Renewable energy sources
Biomass and alternative fuels
Fuel cells and hydrogen as a fuel
- An end to the energy crisis?
- Gazing in the crystal ball
- A hydrogen-powered island
- Talking about a revolution
- Iceland's energy revolution
- Full steam ahead
Ground source/geothermal energy
Solar power
Wind power
Water power
Alternative technologies
Biomass and alternative fuels
Imagine a world without electricity
Half the world's population has no access to modern energy. No power lines, no electric heat or light. No gas pipelines, no cookers or instant hot water.
For these people cooking involves a daily search for firewood, a fuel that is not only inefficient, but also health-threatening. Indoor air pollution causes 1.8 million deaths a year and the developing world's reliance on firewood, dung and charcoal for fuel is a major cause of the high global levels of the greenhouse gas CO2.
Poverty and energy are inextricably linked. Poverty cannot be reduced without energy to increase production and income, create jobs and reduce drudgery. For example, collecting fresh water and firewood takes people in some third world countries up to four hours a day.
In the developing world, the greatest killer of children is acute respiratory infection. Only by dealing with smoke from cooking fires in the home can this issue be tackled.
One organisation working hard on these challenges is the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), a British charity focusing on low-tech answers to the problems faced by the world's poor.
ITDG has worked with ordinary people to develop bio-mass cooking stoves that burn firewood, charcoal or dried dung more efficiently. In Kenya, women of the Masai tribe have produced a simple cooking hood to reduce indoor smoke pollution. In Peru, ITDG has helped villagers harness water power with 'micro' hydro-electricity generators.
The charity would like to see more investment in small-scale renewable energy schemes, such as wind turbines for African villages. Where renewable energy isn't a practical solution, ITDG suggest greater use of diesel generators and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) cookers.
Do you want ketchup with that?
A major UK supermarket chain is starting to use old cooking oil, left over from frying doughnuts and fish and chips, to power its fleet of delivery trucks.
The store sells a gut-busting 46 million doughnuts a year and around 250,000 portions of fish and chips. That leaves a massive 350,000 gallons of used cooking oil, which the high-street giant aims to put to good use - as biodiesel*.
Lorries delivering food between Tyne and Wear and Sheffield are to be the first to try out the new fuel, and spotting a lorry using the new fuel could be as simple as following your nose.
Biodiesel gives off an interesting smell, explains a spokesperson. There's apparently a very strong, sweet whiff. But it's completely non-toxic and adds no new carbon dioxide (CO2) to the Earth's atmosphere.
The pilot scheme is being run by Envirodiesel. 'It's not rocket science to make diesel from vegetable oils,' explained company spokesperson Jane Myatt. 'We collect the waste oil, clean it up, filter it, wash it, take out the contaminants and just add methanol.' With around 30 million diesel engine vehicles in Britain, and 70 million litres of cooking oil wasted in the country each year, this could be a marriage made in heaven. And doughnut eaters and chip shop fiends can scoff away in the knowledge that they are doing their bit for the environment.
*Source: Daily Mirror, October 28, 2002
Waste not want not
Biogas, a form of methane fuel made from human or animal waste - yes, we're talking poo here - is being put to good use in the third world, where poorer rural areas in countries like India and Nepal are discovering its 'Deep Green Energy' benefits. Methane is naturally produced by the decomposition process. American charity SeedTree* promotes biogas in mountainous Nepal (home of Mount Everest) and reckons poo is the future.
Biogas systems provide clean-burning fuel for house stoves and lamps, saving women the back-breaking work of searching for scarce wood. It not only prevents forests from being cut down, but it protects health too, as smoke from cooking indoors with firewood often leads to lung and throat diseases. The leftover dung can be used as fertiliser to help grow vegetables - proof that biogas isn't a waste of time!
*Source: www.seedtree.org
Nutty idea
Think of macadamia nuts and you probably think of a tasty snack. Well, think again, because people in Queensland, Australia, have started using the nuts' shells in a canny new plan to save money while going green.
The scheme is a joint project between a macadamia nut company, which is happy to get rid of its waste product, and the local energy supplier, who will burn 5,000 tonnes of shells a year to generate enough electricity to supply over 1,200 households. Eco-unfriendly greenhouse gas emissions will also be cut down by around 9,500 tonnes. Well worth shelling out for!
Source: Green Futures, published by Forum for the Future
Fuel cells and hydrogen as a fuel
An end to the energy crisis?
The dream of cheap and plentiful energy was brought a step closer recently when two major motor manufacturers demonstrated cars powered by hydrogen.
The cars were prototypes and no-one expects to see hydrogen-powered cars on general sale for the next few years, but by 2010 it might be a different story.
Hydrogen is the most basic and lightest element in the universe. When burned, it emits pure water and heat. The hydrogen must be generated from renewable electricity to be carbon-free. Hydrogen-powered vehicles use fuel cell technology. Fuel cells convert hydrogen to electrical power by burning it (see below) and offer a clean air future. The gases emitted by cars that cause global warming could become a thing of the past.
Europe could take the lead in this kind of technology. British and European companies are spending millions on fuel cell research in the race to be the first to put an affordable fuel cell car on the market.
Gazing in the crystal ball
In Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy of science fiction books, the future was going to see nuclear energy replace fossil fuels. Even waste paper bins would be nuclear powered, disposing of the day's trash in a single flash of energy.
That future looks a little less likely now. But late twentieth century fears about fossil fuels running out also looks equally far-fetched. Two technologies offer the best guess for our energy future: renewable energies - based on wind and water power. And fuel cells.
Fuel cell technology uses hydrogen to produce electricity (see animation). It's clean energy, but hydrogen is a potentially explosive gas and any fuel cell solution is going to have to find a way around that problem.
Renewable energy should offer the UK an ideal solution. Britain is the windiest country in Europe, with a coastline that offers huge potential for wave and tidal power. The problem is that the best areas for wind and water energy production are also areas of outstanding natural beauty. Wind farms in particular have stirred up opposition from people who say that the turbines are ugly and noisy. Proposals for tidal power, such as the scheme for a tidal barrage across the Severn Estuary between Somerset and south Wales, have attracted criticism because of the environmental side effects.
The latest proposals for wind energy are focusing on offshore sites such as the Scroby Sands wind farm off the Norfolk coast. This scheme will provide electricity for some 50,000 homes using 39 big turbines. When built, it will be one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world. There are also new offshore wave energy projects including a submerged 300kW tidal turbine off the coast of Devon and a wave snake which generates power as it bobs up and down on the surface of the North Sea off Scotland.
A hydrogen-powered island
Engineers plan to turn a Scottish island into a 'future lab', investigating the possibility of a hydrogen-powered tomorrow on the island of Islay off the west coast of Scotland. Islay already has a wave power station and the plan is to use surplus power to create hydrogen, which could then be used in fuel cells in other parts of the island.
'The feasibility of large-scale hydrogen production and use on the island is not in doubt,' said Professor Sinclair Gair of Napier University, Edinburgh. 'We know we can convert vehicles to use hydrogen fuel cells. The next move is to power a public building which we think we have already identified in Islay. The intention is to show everyone where the future is, and in 10 or 20 years it is going to be a hydrogen future.'
Islay was picked because of its groundbreaking Limpet wave power station in the village of Portnahaven. Built by the Inverness company Wavegen, the Limpet is the first wave-driven power station to feed renewable energy directly into the national grid.
Talking about a revolution
It's being hailed as a possible clean, green future fuel that should be powering homes, cars and public transport in the years to come. Hydrogen (a gas which can be released from water, natural gas or methanol) doesn't give off dodgy emissions that worsen global warming, and can be used portably as fuel cells.
Bus journeys powered by hydrogen could be close at hand in many European countries (even in London), as well as hydrogen-run rickshaws in Asian cities, and even the world's first hydrogen go-kart! Also expect to see hydrogen-powered mobile phones and laptops, which won't need recharging so often, and everything from hydrogen-run power drills and vacuum cleaners to barbecues coming onto the market. Source: Green Futures, published by Forum for the Future
Fuel cell - an energy conversion device that converts hydrogen and oxygen into water, producing electricity and heat in the process.
Iceland's energy revolution
Iceland sits on the junction of the mid-Atlantic tectonic plates. These are the building-blocks of the Earth's crust. A plate junction is not a peaceful place to be. Plates push together, causing earthquakes (as in California and Japan), or they pull apart, causing volcanic geysers and fumaroles.
Iceland has the lot, but this does provide an endless supply of energy. Icelanders use hot water out of the Earth to heat their homes and businesses. It's stored in enormous tanks on top of one of the capital Reykjavik's few hills, to allow gravity to distribute it around the town.
Now the country plans to use geothermal energy to separate hydrogen from water, and use the gas to power its buses and cars. The first hydrogen filling station opened in 2003. Four of Reykjavik's buses have been converted to fuel cell technology. This is where hydrogen powers the fuel cell, the cell generates electricity and the current turns the wheels.
Iceland has the highest per-person greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Using geothermal energy, the aim is to bring Iceland's 180,000 private cars into the scheme, followed by its fishing fleet, and to reduce these harmful emissions.
Sources: The Guardian, 25 April 2003; BBC News; Times Newspapers
Geothermal energy - power generated by harnessing the heat beneath the Earth's surface. Wells are used to pipe steam and hot water from deep within the Earth, up to the surface. The hot water is then used to drive turbines and generate electricity. Geyser - a hot spring that erupts from time to time, throwing water into the air. Fumarole - a vent or opening through which steam and volcanic gases escape from the ground.
Full steam ahead
Steam trains may be a thing of the past, but now steam buses are all the rage! Transport for London has introduced three hydrogen-powered buses on one of its central routes, the first of these buses in the UK.
The buses look like ordinary single-deckers, but are run on cylinders of hydrogen gas stored in fuel cells on top of the vehicle. The only emission is water, which leaves the exhaust as a trail of harmless steam. Part of a two-year European experiment, the trial should reveal whether this pricey fuel cell technology can become more efficient and reduce pollution. Mayor Ken Livingstone is a fan: 'These buses are the greenest, cleanest and quietest ever and they will bring the sight of steam back to the capital.'
Source: BBC News
Ground source/geothermal energy
Power in the hole
1,000 households across Britain could soon have a low-cost, low-carbon heating system based on extracting natural heat from a hole in the back garden. An electricity company wants to install a ground-source heat pump using a length of looped pipe to collect the solar energy stored naturally at a low temperature in the ground around a building.
A mixture of water and antifreeze is pushed through the pipe while the pump helps bring it up to a useful temperature of 20°C. The company claims the running cost of such a system is about £225 a year, compared with a typical bill of £335 for a traditional gas condensing boiler*. At the same time carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from generating energy to heat homes would be halved.
The ideal place to install the new pump system would be in grouped housing units, blocks of flats or old people's homes - places where a number of households could share the start-up costs of the system. *Source: The Guardian, September 30, 2002
Solar power
Here comes the Sun
Solar power may seem a bit sci-fi but this energy-efficient way of using the Sun's rays to create light is proving it pays to go green.
Forty bus stops across south London are now lit using solar power as part of a trial scheme. Energy captured from the Sun using a specially fitted canopy will be stored in batteries by day to light up the bus stop signs and timetables after dark. The Northumberland village of Wark is the first to use solar-powered streetlights, which are less bright than normal but work well in areas with a poor electricity supply. On the M4 near Swansea, in South Wales, you will find the UK's largest solar-powered motorway sign, and Yattendon Primary School in West Berkshire has turned to the Sun as a cheap way of powering the amber flashing safety lights outside school.
Sources: BBC News; Green Futures, published by Forum for the Future; West Berkshire Council
Wind power
Offshore on target
There's enough energy to power the whole of the British Isles and it's just blowing in the wind.
The government has given the go-ahead for offshore wind farms in three areas off the UK coast. Wind turbines in the Wash on the east coast, the Thames Estuary, and between the Solway Firth and north Wales on the west coast could soon be producing 8%* of Britain's electricity.
Land-based wind farms have been slow to develop because of opposition from local people, who see the turbines as ugly and noisy. Offshore projects wouldn't face that problem and the shallow sea in the three areas chosen would make large wind farms a practical policy.
'In theory the three areas could source enough electricity to power the whole of Britain,' said energy minister Brian Wilson.
The water in these coastal seas is six to eight metres deep. Each turbine would be over 60 metres high with blades over 30 metres long and would produce three megawatts of power.
*Source: The Guardian, November 23, 2002
Water power
Eco Venue: The Electric Mountain
When it was first opened, Dinorwig Power Station was regarded as one of the world's most imaginative engineering and environmental projects. Nearly twenty years later it has yet to see many rivals.
This is a pumped storage power system, using water from a lake high in Snowdonia to drive its six turbines. There are 16km of underground tunnels, deep below the Welsh mountains. The station's generators stand in Europe's largest man-made cavern.
It's used as a peak power supplier, for example during the interval at the cup final, when millions of people switch on the kettle to make a cup of tea.
Dinorwig's reversible pumps/turbines are capable of reaching maximum generation in less than 16 seconds. Using off-peak electricity, usually during the night, the six units are reversed as pumps to transport water back up to the mountain reservoir.
Electric Mountain is the project's visitor centre in Llanberis, where visitors are taken on the Dinorwig Underground Tour.
Go to www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig/d9.htm for more information.
Alternative technologies
ECO Venue: Centre for Alternative Technology
The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth, Wales, has come a long way from the collection of tents and huts that began the alternative technology project in the early 1970s. Visitors now enter the seven-acre site using a water-balanced cliff railway that climbs a 180-foot slope up into the heart of the project.
Power comes from wind and water generation, and organically grown vegetables are nurtured by the recycled waste produced by residents and visitors. Visitors can watch their own personal contribution make its way through plastic tubing and into the collection bucket!
There's a lot for visitors to do, from making waves in the tidal energy tank to exploring the transport maze, inspecting the livestock in the farm or getting a mole's eye view of life beneath the soil.
Buildings on the site are examples of what can be done with alternative materials and designs and none more so than the Eco Cabins. These are self-contained self-catering residential units. Each cabin has living space and classroom facilities - but the real lesson comes from making the connection between the power you are using and the slowly spinning wind turbines outside.
For more information, see www.cat.org.uk
