A Renewable That Could Pollute More Than Non - Renewables

Every green lover (sometimes non green lovers too) will feel enthusiastic when some one show a new method for producing Electricity from waste. They won't even fail to praise (even I won't) those innovative ideas of generating Electricity from waste and unfortunately they forgets to analyze how the Electricity is generated. Some times this waste to energy conversion may be harmful than that of some other methods of generating Electricity, like from coal.

Waste To Electricity Conversion. Image Credit : tx.us

Recently, I went to a college exhibition where they placed a miniaturized (not so small) model of Waste to Energy converter. Like the most of the existing converters, they too employed the method of burning the waste and then converting the heat generated into electricity. When I asked the student who gave the demo of that converter, "don't you think it could still pollute our environment?". He saw me like an unresolved quest and asked me "how?".

This is because, most of the people's forget to talk about the by-products generated through this burning of waste. Although the by-products generated varies according to the type of wastes that we burn, but they mostly were plastic and electronic wastes. When we burn these type of wastes, they not only increase the carbon footprint but also pollute the environment through harmful mercury, lead, ash and other polluting gases. They were strong enough to bring in the acid rains to your city and cause some severe damages to human health.

Image Credit : Green Building Press (UK)

I do support the waste to energy conversion, than any one else, just because they solve two of our problems. First by clearing the tonnes and tonnes of wastage that were keept on stealing more space in our earth and then by generating Electricity, that runs our present world. But, how do they do it also an important thing to be considered. It should be in a way, without polluting our environment. Next time when some one tell/show you a method for generating Electricity from waste, don't forget to ask them, "how do they do it?".

IMPACT OF RENEWABLE(DISTRIBUTED GENERATION) ENERGY IN POWER QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

       Long transmission is one of the main cause for electrical power loss. Even a high school kid may know this fact these days. But the power quality problem is not only due to these losses. Approximately 70 to 80% of all power quality problem can be attributed to faulty connections or wiring(a research says not me). Also some other things like harmonics, transients, electromagnetic interference and LPF(low power factor)also damage power quality but they all share the remaining 20-30% only. So we will worry about them later.

DISTRIBUTED GENERATING STATION

      Okay then, now how we are going to take care of the power quality problems due to long transmission power losses. Are we going to "lay superconductors instead of aluminium alloys and copper conductors?" or "increasing voltage level to extreme levels and implementing HVDC?". These things may happen(exclude that superconductor idea please), but with very large investment. This remedy measures also will look reasonable when we implement them for new long power transmission projects. Then what about the older lines staying out there wasting not only the power but also our money(for losses too we are paying the electricity boards).

       To resolve this problem we got to ask the help of renewable energy. The solar, wind, wave and some other power plants scattered all over a country can not only help us to meet the growing demands with depleting fossil fuels. They were like a bonus to us in resolving power quality problems. The irritating incidents like switching off of T.V's while watching a football game and shutting down of A.C in a hot day due to low voltage problems and faulty lines may end now. Integrating these scattered power houses(Distributed Generation) with the existing system surely can deliver us a good quality power. If a feeder from centralized generating station to your area encountered fault, don't worry you will still get power from a near by distributed generating station. For that we need to install solar, wind or whatever that suits to your geographic location.

But we got to be too careful while designing these integration of centralized system with distributed power generating system. Improper designing in power electronic devices may inject harmonics into the system which will further destroy the power quality instead of making it up.

DISTRIBUTED GENERATING STATION IMAGE SOURCE - http://www.performanceenergy.com

DENMARK'S FLAG IS GOING TO FLY HIGH BY WIND POWER - a revolution

          Denmark set itself as a role model for the whole world on implementing renewable energy and reducing carbon emission. when we go through what Denmark actually did, they found the correct resource which is available in plenty in their country and utilized them properly. Currently Denmark's generation capacity from wind power is around 25-30%. Germany is way ahead in wind power generation by installing wind turbines every day. England and U.S(which planned to get 30% of total demand from wind) are also heading towards mass production of electricity from wind power.

WIND TURBINE

          Although Denmark is not at the top of wind power generation countries list, they were setting an example to other countries by planning to produce 50% of their total demand from wind power. If they do so they will be the first country to become highly eco friendly. They were also working on making peoples to use electric cars and to further reduce the carbon emission. An island in Denmark called Samso have enough wind turbines to supply the whole island with 10% surplus in hand. The achievement in this island is that every turbine is owned by the local peoples in that island.

LARGE NUMBER OF TURBINES INSTALLED
TO FORM WIND FARM

          I'm not really flattered just because of the Denmark's plan of "50% from Wind". I really amazed by the Denmark's electricity export ability. Although Denmark is a small country, it is holding one third of the world wind power industry.  I also feel proud to be an Electrical Engineer. The reason is that you can't send the wind power to neighboring countries just because you got plenty of them, but you can send any energy to any area by changing them into "Electricity". While living in a country where there is a plenty of "Electricity Scarcity" with 3-5 hours power cut a day(now there is no current in my town, thank god i got my laptop), Denmark really looks like a role model in utilizing the resources we have without disturbing our eco system. I believe that Denmark's wind power will never let their flag down.

PIEZOELECTRIC ENERGY HARVESTER FROM VIBRATIONS - A MODULE FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION

          This project is just an example of Vibrational Energy Harvesting. We can give whatever the vibrational source available as input. Also, here we are storing the obtained power it can be used for any purpose. If you want to eliminate battery then no problem just with the help of proper power conditioning circuit you can directly connect the obtained power to load. But make sure the continuous source of vibration before eliminating battery.

THIS IS THE BLOCK DIAGRAM FOR THE PIEZOELECTRIC ENERGY HARVESTER
FROM VIBRATIONS

THIS IS THE SET UP FOR UTILIZATION OF HARVESTED POWER

APPLICATION OF VIBRATIONAL ENERGY FROM ANY
VIBRATING SOURCE

AFTER THE APPLICATION OF VIBRATION THE INDICATOR GLOWS
INDICATING THE POWER GENERATED

NOW THE GENERATED POWER IS STORED IN BATTERY AFTER PROPERLY
CONVERTING IT INTO DC 

POWER FROM BATTERY IS GIVEN TO LOW POWER SENSOR - THERMISTOR

THEN THE POWER FROM BATTERY IS SUPPLIED TO LDR

FINALLY SUPPLYING IRDA

PIN CONFIGURATION FOR IRDA

THE NEXT THREE PICTURES SHOWS THE CONTROLLING OF SENSORS 

INTERFACING CIRCUIT OR CONNECTION DIAGRAM

OUTPUT OF THE PROJECT

CURRENT(ELECTRICITY) FROM COW DUNG - REDUCE THE CARBON EMISSION UP TO 8%

        "Do you know the fact that the amount of methane released by the cow's around the world is almost than that emitted by the vehicles that uses fossil fuels(car, train, flights, etc) all around the world". Methane is the most dangerous greenhouse gas that traps the heat in our atmosphere as 20 times that of CO2. They remain in atmosphere for around 15 years. Now, there is a way for every one of us to reduce the carbon emission without spending a cent. Yeah, becoming a vegetarian is the solution but are we ready to be a vegetarian. "NO", i can hear the answer hidden inside most of you. Then how we could reduce the carbon emission. Just collect the cow dungs. 

        It is not a hard job i think so. As it will be a routine in a farm to collect the cow dung to keep the farm clean. Collecting the cow dung from the farms all around us is simple and low cost. This collected cow dung is then stored in a large tank where it is mixed with proper algae or fungi for the process of biological fermentation. In this part the micro-organisms take care of everything for the generation of electricity.

THOUSAND YEAR OLD METHOD OF TURNING
COW DUNG INTO FUEL

       Although in India cow dung is dried and used as one of the primary domestic fuel for the production of heat. The high carbon emission from directly burning them makes it risky and we cannot fully utilize the energy. At this time we are left with two choices. The first choice is turning into vegetarian which most of us don't even try. The second choice is supporting the bio plants or building one of our own. If we start utilizing the whole of the cow dung all around the world we can reduce the carbon emission by 8% which will be a great achievement.

FUTURE MOBILE POWER GENERATION - HARVESTING FROM VIBRATIONS USING PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIALS

          With the recent advances in wireless and micro electro mechanical systems technology, the demand for portable electronics and sensors is growing rapidly. Because these devices are portable, it becomes necessary that they carry their own power supply. In most cases this power supply is the conventional battery; however, problems can occur while using batteries because of their finite lifespan. For portable electronics, replacing the battery is problematic because the electronics could die at any time and replacement of the battery can become a tedious task. Supplying power through a long cable can be impractical, hard to install and maintain. Advances in integrated circuit manufacturing and low power circuit design have reduced the total power requirements of a sensor node to well below 1 mW.

           The sensor network systems provide new services based on the information in the real world. Sensor nodes, which constitute terminals of a sensor network system, measure the environment, such as temperature and humidity. Power consumption of wireless communication is large, so intermittent operation is effective in reducing power consumption. Consequently, sensor nodes have achieved average power consumption on the microwatt order. However, we still have a problem of maintenance cost to change battery manually of every distributed sensor node. 

ADVANCED NANO MATERIAL WHICH PRODUCES ELECTRICAL POTENTIAL
BY THE PIEZOELECTRIC PRINCIPLE

            Therefore, the power-free sensor nodes that scavenge its energy from ambient environments (mainly industries) and need no battery are strongly desired. There have been many approaches for ambient-energy scavenging technologies that use solar energy, thermal energy, and environmental vibration energy, of all these scavenging technology from vibration is quite useful. It can be applied for the sensor nodes that monitor the problems of the industrial machines such as machines, motors or monitor the circumstances in the busy traffic roads. However, conventional scavenging technologies from environmental vibration have not yet achieved to supply stable power for continuous operation of sensor nodes. The scavenged powers have reached in 100 microwatt order, but the sensor nodes require 10 mW order power instantly.
           For this reason, conventional scavenging technologies are used as a supporting battery that enhance the lifetime of the main battery. In this project, we describe a completely power-free sensor node or low power electronic device that works under small vibration energy scavenged from industrial machines with no battery. The energy harvester consists of a piezoelectric resonator or Piezoelectric Sensors(click here for Piezoelectric Ceramics: Principles and Applications) for a vibration-to-electric energy converter, and a power control circuit that store scavenged current charge to supply instant power.

TIDAL POWER - SO PROMISING FUTURE

             Got "Shocked", but not by electricity just by hearing the amount of electricity that can be generated by tidal energy as the source but with a huge investment(that may give shock to most of the investors). Why "TIDAL"? you may ask. Tidal energy sounds more interesting when we think of why we need to invest a huge amount of money for tidal and why not for other renewable's. There exists a big explanation for it.

     Tidal power generation has lot of disadvantages associated with it like High Initial Capital Investment, Limited Locations, It's Effect on Marine Life, Long Gestation Time, Difficulty in Transmission of Tidal Electricity, Weather Effects(storms and typhoons), etc. When considering advantages like No Fuel, Long Life, High Energy Density, High Load Factor attracts big investors(Siemens and Vatten fall) toward it and it's Predictable nature, Renewable, Non-Polluting and Carbon Negative gets the most of the governments attention towards it.

     The Danish government spent £1.3 billion to establish onshore wind, which currently brings £2.7bn per year in revenue. A properly capitalized wave and tidal sector could create 43,500 direct jobs and generate a potential £4.2bn per year in revenue for the  UK economy - a report says.

     

     Renewable UK’s State of the Wave and Tidal Industry report, released at the conference, states that the UK is still leading the world with the largest installed wave and tidal generating base of 2.4 MW, a further 27 MW with planning consent, 77.5 MW of projects in planning, and 700 MW expected in the Pentland Firth area by 2020.

     In total, Renewable UK forecasts 1-2 GW of wave and tidal energy installations in the UK by 2020. Then installing tidal power in India not only helps the unemployment problems out here but also can supply the uninterrupted power to the whole nation(in Tamil Nadu there is daily power cut for 3-5hrs and so on in other states may fade out) when we utilize the most of the tidal energy available here. Finally tidal power sounds so promising.

Light Energy(solar) Harvesting Using Fiber Optic Cables To Light the Buildings - Low Cost, Simple Technology

      

Fiber Optic Cable

 Bored of hearing "Switch off the lights when not in use"???. Now, a new technology came into scene to solve the problem of lighting the buildings during day time without using electricity. I know what you are thinking right now!!!. I'm for sure not going to say a word about "Photovoltaics" and let you feel bored.

     In current day scenario there are a lot of new technologies came around to generate electricity from non renewable energy sources, But most of them costs us much and can't be implemented by normal peoples who belong to low or middle class families. Not only cost matters, also the technology implemented in most of harvesting technologies are quite complex.

Building Implemented With
Fiber Optic Light Harvesting

Here it comes the Energy Harvesting via Fiber Optic cables, where we are using a mirror and lens arrangement to intensify and collect the light energy coming out from the sun. This collected light energy is then send into buildings through Fiber Optic cables. Now we got the lightings to our buildings at day time without spending much of our money.
There is an another advantage with which this technology binds with is: Using this technology we are providing natural sunlight to our buildings which eliminates the eye problems normally occur with peoples who works in artificial light. Also the sunlight is enriched with "Vitamin D" adds with advantage.