Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years. “This is an investment that will pay itself back many times over," Gore said. "It's an expensive investment but not compared to the rising cost of continuing to invest in fossil fuels”, Gore announced.
GBTers are already ahead of this curve, building some of the most energy efficient thermal envelops on the planet. The GBT community understands that the best way to make a kilowatt-hour available is to have not used a kilowatt-hour in the first place. But Gore's alternative energy challenge pushes our focus beyond conservation and into energy production. After all, we will still need electricity to power our refrigerators, TVs, lighting and HVAC systems.
So I’ve put together some of the most promising technologies available (or soon to be available) to the market that will help you meet the challenge of producing every kilowatt you use through renewable technologies.
Solar Concentrators
MIT engineers have developed a new approach to harnessing sunlight. Rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells, the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. They've made it so the light can travel a much longer distance, reducing light transport losses, which results in a tenfold increase in the amount of power converted by the solar cells. Because the system is simple to manufacture, the engineers believe that the solar concentrators could be manufactured within three-years--even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal cost. Covalent Solar will develop and commercialize the new technology.
Super-Efficient Solar Cells
Newly funded Wakonda Technologies is claiming to produce the 30 percent-plus efficiencies of a Spectrolab-like thin-film with the low production costs of a thin-film maker like First Solar. Spectrolab’s technology is so expensive because of the challenge of building its cells atop a single-crystal wafer, a sheet of material that is painstakingly manufactured as a flawless whole in order to precisely control its electrical properties. Wakonda says it has the ability to simulate those wafers with a cheap metal foil, similar to what thin-film makers do. If Wakonda’s technology lives up to its claims, it will be less expensive than any existing energy generation technology.
Wind
One just needs to watch the T. Boone Pickens video to see how commercial wind power has become an attractive investment.
For residential applications, there are many options, including Shinko Electric Co.’s small home-use wind power that offers the lowest cut in speed on the market. Featuring a vertical axis windmill composed of five sail arms like airfoil, it produces almost no noisy wind-breaking sound so that it can be used in a residential quarter. Electric power generated is converted to AC by an attached unit. Windterra’s blade design also optimizes the turbine’s performance at typical lower wind speeds. There are many other options for small wind systems and those interested should get to know The American Wind Energy Association’s website, at www.awea.org, for guidance.
Geothermal Heat Pumps
EnLink claims its technology helps reduce the costs of installation for GHP projects and that its EHX system would pay for itself in four years. The Houston based company raised $30 million in private equity to ramp up its development of geothermal heat pump installations for residential, commercial and institutional settings. Last year, private equity firms invested over $400 million in geothermal energy.
Combined Heat and Power
For an in-depth look at cogeneration, read Joe Romm’s post “Recycled Energy - A core climate solution”. Cogeneration is the least understood of renewable energies and Joe Romms piece is well worth the read to become better educated on this technology.