A Four Corners special from last year on energy efficient building practices.
Christian posted something about this a while ago. Interesting technology, especially considering the huge amount of emissions coming from sea transport.
Sydney company looks to catch solar wind to China - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
A great overview of Europe’s efforts to introduce a carbon trading scheme.
Also see Dateline special about Carbon trading
Apparently there has been an idea around for a while to use coal in diesel engines. The idea is to pulverise coal into fine particles and mix it with water to form a slurry and inject this into the compression chamber of a diesel engine where it would explode with the compressed air just like normal operation of a diesel (its said that Rudolf Diesel used coal in this way for the first tests of his engine but it was too unstable explosively destroying the engine and killing a bystander).
This idea is now being looked at again with the weekend edition of the Australian Financial Review (27/28th September) publishing a fairly lengthy article about a guy, originally with BHP, who is pursing developing this idea for stationary power. The article says it would have a number of advantages for stationary power including: being able to be turned off and on as needed unlike a coal fired, steam base load station, the units can be smaller i.e. 10 kW to 300 MW and located where needed so eliminating power transmission lines from remote sites to towns, cities and industrial sites. The idea is to stack up the engines, in modular form, to give the mount of power needed, unlike one giant coal fired boiler.
The article sets out environmental advantages that the configuration of such an engine for electricity generation could have because being able to be turned off and on as needed it could work with perceived variability in renewable generation, as gas turbines generators can, its more efficient than burning coal in a boiler, it perhaps uses less water than a boiler and the water in the slurry can also be recycled and according to the article transporting coal to various sites close to cities and industrial sites results in less emissions than than the need to make up for transmissions losses by producing more power. That last one I’d have to wait for a proper assessment. I also have questions on how much energy would be need to pulverise the coal down to very, very fine particles.
I don’t know much about the processes for capturing CO2 and other gases for sequestration after burning but I wonder whether this might easier from a tailpipe (i.e. the output of the engine) than from a chimney. The article mentions that an Australian company is seeking to build a demonstration plant. I did a quick (very) google and didn’t find much on this idea except a few pieces going back nearly 20 years.
Interesting analysis of the Garnaut report on Radio National
Climate change policy and the Garnaut Report - Late Night Live - 7 July 2008.
Of all places…!
“The Adelaide City Council’s electric solar bus is the first in the world to be recharged using 100% solar energy…Recent advances in battery technology have helped the successful development of pure electric buses with a suitable range between recharges. The Tindo solar electric bus uses 11 Zebra battery modules, giving it unprecedented energy storage capacity and operational range. The Swiss-made Zebra batteries use sodium/nickel chloride technology, with their benefits including:
-Designed for long life and reliability
-Not affected by external temperatures
-Can be stored indefinitely fully charged
-Lightweight
-High energy and power density
The Zebra batteries used in Tindo are virtually maintenance free, and are therefore expected to result in significant cost savings.”
http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/scripts/nc.dll?ADCC:STANDARD::pc=PC_151048
An interesting idea for a sustainable fridge in developing countries.
This weeks issue of The Economist has a 20 page special report on the future of energy. It looks at wind, solar, Nuclear, CCS, electrical networks and all the usual suspects. The editorial leader also has energy as a focus.
“As these alternatives start to roll out in earnest, their rise, optimists hope, will become inexorable. Economies of scale will develop and armies of engineers will tweak them to make them better and cheaper still. Some, indeed, think alternative energy will be the basis of a boom bigger than information technology.”
A large part of the special report is available online but its well worth buying a copy to peruse it all.
Another great example from our government of what we shouldn’t be doing if we actually want to reduce emissions. The basic idea is to convert our fossil fuel reserves of coal and gas into transport fuels like petroleum. Robin Batterham hinted that this was inevitable if oil prices stay high for sustained periods.
‘Coal to gas’ energy plan draws scepticism - ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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