Powering the World With Alternative Energy

I'm moving some of the discussion that developed in a different thread here...

The discussion is about using wind and solar power on all buildings and solar panels in the saharan desert...

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redarmy11

No, by using wind turbines in between each floor (incidentally, seems I was wrong about it powering 10 identical towers. A mere five, it seems):

“ http://www.alternative-energy-news.i...ng-skyscraper/

Each turbine can produce 0.3 megawatt of electricity, compared to 1-1.5 megawatt generated by a normal vertical turbine (windmill). Considering that Dubai gets 4,000 wind hours annually, the turbines incorporated into the building can generate 1,200,000 kilowatt-hour of energy. As average annual power consumption of a family is estimated to be 24,000 kilowatt-hours, each turbine can supply energy for about 50 families. The Dynamic Architecture tower in Dubai will be having 200 apartments and hence four turbines can take care of their energy needs. The surplus clean energy produced by the remaining 44 turbines can light up the neighborhood of the building. However, taking into consideration that the average wind speed in Dubai is of only 16 km/h the architects may need to double the number of turbines to light up the building to eight. Still there will be 40 free turbines, good enough to supply power for five skyscrapers of the same size. ”

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EmptyForceOfChi

“ Originally Posted by redarmy11
No, by using wind turbines in between each floor (incidentally, seems I was wrong about it powering 10 identical towers. A mere five, it seems): ”

its a good idea, they could make so many improvements on all of the modern buildings for energy supply, i think all buildings should be built with turbines and solar pannels as standard.

we could solve all of the worlds energy crisis with solar, wind and hydro powers, the deserts of the world are not even used much, we could erect huge amounts of solar systems in the deserts, im sure the calculatios have been done in the past, and i bet we only need to use 1-2 deserts to solve most of the worlds power supply problems,

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redarmy11
“ Originally Posted by EmptyForceOfChi
i bet we only need to use 1-2 deserts to solve most of the worlds power supply problems, ”

Not even. The red squares indicate the areas that would need to be equipped with solar plants in order to meet current energy requirements
for the world, Europe and Germany respectively:

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EmptyForceOfChi

“ Originally Posted by redarmy11
Not even. The red squares indicate the areas that would need to be equipped with solar plants in order to meet current energy requirements
for the world, Europe and Germany respectively:”

lol so what are we waiting for? oh yeah i forget the leaders dont actualy care about advancing. because they are assholes.

peace.

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Discuss.

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Well, let's not forget the transmission of all that power from the Sahara to southern California. That ain't gonna' be cheap!

Hey, I'm sorry, but it's going to be nuke power plants ...we might as well get on with it. Windmills are fine in some locations, but those things are HUGE and it takes lots of 'em ...and they're ugly as hell.

Nukes. That's the answer, so ...get with the fuckin' program!

Baron Max

 

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Hey, I'm sorry too - but we're cutting you out of this deal. The world doesn't revolve around you.

Get with your own fuckin' program.

 

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Gas hydrates represent one of the world's largest untapped reservoirs of energy and, according to some estimates, have the potential to meet global energy needs for the next thousand years.

http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/highlights/2004/0408gas_e.html

http://www.pulseplanet.com/archive/Oct96/1315.html

 

How about hydropower? Apart from its environmental concerns, nowadays
19% of world electricity (715,000 MWe) is still supplied by hydropower.

 

I've recently made an overdue move into the alternative energy business. I'm learning that what I had suspected, what attracted me to the business really is true: We live in environments that are humming with energy, and everyday people can harness that energy by their own initiative, and satisfy reasonable energy needs.

How to impliment it varies widely, not only in the macro regional scale, but micro with respect to specific sites. The installations I have thus far been involved with all began with a site survey. Recommendations to clients vary considerably within the local area, as to the most abundant resources, and most cost-effective energy conversion and storage equipment. The technology is now arriving to harvest energy on a localized, personalized, and decentralized scale- exploiting solar, hydro, and wind power alone or in combination. Solar is most often the best single answer in terms of return on investment and reliability.

We are about to enter fascinating and revolutionary times. Power will become distributed and decentralized. Some years later, I expect that production/manufacturing/nanoassembling will also. Because the evolution of technology is accelerating and will drag slow-to-adapt societies behind, there is a momentous fight brewing between the centralized powers of the past, and the millions like you and me who are on the cusp of becoming self-powered, self-empowered, and much more independent.

 

Who is this guy? Where's the gloom and doom hype I'm used to?

 

I guess that guy gave up on oil?

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"Where's the gloom and doom hype I'm used to?"

The "gloom and doom" is part of the momentous fight I mentioned above. How ugly that already is, and how it is likely to worsen, isn't directly pertinent to this thread. Suffice it to say that there are powerful people and corporations who are ruthlessly trying to hold onto outdated centralized profit structures.

"I guess that guy gave up on oil?"

Hardly. I still have 2 airplanes, and all the usual fossil-fuel-burning gadgets. But I'm getting ready for the coming changes, head first.

 

Every country must come up with its own solution, the UK could be powered
by wave energy producing electricity, making some future electric vehicle
attractive, but i think we will end up with nuc.

 

That's what I meant. A paradigm change for you.

 

You know... before someone changes outside, one must go through an inner transformation...

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i am sorry to interupt you in your nice conversations. but i have to tell you something importend.......Not one country of this world. not one of the oikonomic powers, not one of the big companies and financial gigents would ever allow to anyone to provide any alternative power or energy. why? because than they would loos "power"......

 

Why put solar panels in Africa? Politically unstable, sandstorms that ruin them and just a plain unstable culture.

Can't you just put them in the Southwest USA...? You can be as wishful as you want but in the end, it will be a mix of solar, wind, hydro, nuke, clean coal and more in the future.

Barry

 

Intermittent alternative energy like solar, wind, water, etc (not hydrodams or geothermal) can only replace 15-25% of the electric grids power sources, unless "storage" power plants are built that can store power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing and then dump that power on the grid when the grid demands it and the sun and wind are not cooperating. It is not that hard: hydrodam storage has been going on for years, now there is development of compressed-air underground storage and Sodium-Sulfur batteries (cheap, efficient and can survive years of cycling) but these exist on small few megawatt pilot levels, we would need gigawatts of storage to replace 50% or more of our energy supply with intermittent alternatives.

Can anyone calculate how much surface space exist on all the roof tops and all the parking lots in the USA?

 

Does it need to be only on rofftops?

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I would disagree printable solar panels are the future, and for dedicated power plants molten salt solar thermal is superior economically to concentrated photovoltics. Wind power is best for winding higher latitude places like the Dakotas, Solar will likely come to rule the south western states.

 

There are alternative energy sources, but nothing will power our world at the levels it is today. Furthermore, industrial production of things like solar panels and wind turbines aren't going to be powered by themselves.

 

Again disagree, Peak Oil does not mean the end of civilization just the end of cheap oil. At $4 a gallon Coal-to-liquid becomes economical. Oil shale and tar sands are already being mined at exponential rates, there is as much as 3-6 trillion barrels of these unconventional oil sources (only ~2 trillion of conventional oil of which we have used half and are peaking). These horribly polluting alternatives of oil will have to compete with Non-polluting alternatives like biomass and electrification, and I'll put my bets on the clean alternatives in the long run.

Of course you could accuse me of being a technocrat, but the only other alternative would be to curl up and die (or at least kill off everyone else), so I rather try to convert no matter the odds then give up and put a bullet in my skull.