Alternative Power Thread

So what does everybody think the next major supply or energy/fuel will be? This can be anything, including research into things that havent even been used yet. Like, well.........plastic fuel? I dont know

I gotta say the sun is going to be our best bet. As i said in another thread, the sun gives us more energy in one hour than the entire human race uses in an entire year.

And please try to keep your American bashing comments off this page. This is about alt. fuel, not who's using the most of the old kind (keep in mind my "destructive" country is on the front lines of alt. fuel/power research, so dont post comments about how we dont care what we do to earth)

Nuclear energy is the way to go as far as I'm concerned.

eh...more about nuclear power.

I guess, but those plants take a LOT of oil to run them. What about when oil is completely gone? That is the main point of the thread. What will we use when there is NO oil left.

In that case, I think we should go for every possible renewable source of power then. Solar, hydroelectric, wind farms e.t.c

I don't see why we don't use these more often anyway.

Is there not research being done in recycling carbon monoxide for fuel? What about corn oil? Solar energy would be useful but we need to harness more than that (I like how the hybrids take advantage of gathering energy from the energy used on a car when it's braking..).

I have not heard too much about new energy trends but I am tremendously curious..

Solar energy is one of the best resources but its very expensive. Thats probably the best alternate power though.

Apart from that I would say tidal.

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Originally Posted by NeAvO

Solar energy is one of the best resources but its very expensive. Thats probably the best alternate power though.[/b]

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It's getting cheaper and more efficient, though, especially with advances in layered photovoltaic materials which convert a wider band of the sun's emitted energy into electricity. Wind power is also promising, but there's always the NIMBY syndrome to deal with. I've seen plans for large-scale floating off-shore windfarms, though, which would solve that problem.

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Originally Posted by Peregrinus

It's getting cheaper and more efficient, though, especially with advances in layered photovoltaic materials which convert a wider band of the sun's emitted energy into electricity. Wind power is also promising, but there's always the NIMBY syndrome to deal with. I've seen plans for large-scale floating off-shore windfarms, though, which would solve that problem.
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there was a guy here, in the uk, who installed dozens of pressure pads around his home

in seats, in the floor, etc.

everytime a pad was pressed, it'd charge a battery a little bit

he powered a substantial portion of his home just by walking around and sitting down

I’ll concentrate on power generating stations for this post.

Currently, a lot of different systems are used to generate power and distribute it to a common grid. The main electrical providers are hydro electric dams. The rest provide the extra power regionally. These are the most costly to operate and the most natural resource consuming.

Lets take a look at what is available now…

Most common power generating stations:

Hydro-Electric Dam
How it works: You build a dam on a river. The water level rises behind the dam, flooding millions of acres. You let the water flow through tunnels that lead to turbines, spinning the axis that spins magnets that create electricity.

Pros: They create constant energy in high volume. You are assured to always have electricity unless there is a severe drought that does not replenish the humongous water basin behind the dam. Less deadly than nuclear or fuel.

Cons: Needs a lot of room to create the water basin and a lot of resource to build the dam. Distribution of product is costly as the power stations are usually remote. The ultimate flaw is the dam breaking, releasing all the water down stream, flooding everything along the way.

Distribution: Scalable as long as there is proper landscape. From single home installation to multi-state.

Nuclear Station
How it works: You build a nuclear station on remote land. Complex control system bring uranium material close enough to generate heat to heat water. The steam is channelled to turbines, spinning the axis that spins magnets that create electricity.

Pros: They create constant energy at a moderate volume. You are assured to always have electricity unless there is a meltdown or you run out of uranium. Needs less land (Unless it melts down)

Cons: The use of limited uranium resource. They produce pollution (heavy water and heavy water steam). They have the ultimate flaw of a meltdown. Though they should be far away from populated area, they are not. If the ultimate happens, say goodbye to a huge land area for a few thousand years. Has the potential to irradiate and kill a whole town.

Distribution: City size

Fuel burning station
How it works: You build a charcoal or oil burning furnace. The furnace heats water. The steam is channelled to turbines, spinning the axis that spins magnets that create electricity.

Pros: They create constant energy at a moderate volume. You can build the station close to a town as long as you can limit the pollution. You are assured to always have electricity unless you run out of fuel or the station breaks. Less deadly than nuclear. Though in case of catastrophic failure, damages are negligible.

Cons: The use of limited resource. They produce a lot pollution.

Distribution: City size


Less common

Tide driven hydro power station
How it works: A dam is built in a fjord. Restricts water on one side while tides change. At the highest tide difference, water is channelled through tunnels to generate electricity as in a regular dam station.

Pros: Renewable, No disaster scenarios causing massive property damage.

Cons: You loose a fjord. Energy is only created twice a day. Must be used to supplement from energy created by constant distribution stations or you would have to store the energy for constant distribution.

Distribution: Town

Windmill power station
How it works: You build many windmills on land or shallow sea in a windy area. Wind powers blades that turn a generator .

Pros: Clean renewable energy.

Cons: Generates less power than turbines. Non constant energy flow unless combined with battery storage device. To try to apply the technique as to generate power similar to the common power stations above is not how it should be used thought that is how they are trying to set it up. It takes a lot of windmills to power a small region.

Distribution: Town


Future

Sun tower station
How it works: A large cylindrical tower is built. Mirrors all around it concentrate light from the sun on one floor of the tower. This heat liquefies salt that is used to heat water. The rest is just like a Nuclear or fuel station. The melted salt is stored in tanks and redistributed through the tower at night to keep the water boiling while the sun out.

Pros: They create constant energy at a moderate volume. Little pollution. Less dangerous that common stations. Land area required about the same as Nuclear. First installation in Australia will be remote though.

Cons: Though you can survive a few days with sun shining through clouds. A long period of cloudy days will stop the process.

Distribution: City

Tornado station
How it works: You build a cylindrical empty tower. You heat the floor and it creates a tornado inside the tower. Once formed. The tornado is sustained by moderate heat at the base, in the centre. Vents at the bottom provide the incoming air which escaped at the top. Turbines are placed in the vents. The tremendous wind passing through turns them to produce electricity.

Pros: Once started, the tower is self sustained, producing more electricity than it needs to heat to tower base. Built close to towns.

Cons: Runaway tornado?

Distribution: Towns

Next post: decentralisation of power generation; the solution to provide power cheaply and cleanly and the eventual dismantling of dangerous expensive power generating station.

Fusion power!, here is another link. I think it's dangeorus, kindof.

No need for exotic solutions. All that is needed is proper application of current technology.

Decentralisation of power generation

By adding a large number of low productivity devices on the grid, gradually, you can get rid of the troublesome non renewable resource hungry power stations. At the very least, you can prevent the building on new ones.


For the cities

Install a windmill on top of each high-rise. One windmill is enough to supply electricity to the high-rise. Wind in a city at this altitude is almost constant. That would remove the building from the power grid. Excess power can be shunt to the existing power grid.

Business high-rises are self sufficient during the day and power residential area during the night (If they would only turn off the lights at night.).

Residential high-rises are self sufficient during the night and power business area during the day.

For all areas

If the area is located near a river or sea with enough current, underwater windmills (works like windmill but with water) can be used. At proper dept, it is unseen and does not affect water traffic.

For individual homes, scaled down hydro dam and windmills and underwater windmills and solar panels and battery banks with bio diesel generator set-up can be used to totally get off the grid. (At the minimum, windmill solar panels and battery) Though the grid is important for backup and sharing electricity.

Installing such a set-up on a larger scale such as for, lets say, 200 homes, you have a micro power station every 10 blocks consisting of a powerful windmill and bio diesel generator in the centre and solar panels and battery bank at every home.