refractal

There is a belief that we have reached a new paradigm in the cost of energy [see also: historical us gas prices]. Whether or not this outlook is, in large part, a consequence of a hysterical assessment of political instability in the Middle East and a nonstop flood of images and words heralding the end of oil, it has certainly embedded itself within the world’s imagination. Combining with the reinvigorated consciousness and concern about the planet’s ecological future that emerged around Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (May 2006), there has been a  5x increase in sustainable energy investments, from USD 33B in 2004 to USD 148B in 2007. (Aside: Do global capital flows correlate to the underlying currents of the zeitgeist or just to the lunatic fringe of a handful of tightly wound technocrats? )

These investments have led to an array of artifacts that all seem to imagine some different type of energy and cultural future for the world. They would have to, in some ways, do this. They are the products not only of the lives of the engineers whose time is consumed in their design and implementation, but as part of a grand strategy for the fund managers who provide the capital for their development. Each party has some claim to the future; a future towards which all their efforts are directed to unfold. But what do they dream along the way to the future?

Hulking Iron-Nineteenth Century-Chic

(See also a view from the Pelamis Nose Camera)

A Scottish company, Pelamis Wave Power, is launching the first commercial ocean energy project this summer off of the coast of Portugal. A single snake, which is 120m long and 3.5m in diameter, must get rolled and buffeted by the waves for the internal pistons to compress and generate electricity. It is an interesting frontier upon which this device is deployed. A creature so much so of human construction placed and asked to integrate into the torrent of the ocean, bobbing up and down. It is a violent frontier that we scarce recall, the explosions inside our engine’s pistons, the rolling of the iron snake as the light bulb comes on. We have in truth forgotten the moments of energy creation.

Three snakelike wave-power generators built by Edinburgh’s Pelamis Wave Power will deliver 2.25 megawatts through an undersea cable to the Portuguese coastal town of Aguçadoura. Within a year, another 28 generators should come online there, boosting the capacity to 22.5 MW. That may be a trickle of power, but the project represents a new push into wave and tidal power as governments eye the oceans as a way to meet their renewable energy targets.

On the other side of the globe, New Zealand already gets 60 percent of its electric power from renewables but wants to raise that figure to an amazing 90 percent by 2025. Among the ocean-power projects under consideration is an array of 200 tidal turbines that would be anchored to the seafloor across the mouth of the 900‑square-kilometer Kaipara Harbor near Auckland. Crest Energy, the project’s Auckland-based backer, estimates that the turbines would yield 200 MW, or 3 percent of the country’s energy demand. Getting ocean-power projects going in New Zealand was made easier thanks to an initiative introduced in October 2007, says Anthony J. Hopkins, codirector of Crest Energy. It places a 10-year moratorium on the construction of new fossil fuel power plants by state-owned utilities and creates an emissions-trading scheme. “This levels the playing field quite a bit,” says Hopkins.
[link]

Tracing circles, its only divine right

The Crown Estate of England has decided to acquire the prototype of the world’s biggest wind turbine, Clipper’s 7.5 megawatt MBE turbine. The turbine, known as the Britannia, will be located in deep waters near the UK. The marine interests of The Crown Estate include almost the entire UK territorial seabed out to 12 nautical miles, about 55% of the UK’s coastal foreshore. The blades on these mills extend at least 50m in the radius they draw pulling the current from the air.

Crystalline obelisques

The above pictured solar tower in Seville is illuminated by an array of 600 reflectors used to concentrate the sun’s energy. This second sun emerges from the landscape atop a forty story collecting tower where fluids are turned to steam in order to power a generator. The mirrors appear almost as supplicants to the tower, keeping a daily vigil of perfect alignment betwixt the two suns, transferring one to the other. The pictures make it out to be quite an impressive and beautiful artifact. The sort of thing that would make one proud were they to dig it up after we all kill ourselves.

The 11MW PS10 solar power plant will generate 24.3GW/hr per year of clean energy. It will have 624 heliostats that track the sun, each with a 120m² surface area parabolic mirror. The mirrors are focused on a 115m tower, heating water pipes that provide 200m² of water-cooled energy exchange surface area. The thermal energy produces steam which drives a turbine to generate electricity. During the day, the power drives the air conditioners that cool buildings in the city of Seville.

Heat is also stored as steam to allow generation at half load for an hour or longer after dark. This is a relatively short storage time, partially because the tower uses water rather than molten salt for heat storage. The water is held in thermally clad tanks and reaches temperatures of 250°C – 255°C (instead of around 600°C for systems using salt). Solucar has opted for water to reduce fatigue on the system components and to ensure simplicity and robustness for the project. [link]

Skimming along the current with a thunder-bang dam

There is a sort of elegant absence to this project. Located in a scene of deep wilderness, to come upon it with no one around, to see such a grand alignment of human will with the environment in the midst of a frightening human absence, would be rather sublime.

The dam, which would be located over a gorge at Lake Lagoda in north-west Russia, includes a cup-shaped spinnaker sail, believed to be the first of its kind, which will generate renewable energy by funnelling the wind through an attached turbine.

The spinnaker shape is similar to the mainsail of a yacht, and is thought to be particularly effective in capturing wind.

Project architect Laurie Chetwood, said that the shape of the sail was influenced by functionality and a desire to produce something “sculptural”.

He added: “The sail looks like a bird dipping its beak into the water, which will be much less of a blot on this beautiful and unblemished landscape.

“But it is also highly effective at capturing the wind because it replicates the work of a dam and doesn’t let the wind escape in the way it does using traditional propellers.” [link]