Developing Engineers

Through the queens speech the coalition government announced a series of energy market reforms, in the form of the energy bill, that they hope will provide an adrenaline boost to the flagging industry, mainly in the form of complex subsidies. However, as has been apparent with most announcements regarding the energy industry from the government, there are still large areas of policy shrouded in mystery.

The system the government is trying to implement works around low-carbon electricity (from renewable or nuclear sources) can sign long-term contracts to supply at a preferential rate, so effectively legislating against carbon emissions. While this on the face of things looks like a step in the right direction the head of climate change at WWF-UK had some harsh criticism of the legislation, while saying it was a step in the right direction he indicated that it did not nearly go far enough.

One significant implication of the legislation is that it will effectively subsidise the Nuclear Industry as it is a low carbon source of electricity, which is at odds with the coalition agreement, that there would be no state subsidies for nuclear power. Incentives have been shared across, what the government has been to classify as, low-carbon industries; though surely a worry is that the renewable industry will be stifled in the UK, compared against more established technologies.

If we take a look at the German Company Strabag’s development of serialised wind turbine installations, and the speed of that development, we can see what can be achieved focus is placed on renewable energy. This goes to highlight that while the renewable industry is growing in this country at a very healthy rate more can be achieved with greater support.

The Nuclear industry by its very nature is a slow developing beast with small evolutionary design changes targeted towards safety rather than taking revolutionary design steps. This approach being taken to ensure that we have the safest plants possible, as we are dealing with radiation sources after all. If we take a look at the development on the EPR plant at Flamenville in France we can see how slow Nuclear can progress.

The government is worried, and so should we all, about the impending likelihood of black outs and, with the nuclear renaissance faltering, needed to promote growth within the energy sector. With the energy bill they hope to achieve that, unfortunately as the bill seems to be lacking in detail in some areas and over complex in others, the likelihood of success is uncertain.

The future energy balance in the UK must be made up from a mixture of renewable and nuclear in order to be anywhere near the targets set for 2050 on reducing carbon emissions and we must develop a smart grid in order to deliver electricity to where it is needed. That is why clear direction is needed from the government on such issues and while the UK may not ever be a major contributor to global nuclear technology we still have the opportunity to be world leading in renewable/clean technology .

Also posted @ therenewablefuture.

Photo courtesy of Abdul Awaes

Over the past few weeks, I was fortunate to travel to the U.A.E. and India as part of my annual visits to these countries. Although I travel to these countries fairly frequently, the pace of change in these countries is somewhat astronomical. In the U.A.E., I visited the City of Gold (Dubai), where new skyscrapers are being erected extremely quickly. The reason for this growth is of course due to the black gold known as oil. After the discovery of several oil deposits in the region in the 70′s, a massive influx of trade and foreign workers that made Dubai grow at an extraordinary rate. Today, the Dubai skyline is filled with state-of-the-art skyscrapers, including the Burj al Khalifa (pictured), that use innovative technologies to ensure they are environmentally friendly.

In India, I visited the Western state of Gujarat, where it was recently announced that the state had secured a massive investment from various organizations totaling Rs.15 lakhs crores (£200bn). A majority of that investment went to the power sector, as Gujarat continues to invest in greener technologies such as wind farms, and solar arrays. Gujarat is also known for its oil refineries, a sector that continues to grow in the region.

Even with the continued investments in both these countries, most of the developments are in the larger cities in the region. This hasn’t stopped development in the rural villages however as charities have taken it upon themselves to help equip and educate rural communities to develop long term low carbon power generation solutions. One of those charities is The British Asian Trust, part of the Prince’s Charities community. One of the initiatives developed by the British Asian Trust was the Barefoot College. The Barefoot College aims to alleviate the problems of frequent droughts, unsafe drinking water, adequate health and education facilities, and power generation. The College also focuses on educating women to become more active members of their societies by putting them in charge of key technologies that will help develop their communities. A case study of how the Barefoot College helped and educated a woman from a small village in Rajasthan to become a Solar Cooker Engineer can be found here.

In a post dated November 4th 2010, I declared a man a genius and no it wasn’t Mayowa Adebiyi but Professor Seamus Garvey. He denied the tag with a sharp, definitive – I am not a genius.

Despite our hero’s humility another by the name of ‘Tim’ agreed with the tag he will now find hard to shake, not because of my unashamed adulation of him but simply because anyone with an interest in Engineering, will and should be impressed with his ingenuity.

I did promise in my reply to his comment to ‘write my wrong’ of not doing enough justice to his Turbine design and was doing my research on his take on Compressed-Air Energy Storage (CAES) which he has had a few useless cycles on this system rid of and transformed into a complete forward flowing energy conversion process and called it ICARES (Integrated Compressed Air Renewable Energy Systems).

A presentation I saw by him, change my planned course, so now I have decided to let the man speak for himself.

Below is a bunch of screen grabs of a webinar given to the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). Click here for link.

With profound quotes like

“The climate change problem will not be solved by politicians, but by engineers”

“There is no law of physics or Engineering stating that power from offshore wind turbines must be more expensive than power from fossil fuels“

I cannot help but think we might be witnessing the making of a legend and I do honestly wish our reluctant hero the best of luck.

There are several documents floating about on the web that analyse the current state of Wind Turbines and if you can be bothered to read them (or if it’s your job) then you’ll find that; Operation and Maintenance cost and storage of excess power generated are top of the list of issues that need to be resolved before Wind matches the cost per KW generated against conventional methods. If the data found here is anything to go by, Wind Turbines are dropping like Flies (Revenge for all the Birds they’ve killed) and costing their owners millions.

One of the ideas suggested to solve the problem of storage is by PROFESSOR SEAMUS GARVEY. A quick google search of his name would give you details about the Nottingham University Academician and his 8-blade solution that stores air in windbags on the seabed.

Video of Turbine design

The Airbags

A search on the UKERC Research register shows he was awarded £205,464 for a research that lasted 36 months that might or might not be related. Several pages report he has been awarded £280,000 by EON for prototypes.

I do wonder though, if an increase in the number of blades from 3 to 8 will not exponentially increase maintenance costs considering the Airbags would now also contribute to this. The blades on a conventional 3 bladed Turbine at the moment are still too expensive.

Would the solution be simply aiming to reduce the number of parts as in a DYSON BLADELESS FAN as already discussed here.

Would professor Garvey prove himself to be the genius he has declared himself to be in one of his videos or would this idea be as unpopular as the vertical axis Turbines in the long run?