Dont forget about the small to medium wind.. Solar has its virtues but wind is a more concentrated form of energy flow and costs less per kilowatt of install.. Even if there are photovoltaic panels on a roof. some nice vertical axis wind turbines can be mounted along north facing walls without shading them... If you have sufficient grounds at your facility you could have a small scale solar thermal generation system that could provide excellent training opportunities!.. It doesnt have to be huge a few heliostats and a small boiler system.. Then.. Food wastes and maybe even some local agricultural crop or waste could be feedstock for a digester to help fire the boiler... This providing another excellent training resource at your facility.. People can learn the operation principals of solar thermal plants and anaerobic digesters with a hands on approach with this equipment which could return a profit to the university!.. universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-make-large-purchase-solar-energy-partner-frontier-renewables Growing a shade tolerant crop underneath solar panels is an excellent way of making better use of land... Perhaps even some small to medium scale wind turbines to harness that energy that would otherwise go wasted.. To meet our goals and answer the challenges of a sustainable society means we are going to be using many different technologies differently as the situation requires.. The intermittent nature of some renewable energies means we must be prepared to accept the gift at any time. The systems we design must be resilient and flexible to respond to the ever changing variables. solardaily/reports/Research_Underway_For_Companion_Plants_To_PV_999.html Wind power is making a great contribution to our energy portfolio... There is much room for further growth though.. Remember dirty energy like coal, oil, gas and nuclear is subsidized 8 times more than clean energy like wind, wave, solar and biofuels.. Let your government representatives know that this is going to change now... takepart/article/2014/08/18/forget-fracking-wind-energy-prices-have-hit-record-low?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2014-08-18 Agroforestry is more a more productive agricultural system that protects and repairs watersheds which protects our water from contamination... Planting trees in the city and suburban landscape can also make significant improvements in the water quality that runs off into our streams and ground water.. Keeping pollutants out of the area we source our drinking water from is good sense.. sciencedaily/releases/2014/03/140327111651.htm Hybrid plants offer the promise of great efficiency... A power generation and desalinization system are complimentary to each other.. The cooling water that is heated by the power generation operations is then fed into the desalinization plant at an elevated temperature... This saving energy.. If the desalinization plant yielded the salts as a ore to extract the valuable substances out of it that would be a significant improvement in the operation... If a steam engine or turbine could be developed to be so robust that the salt water directly flashed into steam could be run through it as the working fluid this would be effectively merging the two operations.. Power generation and desalinization, as a single process.. This would greatly raise the thermal efficiency of the system... spacedaily/reports/Reducing_water_scarcity_possible_by_2050_999.html The elimination or at least significant reduction of food waste could be a large step towards our goals of a sustainable society... If it has to be discarded then a better system getting these materials into anaerobic digesters would at least yield some clean renewable power... ecowatch/2014/04/03/just-eat-it-documentary-food-waste/ Jatropha is an excellent crop for the greening of our deserts.. This plant could provide valuable feedstock for biodiesel and provide all the benefits of greening an area all on unused land! thecropsite/news/16048/jatropha-is-base-for-sustainable-biodiesel-advance Camelina was selected by the DESC because it does not compete with food crops, has been proven to reduce carbon emissions by more than 80 percent, and has already been successfully tested in a commercial airline test flight. In addition, camelina has naturally high oil content, is drought tolerant and requires less fertiliser and herbicides. It is an excellent rotation crop with wheat, and it can also grow on marginal land. - See more at: thecropsite/news/4510/supplying-navy-with-camelina-jet-fuel#sthash.hzSfuIBB.dpuf
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 22:05:58 +0000
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