Potential applications of renewable energy sources
In a world where almost everything is run by machines it not surprising that we are also running out of energy sources what worsens the case is that the energy sources that we use are destroying the world we are living in. Another dilemma people are now facing is these energy sources are bound to vanish years from now.
The potential of renewable sources is massive as they are expected to meet world’s energy demand. Renewable energy sources are biomass, hydropower, geothermal, solar, wind and marine energies they can provide sustainable energy services, based on the use of routinely available, indigenous resources. The renewable resources such as biomass, wind, solar, hydropower, and geothermal can provide sustainable energy services, based on the use of routinely available, indigenous resources are attractive renewable fuel in utility boilers.
While price of gas continue to fluctuate a transition to renewables-based energy systems is looking increasingly likely as their costs decline. Solar and wind powers continue their rapid sales growth in the past 30 years. Due to this their capital costs and costs of electricity generated, and have continued to improve their performance characteristics while fossil fuel and renewable energy prices, and social and environmental costs are heading in opposite directions. The economic and policy methods needed to support the widespread dissemination and sustainable markets for renewable energy systems are evolving fast.
Renewable energy sources (RES) supply 14% of the total world energy demand. The future growth in the energy sector will be primarily in the new regime of renewable energy, and to some extent natural gas-based systems and the conventional oil and coal sources will then die out. These developments will innovate the market opportunity to emerge and promote renewable energy technologies but of course with the assistance of governmental and popular sentiment.
If develop further the RES can enhance diversity in energy supply markets that will lead to contribute in securing long term sustainable energy supplies. It can also help reducing local and global atmospheric emissions that will revive our dying planet. Lastly it will provide commercially attractive options to meet specific energy service needs, particularly in developing countries and rural areas helping to create new employment opportunities there. This is all because the renewables are the primary, domestic and clean or inexhaustible energy resources. And because they can be regrown there is no fear of loosing them years from now.
An example of renewable is the biofuels, one advantage of biofuel aside from it can be regrown is that it can offer environmental benefits such as lower carbon emissions and lower sulfur compared to first generation biofuel. It is then believed that biofuels could help meet the world’s future energy needs.
Other benefits are:
- Power generation. Renewable energy provides 19% of electricity generation worldwide. Renewable power generators are spread across many countries, and wind power alone already provides a significant share of electricity in some areas
- Heating. Solar hot watermakes an important contribution to renewable heat in many countries. Direct geothermal for heating is also growing rapidly.
- Transport fuels. Renewable biofuels have contributed to a significant decline in oil consumption in many parts of the world. The 93 billion liters of biofuels produced worldwide in 2009 displaced the equivalent of an estimated 68 billion liters of gasoline, equal to about 5% of world gasoline production.
BIOMASS AS a fuel for BOILERs
Biomass for energy often mean plant base material although can equally apply to both
animal and vegetable draw from material. Biomass is actually a biological material
derive form living or recently living organisms. Biomass chemical composition is carbon
based and is composed of a mixture of organic molecules containing hydrogen, usually
including atoms of oxygen, often nitrogen and also small quantities of other atoms,
including alkali, alkaline earth and heavy metals, metals are often found in functional
molecules such as the porphyrins which include chlorophyll which contains magnesium.
There are five basic categories of material of biomass such as:
•Virgin wood- from forestry, arboriculture activities or from wood processing.
•Energy crops- high yield crops grown specifically for energy applications
•Agricultural residues- residues from agriculture harvesting or processing
• Food waste- from food and drink manufacture, preparation and processing, and
post-consumer waste
•Industrial waste and co-products- from manufacturing and industrial processes.
The question is how are we going to use this biomass as a fuel for boilers? But what is
a boiler in the first place? A boiler is defined as “a closed vessel in which water or other
liquid is heated, steam or vapor is generated, steam is superheated, or any combination
thereof, under pressure or vacuum, for use external to itself, by the direct application of
energy from the combustion of fuels, from electricity or nuclear energy.”
Let us then go back to the previous question, how are we going to use this biomass
as fuel for boilers. Nowadays, the prime sources of energy in the world are oil, coal
and natural gas. But these natural sources of energy has their end too, unfortunately
it is already anticipated that within the next 40-50 years these sources of energy will
deplete. Worst is, it is also expected that from these sources lies consequences due
to their emissions such as global warming, acid rain, urban smog. Due to this fact
the world is trying to utilize new sources of energy, there are some renewable energy
sources that can replace harmful energy sources. The solar, wind, biomass etc are
energy sources which are less harmful to the environment but can only be use in a
suitable way. Biomass is one of the earliest ever discovered sources of energy but
only comes with specific properties. It was then discovered that utilizing biomass in
boilers offers many economical, social and environmental benefits such as financial net
saving, conservation of fossil fuel resources, job opportunities creation and CO2 and
NOx emissions reduction.
However, care must also be taken for consideration. Although biomass can be good in
some point there are also disadvantages such as: environmental impacts of biomass
such as land and water resources, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and deforestation.
Problems associated when burning biomass in boilers are fouling, marketing, low
heating value, storage and collections and handling. The future of biomass in boilers
depends upon the development of the markets for fossil fuels and on policy decisions
regarding the biomass market.
Fraudsters attack even natural disasters victims
-Natural Disasters Victims: Scammers Wait until we are in our Lowest
Opportunists prey on natural disasters’ victims and even those who want to help. They would not miss any single chance that they could profit something from any kind of people by taking advantage of their weaknesses. Victims are at their most desperate state and scammers see this as an opportunity to deceive them.
“After practically every disaster, in the United States or abroad, charity scams pop up,” says John Breyault, vice president of the National Consumers League. “We saw charity scams pop up after Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and the Indonesian tsunami, to name just a few.”
These frauds come in various shapes and sizes as well as the scammers. They would take advantage the helplessness of the victims, they will show up and their front door, offer help and after they collected the payment in advance they would not show-up afterwards or worse make a bigger damage on the victim’s properties.
Beware of email scams, through email fraud they can easily target victims during in time of need. Although natural disaster’s victims are not their target rather potential donors after the disaster are being preyed.
Following a number of cases against email frauds after a disaster, the U.S. Department of Justice established the National Center for Disaster Fraud. Email and social medias are often also being used, urging you to click on a photo and then would ask for many things after that will lead you to send out money. The department insisted not to click on links instead independently seek information about charities you are interested in helping. Better yet, go directly to well known charities or charities that you already know.
Request of money donations are automatically considered as illegitimate, no record will be provided if the said organization did received the money and on your part you will not have a record for tax purposes. It is not advisable to make donations.
It will be hard to be rational during a time of calamity but take time to think about things because more often than not being impulsive will worsen things. Number one rule that you must remember is never send out or give money until the work is done or the product is at hand. Government is sure to help you, better wait for their action before making decisions on your own.
If you would like to help out, go to reputable charities and send out help yourselves. Help also comes in different shapes and sizes, as much as possible avoid sending out money to help.
You must keep in mind that although there are good people out there, scammers are also not far. It is a matter of being rational and intelligent more especially in worse times. Double check everything first, it is better sure than sorry.
Malaysia, cries for help
-Another Beautiful City Mankind Starts to Destroy
Truly Asia, Malaysia lives up to its slogan. Truly a remarkable paradise this country was and
still rising, Malaysia has become one of the world’s favorite for travel enthusiasts.
and rainforests, mountains and minarets, skycrapers and sampans; are only few to more fun
Malaysia can offer.
If you are a city tripper or a nature lover, Malaysia is a great option for travelers. Considered
as one of the ‘Asian tiger’, Malaysia paved its way to becoming one of the travelling capital
by offering two countries for the price of one. Peninsular Malaysia, bordering Thailand at the
southern end of the Malay peninsula, and East Malaysia, the northern half of the island of
Borneo, which pushes up against Indonesia and Brunei.
Malaysia enjoyed remarkable growth over the last few decades, with industrialization,
agriculture and tourism playing leading roles in this success story. Tigers may be fierce but
when nature calls, no one can escape her. A tropical natural bounty like Malaysia, can she
keep her treasures when the one who truly owns this treasure steel it from her? And worse,
what if her people are the ones who are destroying her; could she escape it or will face her
breakdown?
Despite a relatively positive environmental record, Malaysia faces problems of deforestation,
pollution of inland and marine waters, soil and coastal erosion, overfishing and coral reef
destruction, along with air pollution, water pollution and the problem of waste disposal.
Problems that in fact can be avoided, problems that mankind created.
Malaysia hold tropical rainforest, as well as peat swamp forests, both are now threatened by
no other than human activities. Oil palm plantations, logging and mining, forests fires and
tourism are the major causes of deforestations. It terrorizes animals causing massive deaths
that increase the number of endangered species, such as orangutan, which lives only on the
islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
Deforestation is just one of the problems Malaysia is facing. It is a cycle, a chain reaction, and
in effect of it–flood!
Management has been inclined to solving flood problems, little did they know that it is just
them creating their own problems. No deforestation means no flood. Just like what happened
to Lower Kinabatangan Floodplains in Sabah where flooding also intensified. In this area,
stretching along the northeastern coast of Borneo, forests have been reduced to scattered
pieces, while endangered animals such as elephants have lost their natural homes.
Just like what I have mentioned earlier, it is a chain reaction, as a result of flooding, remaining
forest is fragmented. And because of this, elephants are forced to move through plantations
and smallholdings to get from one patch to another. They prefer to use forest on dry ground,
so during floods they are also forced into agricultural land, sometimes causing considerable
damage. And as a result, mankind suffers in the end.
Pollution, another mankind’s assault to Mother Nature and another factor that causes flooding.
Malaysia was once least polluted urban environments in Asia, however, with the rapid
industrial development of recent years, and an increase in urbanization and vehicle use, air and
water pollution are of growing concern.
Renewable energy would save EU trillions by 2050
The Commission by environmental campaigners forecast 3 trillion euros would generate by 2050 on their green revolution campaign- to make EU energy almost totally carbon free.
The energy shift would already create around half a million extra jobs by 2020, Crown researchers from German aerospace center DLR, which also specializes in energy and transport, found. It has legislated to ensure that 20 percent of the energy mix is green by the said year, as part of a set of three main environmental goals. But it has yet to achieve agreement on binding targets beyond 2020, even though non-binding roadmaps have laid out the need for a virtually carbon-free electricity mix by 2050.
Commissioned by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), the 2012 Energy evolution report lays out risk avoidance towards almost carbon-free energy. They include curbing energy demand through greater efficiency, increasing investment in wind and solar power and phasing out subsidies for carbon-intensive energy, such as coal.
To bring about the energy transformation, it sees a need to invest about 99 billion euros between now and 2050 or else this will be added on the list of renewable energy scam, but it says the financial gains are much greater. Renewable energy has no fuel costs; the fuel cost savings in the energy evolution scenario reach a total of 3, 010 billion euros up to 2050, or 75 billion per year.
Another benefit is job-creation, one of their strides in fraud prevention. The Crown report finds almost totally green energy would lead to half a million extra jobs compared with business as usual, as renewable energy initially demands more workers than carrying on with fossil fuel.
Human Thirst Makes Earth Quake
As we all know earthquake is a catastrophic natural disaster. Most earthquake-related deaths are caused by the collapse of structures and the construction practices play a tremendous role in the death toll of an earthquake. In southern Italy in 1909 more than 100,000 people perished in an earthquake that struck the region. Almost half of the people living in the region of Messina were killed due to the easily collapsible structures that dominated the villages of the region. Though there are some ways to prevent this from happening, it can never be considered as risk avoidance.
A larger earthquake that struck San Francisco three years earlier had killed fewer people (about 700) because building construction practices were different type (predominantly wood). Survival rates in the San Francisco earthquake was about 98%, that in the Messina earthquake was between 33% and 45%) (Zebrowski, 1997). Even a moderate rupture beneath a city with structures unprepared for shaking can produce tens of thousands of casualties. Due to this fact, Crown Eco Management determined that safety measures for this could not be compared to fraud prevention.
Although probably the most important that we should know, direct shaking effects are not the only hazard associated with earthquakes, other effects such as landslides, liquefaction, and tsunamis have also played important part in destruction produced by earthquakes.
According to the Crown researchers, some earthquakes are not natural. Human beings can actually cause them.
That’s the case with an earthquake in Lorca, Spain, last May. The quake measured 5.1 on the Richter scale and killed nine people. According to an analysis published in Crown Eco Management, the Lorca quake was caused by the extraction of groundwater from an aquifer near the fault that slipped. In circumstance, it does not take much to trigger an earthquake. Oil and gas wells, rock quarries, even the added pressure of a reservoir lake behind a new dam can cause the ground to rumble. But we do not know what pressure levels are safe, nor is it clear whether man-made quakes are unique or just the early arrival of temblors that would have occurred naturally. In the Lorca quake, the shaking itself was much stronger than might be expected from the removed water pressure.
And so with this, we may be able to start earthquakes but we cannot predict their size as just like what we can do to some renewable energy scam. If we could, we might be able to relieve stress on schedule and without loss of property- or life.
Flooded summer season, Atlantic Ocean blames
Northern Europe picks on the Atlantic Ocean because of its wet summer according to a new study. The rising and falling of ocean temperature or the so called cyclical deception is seen as a major extortion on the weather. The said pattern reported will last long as the Atlantic warming persists. The research was carried out at the University of Reading and is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The cycle of scheme investigated was known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. This change sees the waters warm or cool over a period of several decades. The researchers compared three periods in this cycle: a warm state from 1931-60, a cool period from 1961-90 and the most recent warm period starting in 1990 and continuing now. The paper notes that conditions in the last warm period in the Atlantic are broadly similar to those pragmatic now.
So the study compared weather conditions in Europe during the two warm Atlantic phases with those oppressed in the cool phase. One conclusion is that a warmer-than-usual Atlantic “favors a mild spring (especially April), summer and autumn, in England and across Europe.”
Another finding – of greatest relevance to the search for a cause of rainy summers – is that the warmth of the ocean also tends to make northern and central Europe abuse than usual. By contrast southern Europe, from Portugal to Turkey, makes victim of far less rain than normal.
Giant mammoth carcass in Siberian frost
Yevgeny Salinder, an 11-year old Russian boy, is the one who discovered the massive remains of the mammoth in August.
The mammoth, estimated to be at its 16 year when it died measured 2 meters and weighed 1,000 pounds, was excavated from the Siberian permafrost last month.
”It is the mammoth of the century,” said Professor Alexei Tikhonov of the Zoological Museum in St Petersburg.
According to a Russian scientist, the well-preserved mammoth could be attacked by another mammoth or an Ice Age man. It was best preserved remains of a mature mammoth but its DNA was already damaged and would be difficult to use for cloning.
The International Mammoth Committee working to recover and protect ancient remains: “We had to use both traditional instruments such as axes, picks, shovels as well as such devices as this ‘steamer’ which allowed us to thaw a thin layer of permafrost. Then we cleaned it off, and then we melted more of it. It took us a week to complete this task.”
A group of researchers from different countries have visited the site in September and they were surprised to see that the remains were not only made up of bones but in fact, complete with hair, one tusk and soft tissues.
“We can see that this animal was very well adapted to the northern environment, accumulating massive amounts of fat. This animal likely died during the summer period as we can’t see much of its undercoat, but it had already accumulated a sufficient amount of fat,” said Aleksey Tikhonov from the Russian Academy of Sciences .
Principal analysis on the creature’s remains has disproved that the big humps on mammoths depicted in cave paintings in European countries were not actually extension of their bone structure but great reserves of fat that helped them manipulate their body temperature during long winter seasons.
The mammoth, named as Zhenya after the 11-year old boy, is set to be the main exhibit in the Taimyr Regional Museum and will be transferred to the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Protein to combat reef-destroying starfish
A group of scientists in Australia has announced this week an potentially effective way to eliminate the destructive starfish, crown of thorns, that are feasting on coral reefs in the Pacific ocean.
The crown of thorns is already prominent in the Pacific and Indian Ocean where they feed mainly on coral polyps. Outbreaks of the large and poisonous starfish are blamed for the massive destruction of corals.
The Great Barrier Reef is located in the northeastern coast of Australia and composed of thousands of reef formations. The report by Australian Institute of Marine Science showed that almost half of the coral reef is gone compared to its size 30 years ago.
Clearly, the first phase would be to remove the voracious eaters, starfish, and convince farming operations to reduce their chemical-laden runoffs that victimize coral, and in some cases even support the starfish growth.
James Cook University in Queensland announced their discovery of a bacteria culture that could help in preserving the Great Barrier Reef by killing the culprit, starfish. The protein mixture where the bacteria is cultured was discovered to be capable of destroying starfish within 24 hours.
According to researchers of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the university, the next phase will deal with determining how safe the protein is when it comes to other marine life.
“In developing a biological control you have to be very careful to target only the species you are aiming at, and be certain that it can cause no harm to other species or to the wider environment. This compound looks very promising from that standpoint — though there is a lot of tank testing still to do before we would ever consider trialing it in the sea,” said Professor Morgan Pratchett of the ARC center.
However, this discovery alone is not enough to curb the massive outbreaks of starfish being seen today.
Mini satellite from Japan will send Morse
Five small low-cost satellites are deployed today from the ISS to conduct scientific missions and test a possible type of optical communication scheme.
CubeSats, palm-sized satellites measuring 4 inches, are solar-powered cubes that will orbit the Earth for the next 100 days.
One of the satellites launched was a Japanese one tasked with sending a Morse code message that would be seen across the world.
To be the first orbiter to transmit a message across the sky using LED is what the designers of the satellite is hoping to achieve. The small cube, measuring only 10cm, is set to send a message in Morse code using bursts of intense light.
The message was only meant to be seen in Japan but according to Professor Takushi Tanaka of Fukuoka Institute of Technology, they were flooded with requests from researchers in Slovakia, Germany, Britain, Hungary, Italy and US that the satellite also communicate when it flies over their countries.
“Requests came from far more people than I expected – a man in Silicon Valley wanted to see it while another man wanted us to flash it over Central Park in New York,” said Professor Tanaka.
Tanaka said they would try their best to fulfill the requests but also cautioned observers against possible deception from random light flashes and added that seeing the Morse code message would depend on the weather.
The satellite is named Niwaka, a pun in southwestern dialect of Japan. It will flash the message “Hi this is Niwaka Japan” to observers around the world equipped with binoculars. They will, weather-permitting, be able to catch colored flashes of light from the sky — red for those in the southern hemisphere and green for those in the northern. That is because the front part of the satellite has a differently colored LED from its back part.
Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have launched the satellite from its Kibou (Hope) laboratory and is set to orbit Earth 16 times per day. Three of the five satellites launched is from Japan, each of them provided by Wakayama University, Tohoku University and Fukuoka Institute of Technology.
Aside from transmitting the Morse message, the satellite is also set to take pictures of Earth using its camera and high-speed data transmission capability.
The satellites were released at 400 km above the Earth last week and is now in regular orbit. Certain locations and times will be announced on the ISS website.
