There was an interesting program on BBC radio this morning about technological solutions to the problem of feeding a growing world population. Among other things, it dealt with vertical farming. The idea is to grow crops – and even small animals and ultimately maybe cultured meat – in high rise urban buildings. A quick Google found this site which is well worth a look: http://www.verticalfarm.com/.
Of course, efficient land use is the main objective, but some of the of the other advantages of vertical farming listed on the site may surprise. For example, the absence of pests would make organic farming the norm. More obviously, it brings the food production closer to the market, saving transport costs and making urban living even more eco-friendly than it already is. By drastically reducing the competition for land it might even make bio-fuels a viable solution to our transportation needs.
Taken at its most basic, our energy problem – of which producing food is just a special case – is how to convert enough of the energy arriving from the sun into forms we can use with zero net emissions of greenhouse gases. Skyscrapers growing plants for food and fuel might just be the way to go.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
New Gadgets at Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference
This conference, organized by the Houston Technology Center, took place yesterday and today. I did not register for the conference because I could not make the first day and today was just a half day, but I was invited to lunch today and to see the exhibits. The lunchtime keynote speaker was John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil. I had heard him give the keynote at another conference last week, and it was essentially the same speech though it seemed more polished this time. (He gave it at least one more time in between also.) It wasn't what most climate change activists would want to hear, but at least he was unequivocal in saying that we needed a cap-and-trade system. He said it was time to stop arguing about whether climate change was real and get on with doing something about it.
More interesting to me were some of the exhibits, which I hope to cover in more detail at a later date. Here are three that caught my attention.
A Company called EnerPlus (www.pulstarplug.com) has a new kind of spark plug which utilizes a capacitor to greatly increase the size of the spark, resulting in more complete combustion and a claimed improvement of 6% in economy and up to 12% in power output.
A company called Adaptive-AC allows each room in your house to be controlled by a programmable intelligent thermostat built into the air conditioning outlet. The thermostat adjusts the temperature by opening and closing flaps so as to regulate the air flow, thereby balancing the temperature over the house. (Or not balancing it, if for example you don’t want A/C in the living room when you are asleep in bed.) The unit is powered by a small generator driven from the air flow, and stored in an ultracapacitor for when the A/C is off, so there are no batteries. The product is not in volume production yet. (For technology junkies, the protypes were made with a 3-D printer, which is the first application of this technology I have come across.)
A company called DBLive (www.dblive.com) controls sprinkler systems by using the weather forecast to generate soil moisture forecast by location, this information being transmitted along with a local FM radio signal. This product is not in production yet, but will soon be undergoing trial in the Houston area.
More interesting to me were some of the exhibits, which I hope to cover in more detail at a later date. Here are three that caught my attention.
A Company called EnerPlus (www.pulstarplug.com) has a new kind of spark plug which utilizes a capacitor to greatly increase the size of the spark, resulting in more complete combustion and a claimed improvement of 6% in economy and up to 12% in power output.
A company called Adaptive-AC allows each room in your house to be controlled by a programmable intelligent thermostat built into the air conditioning outlet. The thermostat adjusts the temperature by opening and closing flaps so as to regulate the air flow, thereby balancing the temperature over the house. (Or not balancing it, if for example you don’t want A/C in the living room when you are asleep in bed.) The unit is powered by a small generator driven from the air flow, and stored in an ultracapacitor for when the A/C is off, so there are no batteries. The product is not in volume production yet. (For technology junkies, the protypes were made with a 3-D printer, which is the first application of this technology I have come across.)
A company called DBLive (www.dblive.com) controls sprinkler systems by using the weather forecast to generate soil moisture forecast by location, this information being transmitted along with a local FM radio signal. This product is not in production yet, but will soon be undergoing trial in the Houston area.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The Lifecar
In my February 5th post I mentioned a prototype electric car shown at the Detroit Auto Show and based on the Saturn Vue. Its claim to fame was the use of ultracapacitors to store energy recovered from regenerative braking. (Ultracapacitors take advantage of the high surface area to volume ratio of nanomaterials to store energy more compactly than could be done with a conventional capacitor or battery. Capacitors in general have the advantage over batteries of being able to store and release their energy very quickly, making them ideal for regenerative braking.)
The BBC is now reporting that the same idea appears on a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car which will be shown at the Geneva Motor Show which opens tomorrow. Called the Lifecar, and developed by Oxford and Cranfield Universities together with private industry, it is based upon the Morgan Aero 8 sports car. The Morgan’s already light weight is reduced further by removing luxuries and even air bags. Even then, the performance is not sports-car-like. Indeed it is barely adequate for a family sedan, with a top speed of 90 mph and 0-60 time of 7 seconds. (It is not clear whether this is with the aid of the ultracapacitors or not.) A range of 250 miles is claimed, at which point one would have to find a hydrogen station.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7265267.stm for full story.
The BBC is now reporting that the same idea appears on a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car which will be shown at the Geneva Motor Show which opens tomorrow. Called the Lifecar, and developed by Oxford and Cranfield Universities together with private industry, it is based upon the Morgan Aero 8 sports car. The Morgan’s already light weight is reduced further by removing luxuries and even air bags. Even then, the performance is not sports-car-like. Indeed it is barely adequate for a family sedan, with a top speed of 90 mph and 0-60 time of 7 seconds. (It is not clear whether this is with the aid of the ultracapacitors or not.) A range of 250 miles is claimed, at which point one would have to find a hydrogen station.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7265267.stm for full story.
Friday, February 22, 2008
US Leadership in Clean Technology?
When one thinks about the leaders in efforts to combat climate change, the US does not immediately come to mind. More likely Europe, Japan, or even Costa Rica. But that could be a misleading impression, based solely upon our federal government and in particular its failure to ratify Kyoto. This will of course change soon; all the remaining presidential candidates – even Huckabee, who does not believe in evolution -- are supportive of efforts to combat climate change.
Perhaps more to the point, business is on board, partly in anticipation of GHG emissions carrying a price tag soon. The Financial Times last month published an article about how the amount of US venture capital going into GHG abatement technology was threatening Europe’s lead. According to Cleantech, a US research group, European investment in clean technology companies was only a third of the $3.7bn invested by US investors.
As reported by Reuters and AP, last week saw a UN summit where institutional investors pledged to invest $10bn over the next two years in technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The plan "reflects the many investment opportunities that exist today to put a dent in global warming pollution, build profits and benefit the global economy," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental leaders, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. Lubber called it the largest meeting of financial leaders ever to focus on climate change and said it would illustrate how the marketplace is starting to transform.
The gathering of 480 investors and other Wall Street types, representing $20 trillion in capital, was organized by groups supporting UN efforts such as the UN Foundation, Ceres and the UN Fund for International Partnerships. For the full Reuters/AP story see http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/303882
Perhaps more to the point, business is on board, partly in anticipation of GHG emissions carrying a price tag soon. The Financial Times last month published an article about how the amount of US venture capital going into GHG abatement technology was threatening Europe’s lead. According to Cleantech, a US research group, European investment in clean technology companies was only a third of the $3.7bn invested by US investors.
As reported by Reuters and AP, last week saw a UN summit where institutional investors pledged to invest $10bn over the next two years in technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The plan "reflects the many investment opportunities that exist today to put a dent in global warming pollution, build profits and benefit the global economy," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental leaders, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. Lubber called it the largest meeting of financial leaders ever to focus on climate change and said it would illustrate how the marketplace is starting to transform.
The gathering of 480 investors and other Wall Street types, representing $20 trillion in capital, was organized by groups supporting UN efforts such as the UN Foundation, Ceres and the UN Fund for International Partnerships. For the full Reuters/AP story see http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/303882
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Gasoline from CO2?
Never ceases to amaze me, but whenever I blog something I read something new within hours which changes my view. Yesterday I said to look for hydrogen and electric for final solution on powering cars. Then, over lunch, I finally got around to reading Tuesday’s papers, and the NYT Science Times section reports a proposal out of Los Alamos national lab to produce synthetic gasoline from the CO2 in the atmosphere. Of course this addresses the fuel problem rather elegantly, but it does not address the energy problem. The energy to do this still needs to come from somewhere, probably a power station. In this it is no different from electric or hydrogen cars. The big advantage however is that no change is required to our cars or to the gas stations we rely upon. Seems like a win-win to me.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Sail Power
I recently read about the maiden voyage of a new freighter, the MS Beluga SkySails, departing out of Bremerhaven for Venezuela. I did a bit of Googling and found another story, dated last year, about the maiden voyage of the same ship set for December 2007, this time carrying windmills from Denmark to Houston. Does anyone know whether that voyage happened?
Not that it really matters. The story is that the Beluga features a large computer-controlled kite to augment the ships diesel engines to save up to 20% of the fuel it would otherwise use. The system is made by Skysails of Hamburg (http://www.skysails.info/index.php?L=1), and the kite is mounted in such a way that it’s tether can rotate around the bow of the ship to provide wind power when traveling in any direction other than direction against the wind.
Not that it really matters. The story is that the Beluga features a large computer-controlled kite to augment the ships diesel engines to save up to 20% of the fuel it would otherwise use. The system is made by Skysails of Hamburg (http://www.skysails.info/index.php?L=1), and the kite is mounted in such a way that it’s tether can rotate around the bow of the ship to provide wind power when traveling in any direction other than direction against the wind.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Nanotechnology and Climate Change
If Dustin Hoffman’s film the Graduate was set today, the one word Mr. McGuire says to Ben would be “nanotechnology” rather than “plastics.” Nanotechnology has potential applications in fields as varied as cancer treatment and new materials for aircraft manufacture, as well as a number of interesting possibilities for combating climate change. This is a quick review of some of these possibilities, following a nanotechnology conference I attended a week or so ago. I will try to come back to some of them in more detail in later postings.
Nanotechnology is the science of very small particles, from 1 to 10 nanometers, a nanometer being an American billionth (10 to the power -9) of a meter. These have interesting properties because this is small enough for quantum mechanical effects to emerge and also because the ratio of surface area to volume gets greater as the size of the particles gets smaller. Both these aspects of nanotechnology present exciting possibilities in the fight against climate change.
The first four applications below relate to two major problems with renewable energy: since renewable sources of electricity like wind and sun tend not to be constantly available, we need an efficient way to store the electricity; and since they may also not be available in the place where they are needed, we also need to be able to transmit the electricity efficiently.
The high surface area to volume ratio raises the possibility of creating “ultracapacitors” to replace chemical batteries. A capacitor is just a couple of charged conductors separated by an insulator (or “dielectric”). Connecting the two plates completes a circuit, discharging the plates and releasing the stored energy. The amount of energy which can be stored depends upon the surface area, the distance between the plates, and the type of dielectric. Conventional capacitors are used in electronic circuitry for example, but cannot hold a significant amount of energy like a battery of a similar size can. This all changes at the nano level because of the high surface area to volume ratio. Work at MIT's Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) has demonstrated the use of vertically aligned single-wall carbon nanotubes.
[Nanotechnology seems to be closer than I thought! After I had prepared this post, I came across an article in this week's Economist about a prototype hybrid which uses ultracapacitors for regenerative braking. The car was exhibited at the Detroit Auto Show by AFS Trinity and is based upon a Sauturn Vue. I then found it on the web. See for example http://business2-cnet.com.com/8300-10784_3-7-0.html?categoryId=2047.]
Nanotechnology also has applications in chemical batteries. For example, Toshiba has a prototype lithium-iron battery where the surface area of the lithium is dramatically increased and the battery can be safely charged in minutes. This may have application for electric cars, making it feasible to recharge at a roadside station like we currently fill up with gas. (Though a lower tech solution is just to switch out the battery as Israel is planning. I hope to post on electric car news on the next two Wednesdays.) Also, Stanford University announced a new process that may allow lithium-ion batteries, using silicon instead of carbon as the anode, to store 10 times as much energy as current batteries.
Instead of storing energy in the form of electricity or chemically in a battery, there is the possibility of storing hydrogen and using this to generate electricity in a fuel cell. Fuel cells rely on catalysts, and the high area to volume ratio of nanomaterials greatly increases the efficiency of fuel cells.
High Temperature Superconductivity (HTSC) offers the possibility of loss-free transmission of electricity over long distances. Current power grids lose about 20% of the energy, so this could be a huge benefit even with the present generation system. Imagine however the possibility of being able to transmit power to Hamburg from a solar power station in the Sahara! Superconductivity was first observed at temperatures close to absolute zero. Later, materials were found which exhibited HTSC, but “high temperature” is relative; we were still talking about -200 degrees centigrade. A cable made of carbon nanotubes exhibits superconductivity at normal temperatures.
HTSC also offers the possibility of better electric motors. Making the windings superconductive would not only eliminate the losses, making them more energy-efficient, but because there is no heat to dissipate the motors can also be made smaller and lighter.
Quantum dots are semiconductor nanostructures which promise much cheaper and more efficient photovoltaic materials. (Current solar panels typically convert only about 15% of the sun’s energy into electricity.)
The extremely high strength of some nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, has obvious advantages in reducing the weight, and hence energy efficiency, of cars, planes, etc. One thing which might not be so obvious is that it will enable us to make flywheels which will run at much higher speeds without disintegrating, which means that for any given size they can store more energy. One possible application of this is in regenerative braking. Current hybrids use a generator to convert kinetic energy recovered from braking into electricity which is stored in the battery, but the energy could also be stored kinetically in a flywheel. The Federation International de l’Automobile (FIA) has recently endorsed the use of such a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) for Formula 1 racing in 2009. I will probably post more on this.
Finally, GE has announced plans to produce a more efficient incandescent light bulb based on photonic band gap technology, which utilizes a nanostructured mix of materials of different refractive index materials to concentrate the radiation into the visible spectrum. Compared to CFLs this technology promises lower prices, familiar shape and size, and no disposal problems.
Nanotechnology is the science of very small particles, from 1 to 10 nanometers, a nanometer being an American billionth (10 to the power -9) of a meter. These have interesting properties because this is small enough for quantum mechanical effects to emerge and also because the ratio of surface area to volume gets greater as the size of the particles gets smaller. Both these aspects of nanotechnology present exciting possibilities in the fight against climate change.
The first four applications below relate to two major problems with renewable energy: since renewable sources of electricity like wind and sun tend not to be constantly available, we need an efficient way to store the electricity; and since they may also not be available in the place where they are needed, we also need to be able to transmit the electricity efficiently.
The high surface area to volume ratio raises the possibility of creating “ultracapacitors” to replace chemical batteries. A capacitor is just a couple of charged conductors separated by an insulator (or “dielectric”). Connecting the two plates completes a circuit, discharging the plates and releasing the stored energy. The amount of energy which can be stored depends upon the surface area, the distance between the plates, and the type of dielectric. Conventional capacitors are used in electronic circuitry for example, but cannot hold a significant amount of energy like a battery of a similar size can. This all changes at the nano level because of the high surface area to volume ratio. Work at MIT's Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) has demonstrated the use of vertically aligned single-wall carbon nanotubes.
[Nanotechnology seems to be closer than I thought! After I had prepared this post, I came across an article in this week's Economist about a prototype hybrid which uses ultracapacitors for regenerative braking. The car was exhibited at the Detroit Auto Show by AFS Trinity and is based upon a Sauturn Vue. I then found it on the web. See for example http://business2-cnet.com.com/8300-10784_3-7-0.html?categoryId=2047.]
Nanotechnology also has applications in chemical batteries. For example, Toshiba has a prototype lithium-iron battery where the surface area of the lithium is dramatically increased and the battery can be safely charged in minutes. This may have application for electric cars, making it feasible to recharge at a roadside station like we currently fill up with gas. (Though a lower tech solution is just to switch out the battery as Israel is planning. I hope to post on electric car news on the next two Wednesdays.) Also, Stanford University announced a new process that may allow lithium-ion batteries, using silicon instead of carbon as the anode, to store 10 times as much energy as current batteries.
Instead of storing energy in the form of electricity or chemically in a battery, there is the possibility of storing hydrogen and using this to generate electricity in a fuel cell. Fuel cells rely on catalysts, and the high area to volume ratio of nanomaterials greatly increases the efficiency of fuel cells.
High Temperature Superconductivity (HTSC) offers the possibility of loss-free transmission of electricity over long distances. Current power grids lose about 20% of the energy, so this could be a huge benefit even with the present generation system. Imagine however the possibility of being able to transmit power to Hamburg from a solar power station in the Sahara! Superconductivity was first observed at temperatures close to absolute zero. Later, materials were found which exhibited HTSC, but “high temperature” is relative; we were still talking about -200 degrees centigrade. A cable made of carbon nanotubes exhibits superconductivity at normal temperatures.
HTSC also offers the possibility of better electric motors. Making the windings superconductive would not only eliminate the losses, making them more energy-efficient, but because there is no heat to dissipate the motors can also be made smaller and lighter.
Quantum dots are semiconductor nanostructures which promise much cheaper and more efficient photovoltaic materials. (Current solar panels typically convert only about 15% of the sun’s energy into electricity.)
The extremely high strength of some nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, has obvious advantages in reducing the weight, and hence energy efficiency, of cars, planes, etc. One thing which might not be so obvious is that it will enable us to make flywheels which will run at much higher speeds without disintegrating, which means that for any given size they can store more energy. One possible application of this is in regenerative braking. Current hybrids use a generator to convert kinetic energy recovered from braking into electricity which is stored in the battery, but the energy could also be stored kinetically in a flywheel. The Federation International de l’Automobile (FIA) has recently endorsed the use of such a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) for Formula 1 racing in 2009. I will probably post more on this.
Finally, GE has announced plans to produce a more efficient incandescent light bulb based on photonic band gap technology, which utilizes a nanostructured mix of materials of different refractive index materials to concentrate the radiation into the visible spectrum. Compared to CFLs this technology promises lower prices, familiar shape and size, and no disposal problems.
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