Your Questions About Solar Energy Generator Wikipedia

admin answers:

So you want a project for undergraduate school. I assume this is a research project as opposed to an engineering assignment.

It would be interesting to do some overall research to frame your efforts. For example:

Worldwide, how much energy is consumed per year in 2007 in the form of fossil fuels in nonrenewable resources: gas, oil, and coal? “In 2004, the worldwide power consumption of the human race was 15 TW (= 1.5 x 1013 W) with 86.5% from burning fossil fuels.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption

How does the Western lifestyle effect fossil fuel consumption?

Given the maximum energy potential of these fossil fuel sources how efficient is our use? For example, some gas engines are very inefficient in converting gas to enegy? (also some home heating furnaces are very efficient.)

What is the breakdown in categories of energy use: transportation, manufacturing, farming, heating, air conditioning, household and business consumption of electricity, and so on?

If we were able to replace conventional braking systems with regenerative brakes that salvage 20% of a vehicles momentum energy, how much energy would we save per year?

What are practical forms of renewable energy? Wind; Tidal; Solar to Steam; Temperature differential in oceans, different depths of earth; or at different altitudes on land; Solar Electric panels; Geothermal; River Dam; bio fuels; Solar furnaces (cooking, heating, thermal storage); and so on?

What is the cost of each practical approach? What’s the initial investment? What’s the ongoing cost? If the cost of a killowatt- hour of electricity goes to $0.80, what technologies become cost effective?

Are we running out of fossil fuels? (Check out “Peak Oil”)

How can governments encourage renewable energy? (Check out what Germany has done with the solar cell energy price supports.)

Fossil fuels have been the cheapest form of energy, but that’s likely to change in the next decade. What would it take to replace all of our enegy dependence on fossil fuels with different technologies?

Before you invest a lot of time with a particular technology, I’d make sure that the renewable energy solution is efficient and can scale up relative to other alternatives. For example, collecting heaps of manure to manufacture gas may not be competitive with more efficient alternatives. The manure may also be more valuable as a fertilizer (since fossil fuels for chemical fertilizers may eventually be in short supply).

Wind Generators, Hydroelectric, Electric Solar Panels, Solar to Steam, Bio Fuels, and Geothermal have all proven to be cost effective in many places. It would be an interesting question to determine what the fixed capital investment and the ongoing costs of each approach will be when the cost per killowatt hour of electricity increases by multiples of the current costs. What percentage of each technology will be used as the cost of energy increases?

Higher capital cost and higher ongoing costs of different technologies can be justified when energy costs increase. When we exhaust most opportunities for wind power, then perhaps solar cells may prove to be financially viable. It would be interesting to see the combinations of technologies that will become viable as we run out of nonrenewable energy sources.

What would it take to replace all of the fossil fuels used in the world with proven technologies?

Another question is how do we move all of this energy around? Fossil fuels pack a lot of energy in a small space.

What is the efficiency and cost of a fuel cell?

Brazil has been doing some interesting things with alternative fuels for vehicles. However, battery power looks like a very practical alternative.

Good luck!!

admin answers:

Turbines of various types drive the generators that produce most of the electric power used in all parts of the world.

Coal is used to generate electricity by first burning the coal to heat a boiler that produces steam. The steam is used to drive a turbine which drives a generator to produce electricity. Oil, natural gas and bio gas are used to generate electricity using a turbine in the same way, but they can also be used to generate electricity using an internal combustion engine or by driving a turbine directly, using the heated gaseous products of their combustion,

Nuclear reactors produce heat to generate electricity using a steam turbine.

Hydroelectric power is usually generated by turbines that are driven by the force of water flowing from a higher elevation to a lower elevation through a water turbine.

The machines that generate electricity using the force of the wind are called wind turbines.

Solar energy can be concentrated and directed with mirrors to heat water to drive steam turbines.

“A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. … A working fluid contains potential energy (pressure head) and kinetic energy (velocity head). The fluid may be compressible or incompressible. Several physical principles are employed by turbines to collect this energy.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine