your questions about solar energy generator wikipedia
Your Questions About Solar Energy Generator Wikipedia
James asks…
could the weight of a boat generate energy?
in other words can you harness the energy from the rise and fall of the tide with a cable tied to a very heavy boat then to a pier generate energy? or used to pull a flywheel or something? would the weight of the boat pulling on the cable be able to wind something or spin a flywheel?
what about the simple fact that the boat lowering down would pull the cable with the force of the weight of the boat?
admin answers:
Yes, and New York has installed them on the bottom of the Hudson River.
In this case they are using the in flow and out flow of the tide to generate electricity. The installation was shown on the Discovery Channel and the first one installed was bent because they didn’t plan on the force being so great.
There are wave generators and have been for a while they use up and down motion of the water to move a piston harnessed to a wheel that turns a generator making electrical energy.
Since the waves always move you won’t have to worry about not having enough windy days or not. The problem is that if you are not careful with the design ti will break too easily. This is using wave motion not tidal energy.
If you wanted to create a tide generator then you should go to the Bay of Fundy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Fundy), which has over 12′ tides each day.
The tides themselves are not that strong, they are only dependent on the gravitational energy of the moon and the sun. The heat of the sun drives the motion of waves and the winds that energy is more consistent and reliable. A more efficient conversion is to take the energy from the original source (the sun) in the first place. Solar panels are a good example of this and recent work in carbon fibers have increased the efficiency of them, once the price of making carbon nanofibers drops (or the price of energy continues to rise) it will become worthy of mass scale production.
There is an idea to use electrical generators on the bottom of the ocean just off the Eastern shore of North America in the middle of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a reliable current that constantly runs and the turbines can be made large enough so that they would move slowly so as to not harm fish. It would be just like putting windmills on the floor of the ocean. The only problem of course is making sure to not let the water get in and salt water is very corrosive. A magnetic induction system could solve that problem though.
Steven asks…
what is the political and social effects of geothermal energy?
what is the economical cost ?
what is the opportunity cost?
please help!
admin answers:
Geothermal power requires no fuel (except for pumps), and is therefore immune to fuel cost fluctuations, but capital costs are significant. Drilling accounts for over half the costs, and exploration of deep resources entails significant risks. A typical well doublet (extraction and injection wells) in Nevada can support 4.5 megawatts (MW) and costs about $10 million to drill, with a 20% failure rate.
In total, electrical plant construction and well drilling cost about 2-5 million € per MW of electrical capacity, while the break–even price is 0.04-0.10 € per kW·h. Enhanced geothermal systems tend to be on the high side of these ranges, with capital costs above $4 million per MW and break–even above $0.054 per kW·h in 2007. Direct heating applications can use much shallower wells with lower temperatures, so smaller systems with lower costs and risks are feasible. Residential geothermal heat pumps with a capacity of 10 kilowatt (kW) are routinely installed for around $1–3,000 per kilowatt. District heating systems may benefit from economies of scale if demand is geographically dense, as in cities, but otherwise piping installation dominates capital costs. The capital cost of one such district heating system in Bavaria was estimated at somewhat over 1 million € per MW. Direct systems of any size are much simpler than electric generators and have lower maintenance costs per kW·h, but they must consume electricity to run pumps and compressors. Some governments subsidize geothermal projects.
Geothermal power is highly scalable: from a rural village to an entire city.
A geothermal heat pump can extract enough heat from shallow ground anywhere in the world to provide home heating, but industrial applications need the higher temperatures of deep resources. The thermal efficiency and profitability of electricity generation is particularly sensitive to temperature. The more demanding applications receive the greatest benefit from a high natural heat flux, ideally from using a hot spring. The next best option is to drill a well into a hot aquifer. If no adequate aquifer is available, an artificial one may be built by injecting water to hydraulically fracture the bedrock. This last approach is called hot dry rock geothermal energy in Europe, or enhanced geothermal systems in North America. Much greater potential may be available from this approach than from conventional tapping of natural aquifers.
Estimates of the electricity generating potential of geothermal energy vary six–fold, from .035 to 2 TW depending on the scale of investments. Upper estimates of geothermal resources assume enhanced geothermal wells as deep as 10 kilometres (6 mi), whereas existing geothermal wells are rarely more than 3 kilometres (2 mi) deep. Wells of this depth are now common in the petroleum industry. The deepest research well in the world, the Kola superdeep borehole, is 12 kilometres (7 mi) deep. This record has recently been imitated by commercial oil wells, such as Exxon’s Z-12 well in the Chayvo field, Sakhalin.
System efficiency does not materially affect operational costs as it would for plants that use fuel, but it does affect return on the capital used to build the plant. In order to produce more energy than the pumps consume, electricity generation requires relatively hot fields and specialized heat cycles.[citation needed] Because geothermal power does not rely on variable sources of energy, unlike, for example, wind or solar, its capacity factor can be quite large – up to 96% has been demonstrated. The global average was 73% in 2005.
For more, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_World_Geothermal_Congress
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
Your Questions About Solar Energy Generator Wikipedia
Michael asks…
What is the establishment cost for a coal burning factory?
I need this for a science assignment. Holy crap do I hate science.
So yeah, what is the establishment cost to set up a coal burning factory? (Where the coal is transferred into energy)
admin answers:
The current establishment cost of a coal fired power station is about $2000 per kilowatt of power produced. Over a 50 year life; this is quite low compared with establishment costs for wind and solar power generation, and a lot (hundreds) of wind generators are needed to produce the same power output of a large coal powered generator. This is why it is proving difficult to replace coal for large scale power generation.
Here’s a wiki ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station
Charles asks…
Year 12 Physics – How do generators and transformers work?
I have a basic idea but am having a little trouble understanding it completely – so i can answer abstract questions in texts… and the textbook is just confusing.
Anyone want to explain a little?
admin answers:
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled electrical conductors. A changing current in the first circuit (the primary) creates a changing magnetic field; in turn, this magnetic field induces a changing voltage in the second circuit (the secondary). By adding a load to the secondary circuit, one can make current flow in the transformer, thus transferring energy from one circuit to the other.
The voltage in the secondary circuit is in general different from the voltage in the primary circuit.
In electricity generation, an electrical generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy, generally using electromagnetic induction. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by a motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. The source of mechanical energy may be a reciprocating or turbine steam engine, water falling through a turbine or waterwheel, an internal combustion engine, a wind turbine, a hand crank, the sun or solar energy, compressed air or any other source of mechanical energy.
In electricity generation, an electrical generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy, generally using electromagnetic induction. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by a motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. The source of mechanical energy may be a reciprocating or turbine steam engine, water falling through a turbine or waterwheel, an internal combustion engine, a wind turbine, a hand crank, the sun or solar energy, compressed air or any other source of mechanical energy.
Wikipedia
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
Your Questions About Solar Energy Generator Wikipedia
Ken asks…
What are the best three electrical energy suppliers?
[Location no object] Can anyone give me the details of three electrical energy suppliers that offer the best value for money?
And any additional details about the company…(Website etc…)
Thank-you!
admin answers:
Ecologically speaking
the Sun
Solar energy is the radiant light and heat from the Sun that has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation along with secondary solar resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass account for most of the available renewable energy on Earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.
Solar power technologies provide electrical generation by means of heat engines or photovoltaics. Once converted its uses are only limited by human ingenuity. A partial list of solar applications includes space heating and cooling through solar architecture, potable water via distillation and disinfection, daylighting, hot water, thermal energy for cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes.
Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute sunlight. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels, solar thermal collectors, with electrical or mechanical equipment, to convert sunlight into useful outputs. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.
Http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/solar/en/index.htm
Wind
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. At the end of 2008, worldwide nameplate capacity of wind-powered generators was 120.8 gigawatts.[1] Although wind produces only about 1.5% of worldwide electricity use,[1] it is growing rapidly, having doubled in the three years between 2005 and 2008. In several countries it has achieved relatively high levels of penetration, accounting for approximately 19% of electricity production in Denmark, 10% in Spain and Portugal, and 7% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland in 2008.
Http://www.milwind.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
and Waves,(as in ocean waves)
Ocean waves are caused by the wind as it blows across the sea. Waves are a powerful source of energy.
The problem is that it’s not easy to harness this energy and convert it into electricity in large amounts. Thus, wave power stations are rare.
Http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/wave.htm
http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/guide/wave/index.cfm
Hydro-electricity
Today the largest use of hydropower is for the creation of hydroelectricity, which allows low cost energy to be used at long distances from the water source. Hydroelectricity is electricity generated by hydropower, i.e., the production of power through use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, the project produces no direct waste, and has a considerably different output level of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) than fossil fuel powered energy plants. Worldwide, hydroelectricity supplied an estimated 715,000 MWe in 2005. This was approximately 19% of the world’s electricity (up from 16% in 2003), and accounted for over 63% of electricity from renewable sources.[1]
Some jurisdictions do not consider large hydro projects to be a sustainable energy source, due to the human, economic and environmental impacts of dam construction and maintenance.
Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower
Daniel asks…
where do you find info on converting fruit waste into energy?
ok im in 8th grade advance science and i want to do a science fair project on converting fruit waste into energy but im having issues on finding Information help me please???!!
or if you have a better idea on how to wow the judges but have the experiment be something that has to do with environment that would be much appreciated.
admin answers:
There are 3 ways to utilize organic waste for energy.
1 biodiesel -corn/soybean/any oil
2 methane -mostly animal waste
3 ethanol -sugar/starch vegetables
Since fruit has a high sugar content you will want to produce ethanol. You will want to search the web for wine making(drinking alcohol is wine) The process is simple, just add water and yeast to the container and keep it sealed at room temperature.
Tip: If your fruit waste is clean i would put it strait into a container. If its not, I would cook it first to make sure all the bacteria is killed. You wan the only think living in the container to be yeast otherwise it wont work.
Here are the steps to energy production:
1. Fruit waste
2. Yeast creates ethanol from sugars
3. Remove Juice (compost the solids)
4. Distill the juice( to seperate the ethanol from the other stuff)
— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still
— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_still
5. Burn the ethanol with alcohol burner (you can use a peice of cotton rope poked through the top of a container filled with ethanol)
This would be a very cool project. The alcohol burner is simple, but it represents ethanol being used in a car, generator, etc.
For a first attempt you may want to add some sugar with your fruit waste just to make sure it works. Once you have the process down you can remove the sugar.
This is a hard project. If you run into stumbles, ask lots of questions. If your project doesn’t go fully as planed, explain to the judges the process, what you learned and what you would change.
Best of Luck!
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
