Research continues into hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells for use in vehicles and for grid load balancing and in theory emissions of these cells would consist of pure water.

Researchers at the University of Purdue, USA have developed an organic technique for producing hydrogen from water, which requires only water, a catalyst based on the metal rhenium and an organic liquid called an organosilane. The catalyst produces ready quantities of hydrogen without the need for extreme cold temperatures or high pressures, which are often required in other production and storage methods. Purdue's team estimates that 7 gallons of water and organosilane could combine to produce enough hydrogen to power a car for approximately 240 miles.

At the University of California researchers have engineered a strain of green microalgae that could, with further refinements, produce huge amounts of hydrogen through photosynthesis, based on observation of normal photosynthesis processes. Iceland plans to convert to electricity generated by geothermal and hydro plants to power cars by 2040, but is several years behind due to delays in automobile manufacturers' roll-out of next generation hydrogen vehicles, However, along with California, it remains one of the global leaders in pioneering a hydrogen economy, opening its first hydrogen filling station in 2003.

8. WIND POWER

Though the horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) is currently a more familiar sight than the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) that is all about to change. VAWTs have many advantages over HAWTs, operating at wind speeds as low as 5 m/p/h. VAWTs are much quieter, require less space and pose no threat to passing birds. VAWT's come in a myriad of shapes, from tall spiral columns to tulip-shaped and are being developed for all scales of operation. Ricoh has harnessed the potential of VAWT technology for its new Pacwind VAWT-powered billboard in Time Square, New York. Expect to see VAWT technology powering billboards in Piccadilly Circus, London before 2012.

A myriad of wind-powered electrical appliances are also in development, including wind-powered lights, powered as the device spins in the wind, with a good example being The Firewinder. Some of the most exciting new wind-powered technologies are Magenn's power air rotor products - electrical bird and bat friendly mobile air-born generator systems that look like spinning balloons encircled with blades that rotate in the wind and literally glide through the air generating electricity. The first Magenn air rotar products come to market in 2010 and its likely this technology will be in widespread use by 2015.

9. BIO -TIC POWER

The old saying goes 'where there's muck there's brass' and so is the case when it comes to biopower The decay of biomass produces methane that can be converted to energy. Wells can be drilled in landfill sites to release methane from decaying organic matter so that pipes can carry the gas to a central point where it is filtered and cleaned before burning. Methane also can be produced from biomass through a process called anaerobic digestion, which involves using bacteria to decompose organic matter in the absence of oxygen. Methane can be burned to produce steam for electricity generation or for industrial processes.

Sewage has become modern-day gold, as Australian firm Aquaflow Bionomic has pioneered producing biodiesel fuel from algae in sewage ponds. Algae strip chemicals out of sewage, but can taint the water and produce a foul smell. Creating fuel from the algae solves this problem while producing clean water. The University of Melbourne has pioneered another waste-based biopower process, this time turning black liquor (a waste product generated by the paper and pulp making industry) into bio-oil using a pyrolysis or gasification process. In industrialized nations the main biomass processes of the future are likely to be direct combustion of residues/ wastes for electricity generation, bio-ethanol and biodiesel as liquid fuels and combined heat and power production from energy crops. Before long we can expect to see all industrial food waste being used to create biopower products.

10. DRIVING POWER

Speed bumps that generate electricity as cars drive over them are being introduced in the UK to power streetlights, traffic lights and road signs. Capturing the kinetic energy of moving vehicles, the speed bumps consist of a series of panels set in a pad virtually flush to the road. When cars pass over, the panels go up and down and set a cog in motion under the road, which turns a motor that produces mechanical energy. A steady stream of traffic passing could generate 10-36kW of electricity, enough to power all the streetlights, traffic lights and road signs for a mile-long stretch of street. 10 ramps can potentially generate the same amount of energy as one wind turbine. Excess energy can be stored or fed into the national grid. Ealing council in London has set funds aside to roll out the scheme in 2009-10 and more than 200 UK councils are interested in introducing the system.

11. RECYLCED POWER

Gasification involves subjecting waste to extreme heat under anoxic conditions to produce syngas - a blend of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be used as a fuel source. Using electric-plasma torches to zap waste into syngas, a plant being built in Ottowa, USA is expected to be able to convert up to 400 metric tons of rubbish a day into 21 MW of net electricity, which would be enough to power roughly 19,000 homes. High upfront and operating costs and relative inefficiency will mean gasification will not become a widely used energy generation method any time soon. However it is expected that the technology will fast evolve and the processing cost that currently runs at $60 per ton of waste, will dramatically drop. As we run out of landfill space gasification will help clear waste, though as we will simultaneously run out of many of the Earth's natural resources the balance between recycling materials for goods and recycling waste for energy will be a fine one.

PULLING POWER

Gravity is one of the universe's four fundamental forces. In limitless and constant supply man has utilized it for thousands of years in one form or another. Hundreds of prototypes for gravity-powered devices exit, many combine gravity, inertia and leverage with a magnet motor to create power.

An example of one of the most visionary gravity-powered ideas is the Gravia LED lamp. Though significant advancements in LED technology would need to occur before this idea could possibly become a reality, the concept involves an acrylic column a little over four feet high, with a lamp that generates electricity by the slow fall of a weight that spins a rotor. Completely independent of electrical infrastructure, the light output is anticipated to be 600-800 lumens, roughly equal to a 40w incandescent bulb. Each drop of the gravity mechanism is expected to run the light for 4 hours and its estimated the mechanisms will last more than 200 years, if used 8 hours a day for 365 days a year. The laws of physics dictate that it would take a drop significantly greater than 4 ft to power such a device, however, gravity powered devices of this ilk could well emerge in coming decades.

13. FUTURE FUSION

Futurist Arthur C. Clarke said the neglect of Cold Fusion was “one of the biggest scandals in the history of science." Publicly many scientific institutions discredit Cold Fusion, now more commonly referred to as Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS) or Solid State Fusion, yet since the first claims it had been achieved 20 years ago research has quietly continued, often under-funded, around the world. CMNS refers to mechanisms for nuclear fusion to occur without the millions of degrees Celsius required for thermonuclear fusion and uses hydrogen-loving metals such as palladium and titanium.

Whilst experiments into the viability of CMNS have come up with very mixed results the line of enquiry is worth pursuing, because if it turns out the process can be achieved it would provide us with a cheap, abundant, non-polluting, radiation-free energy source. Recent research suggests that CMNS involves a lot of variables not previously considered, such as the quality of the metals used, which dramatically affect the outcome of experiments, which could explain the 50/50 results of many research labs. The annual International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science and periodicals including Fusion Facts, Infinite Energy Magazine and New Energy Times publish the most recent developments in the field.

14. STAR POWER

At the other end of the spectrum, Hot Fusion, which essentially involves replicating the processes of the Sun - as described in the equation E = mc2, is being researched at institutions including the Joint European Torus (JET) in Oxfordshire. The fusion process in a Hot Fusion power station will be inherently safe, as the amount of Deuterium and Tritium in the plasma at any one time is very small and the conditions required for fusion to occur are difficult to attain. The fusion byproduct is the inert and harmless gas Helium, thus unlike fission nuclear, there is no radioactive 'waste' from the fusion reaction itself, making Hot Fusion a potentially safe, clean and virtually limitless energy source for future generations.

By Melissa Sterry, Societás, February 2009

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