Renewables – Page 2

Apparently Wind and Solar are not 100% reliable

Wind and solar not being reliable? Oh boy. *rolls sleeves up* If we invested subsidies in green power the way we subsidise fossil fuels, then yeah, it would be 110% reliable. If you stop shipping coal from a hole in the ground somewhere and stop burning it, coal plants stop being reliable too, and their … Continue reading “Apparently Wind and Solar are not 100% reliable”

Wind and solar not being reliable? Oh boy.

*rolls sleeves up*

If we invested subsidies in green power the way we subsidise fossil fuels, then yeah, it would be 110% reliable.

If you stop shipping coal from a hole in the ground somewhere and stop burning it, coal plants stop being reliable too, and their reliability, even when supplied with plenty of fuel, is not 100% either.

If we didn’t have NIMBYs complaining about a passive, silent, harmless solar farm on fallow land (as happened near Kelly a few years ago) then yeah, it would be 100% reliable.

If we track the rising price of fossil fuels with the plummeting price of solar, then it would seem that renewable energy is 100% reliable for people on low incomes.

If we consider that Northern Ireland has the highest percentage of the population in the entire British Isles (including Ireland) afflicted with fuel poverty, then a transition to distributed micro generation could prove to be 100% effective in removing fuel poverty.

If we look at crazy ideas like putting a solar panel on every roof, we would see that the energy savings across the entire population would be 100% effective in improving the local economy, because the money saved would be spent locally and not squirrelled away in the Cayman Islands.

If we spent 100% of the money we wasted on RHI, a flawed scheme in every sense, on solar generation, we could have outfitted every social housing development with solar panels, cutting fuel poverty to a small percentage and improving the lives of about half a million people.

As the Air Quality around Stockman’s Lane and the Westlink is now ILLEGALLY POOR, a shift away from coal as well as a shift towards electrically propelled vehicles could make a sea change in the quality of lives and substantially reduce respiratory diseases. If won’t save 100% of people but if it saved one person, that’s a good enough percentage for me.

Sustainable Electro-Motive

I’m attending the Eden Project Communities Camp this May and that’s where I hope to talk about Sustainable Electro-Motive. This project ties several interests into one whole. One part is working with my friend Stuart and his extracurricular work with GreenPower NI. One part is my interest in maintaining our way of life without necessarily … Continue reading “Sustainable Electro-Motive”

I’m attending the Eden Project Communities Camp this May and that’s where I hope to talk about Sustainable Electro-Motive.

This project ties several interests into one whole. One part is working with my friend Stuart and his extracurricular work with GreenPower NI. One part is my interest in maintaining our way of life without necessarily increasing our impact on the environment (and ideally, reducing our impact massively). My other interests are social enterprise, the democracy of community energy resources, the digitisation of energy and transport (which is more about the change in the economies than any real addition of technology).

I hope SEM to be a great example of a social enterprise, of “altrupreneurship.

Save the Day: 30th June 2025

Save the date, 9 years from now, when the last ICE (internal combustion engine) car will be sold in the UK. This is what is being proposed by Norway and it’s being considered by other nations within the EU and beyond. A complete change in the way transport works. Back in 1905, you could look … Continue reading “Save the Day: 30th June 2025”

Save the date, 9 years from now, when the last ICE (internal combustion engine) car will be sold in the UK.

This is what is being proposed by Norway and it’s being considered by other nations within the EU and beyond. A complete change in the way transport works.

Back in 1905, you could look at a photo of Times Square and not see a single car; the place was filled with horse drawn carriages. By 1913, the horses were outnumbered by the cars perhaps 100:1. That’s how fast a disruptive technology can take hold.
So what will happen here. We are already seeing Electric Vehicle sales rise (though they slipped slightly due to the brief drop in petrol and diesel prices over the last six months). And we will see them rise even more. On my Twitter feed (admittedly a self-selecting study of people interested in transport, innovation and renewables), I am able to see individuals who charge their home automobiles using a solar panel and wind combination to a domestic battery that then feeds their car.

This becomes the new normal. Where the cost of running a vehicle decreases to just the replacement of tyres and brake pads. Where the massive fuel costs dwindle to almost nothing. We aren’t there yet….or….more accurately, I’m describing the past, but it’s still the future for most of us.

My own car is up for replacement this year but there is no way I will replace it with an ICE vehicle – even though I might consider the vast majority of electric vehicles out there to be under-engineered, under-designed and under-inspiring. What we need a series of over-engineered, over-designed and absolutely inspiring cars.

At the moment only TESLA is providing that. Sticking a battery and electric motor into a Clio and calling it a LEAF just doesn’t do it for me. Making an eGolf or an electric BMW doesn’t do it. – especially as it’s beginning to look like all of the incumbent car manufacturers seem, without exception, to have been lying about their gas emissions.

It’s time we started thinking about this seriously.

What if we just stopped using Fossil Fuels. Today.
What if we replaced essential use of hydrocarbons with Renewable Gases?
What if we replaced inessential fuel consumption with solar, hydro and wind?
What if we circumvented the apocalypse by just taking action rather than just talking about it?

ESB Public charge point contract in violation of EU directive

Imagine having to have a subscription to a petrol station in order to fill up your car? That’s what ESB, who now run the EV public charge points, are suggesting. The subscription when added to the costs for charging (which is calculated by time rather than kWs transferred) mean that EVs are not economical compared … Continue reading “ESB Public charge point contract in violation of EU directive”

Imagine having to have a subscription to a petrol station in order to fill up your car?

That’s what ESB, who now run the EV public charge points, are suggesting. The subscription when added to the costs for charging (which is calculated by time rather than kWs transferred) mean that EVs are not economical compared to high efficiency petrol vehicles. In essence an artificial tax.

Then there’s this:

Directive 2014/94/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014
Article 4 Section 9 – All recharging points accessible to the public shall also provide for the possibility for electric vehicle users to recharge on an ad hoc basis without entering into a contract with the electricity supplier or operator concerned.

So the ESB subscription contract, North and South of the border, is actually in contravention of an EU Directive. It will be interesting to see how this progresses.

Personal Transport – Personal Turbines

This is a Trinity 2500 turbine from Janulus. I have a Trinity Kickstarter edition on the way but their second turbine Kickstarter includes multiple models. The idea here is being able to fully charge your car from the action of the wind. Think about how that could revolutionise transport. Related posts: Fabulous Kickstarters iPad Translink … Continue reading “Personal Transport – Personal Turbines”

This is a Trinity 2500 turbine from Janulus. I have a Trinity Kickstarter edition on the way but their second turbine Kickstarter includes multiple models.

The idea here is being able to fully charge your car from the action of the wind. Think about how that could revolutionise transport.

Solar…portable…renewable

Anyone who knows me will know that I’ve always been a fan of solar (photovoltaic) energy production. This goes from tiny little solar panels that I used with Coder Dojo to wire up fans and LEDs to larger scale panels that are used to keep my phones and other devices charged when out and about. … Continue reading “Solar…portable…renewable”

My latest purchase is the Anker 14W Solar Panel Foldable Dual-port Solar Charger.

I was pretty pleased with the package – it was smaller than I expected and seemed sturdy enough. It fits neatly into my hiking backpack when I’m not using it and when I am using it, I’ll tie it using cords to the back of the back – the built-in rings seem very resilient. The company advises using the included pockets for holding devices you’re charging (to keep them out of the direct sunshine). I’d like them to be a little bigger but that’s only because my devices are a little bulkier.

I tested this during the week in some weak summer sunshine here in Northern Ireland and I was able to generate nearly 7 Watts (5.09 Volts, 1.35 Amps). That’s about 50% of the potential output of the panel but considering I was just sitting in a park with plenty of surrounding tree cover, no effort being made to optimise the angle and a little bit of cloud cover – coupled with the weak Northern Irish sunshine – I was happy to see I could easily power and charge a phone.

Your phone likely needs 5 Watts of Power (5 Volts, 1 Amp). The average PC USB port outputs 2.5 W (5V, 0.5A). Your iPad needs about 12 W (5.1V, 2.1A). The device I’m using to measure this is a pass-thru USB power monitor by PortaPow. It can check any USB port for power output and is cheap as chips. For the aspiring geek it’s a useful informational tool.

I’ll be using this panel to charge an Anker 13000 mAh portable battery (superseded by newer models like the Anker Astro e7 with double the capacity). 25600 mAh seems like a lot but the iPhone 6 has a 1810 mAh battery and therefore I’d expect to get 10 charges out of this. Which should be good enough for a week of outdoor usage (assuming I’m using the screen a lot).

Next week I’ll be testing the charger in Southern Spain. I’m interested to see what the difference in throughput will be and how fast it will charge my external battery.

Could we build a future without fossil fuels?

Thanks to @JoanneJacobs for putting this into my tweet stream. Thanks to @aeonmag for posting it. Given the dwindling reserves of crude oil left in the world, it could be argued that the most wasteful use for this limited resource is to simply burn it. We should be carefully preserving what’s left for the vital … Continue reading “Could we build a future without fossil fuels?”

Thanks to @JoanneJacobs for putting this into my tweet stream. Thanks to @aeonmag for posting it.

Given the dwindling reserves of crude oil left in the world, it could be argued that the most wasteful use for this limited resource is to simply burn it. We should be carefully preserving what’s left for the vital repertoire of valuable organic compounds it offers.

it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that a progressing society could construct electrical generators and couple them to simple windmills and waterwheels, later progressing to wind turbines and hydroelectric dams.

The rest of the article revolves around a scenario where we do not have energy abundance. But, that’s not reality. We live in an energy-abundant (relative to us) universe. Our failure to harvest it, our failure to take advantage of the energy surrounding us allows us to rely on “ancient energy concentrates” like fossil fuels.

This is one of the reasons I’m not fussed on hybrid cars. I see them as the modern day equivalent of the “faster horse”. It’s a hand-aid when the solution is to amputate.

The biggest, and perhaps the only, opposition to electric vehicles I have heard from self-confessed petrol heads is that the whine made by electric cars doesn’t compare to the roar of a V8.

Maybe we should play the phut-phut sound of the first internal combustion engines and see hither that is music to their ears. We’ve grown up with the roar of engines, it’s going to take a while for people to rid themselves of that affectation.

The article is most correct in that the worst thing we can do with our oil is burn it. We also need to stop subsidising the production of fossil fuels and put that investment into our own energy security. A nation that is dependent on others for energy is not secure.

I’m not advocating for a second we return to an agrarian lifestyle. I like the Internet and travel – but there are better ways and it’s not always cutting edge science that can deliver for us.

So can we rebuild our modern society in an energy-secure fashion, relying on sustainable fuels and renewable energy? Of course we can; but more importantly, it is necessary that we must.

Snake Oil

UK Government Has Given £1.76 Billion To Fossil Fuel Industries Abroad Since 2010 http://t.co/AigjSdXggp — Transport community (@transportktn) January 12, 2015 On a related note — a recent report from the Overseas Development Institute found that the UK is currently providing ~£1.2 billion annually in support of exploration work for oil, coal, and gas. Some … Continue reading “Snake Oil”

UK Government Has Given £1.76 Billion To Fossil Fuel Industries Abroad Since 2010 http://t.co/AigjSdXggp

— Transport community (@transportktn) January 12, 2015

On a related note — a recent report from the Overseas Development Institute found that the UK is currently providing ~£1.2 billion annually in support of exploration work for oil, coal, and gas. Some of this support is via national subsidies (tax breaks, etc), and around “£425 million per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.”

The amount of money invested in Sustainable Energy / Renewables is a mere fraction of these numbers. If we did invest at this level, it’s likely we’d lose our utter dependence on fossil fuels within the decade.

And we are currently utterly dependent. It’s this paranoid dependence that forces us to support regimes across the world that are alien to the values we hold dear. It’s this dependence that forces us to intervene in conflicts across the globe in areas where the oil is plentiful (and where regulations on emissions and effluent are much more lax).

Our energy insecurity is such that we cannot look after ourselves. It’s also at the point where fuel poverty is a thing – defined as households which spend more than 10% of income on keeping warm. Even in the “gold coast” of North Down, fuel poverty affects around 40% of households. Between 2006 and 2011, Belfast was the only region of Northern Ireland to see a decrease in fuel poverty levels.

The council area formerly known as North Down and Ards (which may be known as East Coast Borough Council or may not) is spending £1 million of ratepayers money on a gun club during the worst recession and public sector cuts regime we’ve ever experienced. The gun club, founded to commemorate the Ulster Special Constabulary (known as the B-Specials to some and as a government-backed murder squad to others) is taking this money with the blessing of all councillors. With that money, we could install over 200 domestic solar photovoltaic systems in the borough. We could install massive PV systems on public buildings and offset huge energy costs. We could also migrate public sector vehicles to electric models and make further savings – not to mention the benefits to the environment.

Technology versus Fuel

Driving a gasoline/petrol/diesel car is the end result of a very long and very complex process. First of all the sun shines on some plants. They convert about 5% of the energy into carbohydrates which are either left to rot or used as dinosaur food. Every conversion reduces the efficiency further. Luckily, the process of … Continue reading “Technology versus Fuel”

Driving a gasoline/petrol/diesel car is the end result of a very long and very complex process.

First of all the sun shines on some plants. They convert about 5% of the energy into carbohydrates which are either left to rot or used as dinosaur food. Every conversion reduces the efficiency further. Luckily, the process of turning plant matter and dead dinosaur into oil has concentrated the energy by a factor of a gazillion (it takes a lot of dinosaurs and a few million years to make a litre of gasoline). It then needs to be drilled, shipped to a refinery, refined, shipped to a gas station and then put into a car which converts about 70% of the concentrated energy into waste heat. As an added bonus it releases the carbon stores from the carbohydrates into the atmosphere as CO2, which is a greenhouse gas. Which is not good.

Ideally we’d use Solar to replace most of this. Why?

Solar is a technology, not a fuel. It converts solar radiation into electricity with an efficiency of around 30%. It doesn’t require millions of years; it takes about 8.3 minutes for the sun to release radiation to it hitting the solar cell and making electricity. The cells are passive, quiet and last a really, really long time.

Critics of solar have said the energy needed to produce solar panels (and the chemical processes needed) outweigh the environmental impacts of the oil business, though I’m not sure they’re counting the mining, shipping, refining, shipping and burning never mind the effluents.

But it’s hard to measure that. It’s hard to verify the accuracy of that.

I’d rather think of it this way. We like our gadgets and cookers and fridges and cars and televisions. We might want to make sure they will work well in the future. Seems a shame to burn dinosaur bones to run a smartphone especially when its possible to run the thing on free solar radiation.

Fossil fuels are getting more and more expensive. The “Watt-hours per dollar” in stored energy is getting smaller and smaller. We’ll want to keep our hydrocarbons for very specialist uses and not waste them on Instagram.

It’s possible to get solar panels installed in Northern Ireland but most “lease” places won’t touch you if you don’t have a south-facing roof. You can pay for someone else to install them if you don’t have a south-facing roof or you can install them yourself on any old roof.

So, my plan is to learn a lot more about photovoltaics, batteries, inverters, charge controllers and electric motors over the coming months. Let’s see if I can’t at least get our kettle working on 9 minute-old solar energy.

EEVC

Sad to have missed the EEVC conference (click-thru on the image). That’s a frighteningly impressive lot of partners and organisations who are part and parcel of the whole event. I just wish there was any sort of legislative attempt to adopt these types of vehicles in Northern Ireland. Related posts: The Broadband Blueprint (re DETI … Continue reading “EEVC”

Sad to have missed the EEVC conference (click-thru on the image).

That’s a frighteningly impressive lot of partners and organisations who are part and parcel of the whole event.

I just wish there was any sort of legislative attempt to adopt these types of vehicles in Northern Ireland.