All Messages

Energy at night and Street lighting in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 15 2009 at 10:00AM by plato

In reply to the post on electric streelighting and the need to use up energy at night:

Effectively within our current power generation model (with big thermal and nuclear power plants), we tend to produce at night more energy than we actually need because we can not change rapidly how much power they generate and we can not really store energy (unless in very inefficient and limited ways such as batteries or pumping back water in hydro plants). That's why energy at night is generally much cheaper and it would make much more sense to try to use energy more evenly during the 24hours. However, it does not really make sense to waste / use up energy (for instance, with unnecessary or excessive or highly inefficient street lighting). The solution is, on the one hand, implementing a smart-grid (able to control demand - such as switching on your washing machine or water heater when it is better to use energy) and on the other, substituting big thermal power-plants with distributed generation (from renewables and combined heat and power), avoiding the need of using up energy coming from big plants we can't switch off.

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Fossil Fuels and Climate Change in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 20 2009 at 08:38AM by plato

Hi Prajwal,
I agree with you, we are not running out of energy, it is just fossil fuels that are exhaustible. Unfortunately, at present, oil, gas and coal are the energy source for the most of the energy we use for electricity, transport, buildings, etc.
In my opinion, though, what is really worrying is not that (sooner or later) we will run out of fossil fuel but that we still have too much of them! If all our oil, gas and coal reserves were dug out and burnt, we would emit to the atmosphere a huge amount of carbon dioxide, with severe and probably irreversible consequences for climate change.
That's why we really need to switch to renewable energy sources as well as learn to use much less energy.

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Re: CH4? / I am hoping for new energy. in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 20 2009 at 08:50AM by plato

Hi Monica and Ibrahim,
CH4 is methane, the main component of natural gas. I agree that it is much better than oil and coal (which pollute much more) and that we have much more gas than oil but it is still a fossil fuel (a non-renewable source).
Many countries have been using much more gas (instead of oil and coal) in the last few years (both for electricity generation and domestic and industrial heating), because, as Monica said, the only emissions are CO2 and H2O.
It is a finite resource, though, and, even if it produces less CO2 emissions per unit of energy produced (compared to oil and coal), its use would still lead to a lot of emissions of CO2, dangerous for climate change.

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Storage of electricity in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 20 2009 at 02:15PM by plato

Nadine and Prajwal,
of course it would make much more sense to store energy produced over night instead of just wasting it. Unfortunately technology for energy storage (batteries) still needs to be developed a lot in order to get efficient enough to be interesting to be used on large scale.
What some countries already do is using hydroelectric plants as pumps during the night (using electricity produced by other sources at night to pump back up the water they let flow down during the day). This is a way to store excess energy produced at night, but the overall efficiency of the process is still not so high (i.e. lots of energy is lost).
What would make even more sense is trying to smooth our energy demand so that it can become much more flat: save energy during the day and move to the evening and to nights lots of activities that use lot of energy (such as using the washing machine or, in the future, recharging electric cars).

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Methanol from CO2? in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 20 2009 at 02:18PM by plato

Hi Prajwal,
how can you transform CO2 into methanol?
If you can, you certainly need an energy source... what would that be on the car you're talking about?

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Methanol from CO2 in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 20 2009 at 08:42PM by plato

Hi Prajwal,
this sound very interesting, but I instit that there should be some energy source to let this chemical reaction happen... even in presence of a catalyst, CO2 is the more stable form of carbon (lower energy content) and every process leading in the opposite direction (towards a compound with a higher energy content) needs energy. Have you got the reference of the article where you've read about this?

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Clean Coal ? in Renewable energy

Posted on Apr 30 2009 at 01:58PM by plato

Hi uriasgoll,
there is a lot of discussion about "clean coal" but this is often very confusing. Coal is a very dirty fuel, as when it is burnt it produces lots of CO2 emissions (responsible for contributing to global warming) and several others pollutants, including SOx.
Many politicians and company in the UK as well as in other countries talk a lot about "clean coal", but this can mean at least 3 different things. "Clean coal" can be highly efficient coal-fired power plants, that will still emit lots of emissions (even though slightly less than old plants). It can mean coal-fired power plants with desulfurization (which reduced SOx emissions, but decreases efficiency, so increases CO2 emissions). It can be coal-fired power plants with CCS (carbon capture and storage). This last option (I think this is what you are referring to) seems very promising (capturing CO2 emissions from the plants' flue and storing them underground "for ever") but it has not been proven yet at a real scale. Demonstration plants are going to be built throughout Europe soon, but it will probably take at least 10 to 15 years untill we know how well it works... so CCS is much probably going to be available too late! We need effective solutions we can implement from today! In my opinion, Coal-Fired Power Plants with CCS are just an excuse for the coal industry to keep digging up the mines this dirty fossil fuel.

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No problem in Renewable energy

Posted on May 02 2009 at 06:28AM by plato

Hi Monica! Don't feel sorry, sad or embarrassed! Many others non-native speakers participate to this forum and I am sure all your posts where clear enough for everyone to understand. If you do not understand something, feel free to ask!
Languages should never be barriers: we need everyone working together to solve the big challenges that our world is facing.

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Energy and sustainability in Renewable energy

Posted on May 03 2009 at 11:33AM by plato

Hi Radiance! I think you're absolutely right. Energy pervades everything and is necessary to our economies and very own lives. The real problem is how and where do we get our energy from. Whether we speak about food or power, we can produce it sustainably or in a completely unsustainable way. Sadly, over the last 150 years the way we behave (especially in the developed world) has become more and more unsustainable. Just to name a few examples, we eat too much meat (which is much more resource-intensive than crops), we have moved to more and more intensive agriculture (which needs lots of fertilisers and chemicals), we have switched our energy sources from the renewable ones that we used to use to depletable and polluting fossil fuels. But the solution is not just about realising the danger (which Radiance correctly highlights as an important first step). In my opinion it not even just about technology (such as solar or wind power). We need a new model for our economy and much more sustainable life styles. What do you all think?

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Is it all about 'doom and gloom'? in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 13 2009 at 10:45AM by plato

Hi nzempress!
I agree with you that there are many people who are trying to save the environment and this on-line community is an example of a large group of people from all over the world willing to do something for our planet. However, I am not sure whether I agree that "it should be more widely publicised just how bad this problem is". Presenting the environmental challenge of our time and especially climate change as 'doom and gloom' can be highly dangerous and counter-productive, if it scares people away or just bring them to think that there is nothing they can do or that we are doomed whatever we do!

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Cycling as a means to rise environmental awareness in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 13 2009 at 10:58AM by plato

Hi cyclingforenvironment and thank you for posting the link to the website http://rideplanetearth.org It looks like a very interesting and ambitious project and an effective means to rise environmental awareness in an environmental friendly way. Do you know the Otesha project? If not, you would definitely be interested in having a look at this website: http://www.otesha.ca. This project, which started off in Canada and is now going on in afew countries worldwide is about cycling around a country (thousands of miles)in groups and performing funny shows about the environment at every stop!

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Environmental regulation and leakage in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 13 2009 at 11:14AM by plato

Hi Jennyjst, in theory every kind ofstricter environmental regulation can result in leakage: the fact that companies either outsource to other companies abroad the most polluting activities or move abroad the most polluting parts of their business. While it is true that most of goods are now produced outside the EU, the main driver for this change does not seem to be environmental regulation, but rather the cost of labour. However, there are several sectors where leakage is very limited if not impossible(such as power generation or the production of some materials - for instance most of finite glass is produced withinits destinationcountry) and these sectors needs to be regulated the most. As for the other sectors, we need regulation that requires not only a product not to pollute in the EU but also in the country where it was produced. An example is the EU directive REACH which regulates all chemicals used in Europe or imported to Europeor used for products then imported to the EU! This can transform the so-called race to the bottom (every country lower its environmental regulations to avoid companies moving away) into a race to the top (every country has to increase its environmental regulations in order to stay on the market)!

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Sweden in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 14 2009 at 09:43AM by plato

Hi gigettoillupo, very nice picture! I love wind turbines and I believe that wind energy can make a huge contribution to generate clean energy in the future. Unfortunately, today, even countries like Sweden (that you mentioned as an example) generate still quite little energy from renewable sources. If you have a look at http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/electricitydata.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=SE, you can see that (in 2006) wind turbines only generated less than 0.7% of all the electricity generated in Sweden. 40-45% is generated by each one of large hydropower (a good clean source, although difficult to expand further) and nuclear (that is low carbon but has several other problems including radioactive waste!)
But things are changing and northern Europe (and Spain) are among the areas where renewables have been developed the most up to now... So, good luck to every country that chooses this route and let's hope that the whole world will follow! Bye, Plato.
PS Are you Italian?

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Education and research in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 23 2009 at 09:19PM by plato

Hi Najma, I agree with you that political leaders should give much more attention (and funding!) to education. More and better education makes better citizens and, potentially, people who are more aware of the big environmental challenges that our generations are facing. It has also been proven that improving women literacy and education helps stabilising a country's population and this has probably to be part of the solution as well. But we also need them to take direct action, especially for climate change, as soon as possible. They need to give much more attention and money to research in low carbon technologies and they must change taxes, regulation, etc. in order to make all the changes we are talking about in this forum (renewable energy, energy efficiency, etc.) happen!

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Sustainable energy in the developing world in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 23 2009 at 09:54PM by plato

Hi Sunday Oladejo, thanks for your post. It was very interesting, especially the part on "solutions for energy in my local environment". Decentralised clean energy (such as photovoltaic systems) are, in my opinion, a much better option for developing countries than building a traditional eletrical grid like the one we have in the developed countries. In fact, while it is very difficult for us to change our energy system, developing countries have the great opportunity to avoid developing in a wrong way (following the developed countries) and then have to change: they can develop directly in a more sustainable way. This is called leapfrogging and is what has happened with telephones in many developing countries which have moved directly from having no telephones to having mobile phones, skipping the stage of copperwire landline telephones altogether. Hopefully, the same will happen with decentralised renewable energies such as solar, wind, small-hydro, etc.

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Changing how we think about energy in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 24 2009 at 11:06AM by plato

Hi c.d.boe, I completely agree with you. One of the fundamental steps we need to move towards a low-carbon world is a step change in how people think about energy.
Energy (and especially electricity) looks almost like something magic! You plug something in, switch it on and here is light, music, heat coming out! I think that people need to know much more about how energy is produced and what are the side effects of its production and feel responsible for those side effects when they use energy! They also need to know much more about how much energy they use doing what. Smart meters able to give people real-time information on how much energy they are using (and, soon, with which appliance) have proven to be a very useful tool. Has anyone in this forum got a smart-meter? If so, it would be nice to hear your experience!

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Re: Think again / We want an Energy Revolution to occur in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 27 2009 at 09:55AM by plato

Master_Crom, I do agree with you that getting rid of fossil fuels is not easy at all. There are so many materials and products that we currently make out of oil and the alternatives, for some of them, are still not enough. But this is one more reason why we do need to get rid of fossil fuels in all the fields where we can do it fairly easily, so that we can still use fossil fuels where, at present, is still (almost) unavoidable.
That's why, as pratapsuryachandar stated in his post, we need an "energy revolution": we need electricity to be produced only from renewables pretty soon and we need our cars/buses/trucks to run on electricity or hydrogen (both from renewable energy sources) as soon as possible. If we do that, we will still be able to use oil for aviation... for another short while!

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Alternatives to oil are already available in many fields in Renewable energy

Posted on Jun 28 2009 at 11:47AM by plato

Yes, Master_Crom, I get your point and I agree with you that we will still need oil for a while, until new technologies are developed in a variety of fields where we do not have real alternatives yet.
What I think is this can't be the reason why we can't start to get rid of fossil fuels (and their emissions) as soon as possible when alternatives are/become available.
Electricity generation and road transport (especially cars) are responsible for a very large share of our use of fossil fuels and switching to renewables in these fields would have a huge impact. At the same time, we need lots of research in order to develop more sustainable materials, production processes and means of transport. In this way we will be able, gradually, to get completely rid of fossil fuels.

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Economic downturn and reducing biodiversity loss in Species - The extinction crisis

Posted on Jul 31 2009 at 09:10AM by plato

Hi gquimbayo,
What did you mean by "the current global economic breakdown suggests us
another way of life, in other words a better way to reduce biodiversity
loss"?
Do you believe that people will understand the errors made in the financial
sector and try to avoid them when dealing with our precious environment? Or do
you think that the currently reduced economic activity would be beneficial?

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Let's protect the earth by planting a tree? in Species - The extinction crisis

Posted on Jul 31 2009 at 04:18PM by plato

Hi prajwal and Jamshed,
trees are a very important element on our planet: they are an important part of the ecosystems, they absorbe and store CO2 when they grow up, they create the habitat for lots of other species (animal and plants of all sizes), etc. However, in my opinion, there is much more to do to protect the earth than planting trees. Just dealing with trees, first of all, trying to save all the primary forests and ancient woodlands that we still have around the world; secondly, trying to manage all forests in a sustainable way so that its use can be responsible for a minimum impact; finally (and especially), trying to preserve the world's biodiversity, something quite difficult to do with planted woods.

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