give us our daily sun...

...and everything will be okay!

While the subjects we blogged on recently are all but sustainable and immensely inefficient (for us normal people, at least, and unless you are involved with rats over banksters) we would like to remind you (and ourselves) that there are indeed real and proven ways to boost efficiency and narrow the gap on sustainability; here is one we "follow" and are about to install in the North of Scotland!

PV [photovoltaic] panels (do not mix those up with thermal solar cells for heating up water) are mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun's path (altitude and azimuth) from East to West and from dawn to sunset; with other words, it awaits sunrise in the East looking vertically into the fire following it until it sets in the West, every day, summer and winter, year in, year out.

The below chart explains the difference between fixed PV panels (fixed slope type), a system that would follow the sun over one dimension (single axis) and the system that makes the most out of the "sun's shine" and follows same over both dimensions, altitude and azimuth.


The overall electric output of the PV panels increases by 40 to 55%!

Now, that is what we call "efficiency meets sustainability"!

Or, to go with Oscar Wilde:

Everything will be okay in the end.
If it is not okay,
it is not the end!

Carpe diem!

clean coal over dirty solar

... or vice versa?

Times Online: Carbon-capture powerstation planned for Hunterston

The headline is misleading; it sounds as if a 'CCS powerstation' was something to be grabbed from a shop's shelf, installed in no time: success!

No, nothing like that at all; none of the countries so far that have claimed to be the leaders in CCS technology, I heard it from the UK, Germany, France and the U.S., at least, have ever come up with a proven, working solution other than under laboratory conditions; with other words, nobody knows whether "CCS" will ever work in the big, rather huge scale of a 1,6GW dirty coal plant, and for how long?. The School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, part of Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage - is this in short the CCS lobby? - explains what it would/should/could be like: nice pictures!

This blog has discussed this several times, among others: First clean coal to be extracted... and CCS...

It makes sense that MSPs have now opposed the plans for Hunterston >BBC!

Approving a new coal-fired power station before CCS is shown to work at scale could mean millions of tonnes of unabated new carbon emissions from Hunterston.

... and millions of pounds of Pounds wasted!

It would be nice if it worked, sure, alone exporting the proven know-how to China (without giving it away!!!) would make a nice export boom, but then there are so many alternatives worthwhile some investment, incentives and in general terms the ambition to find the real solutions. Some technologies are about to really become sustainable, have formed complete industries driving efficiency forward and prices down - with the UK leaning back, watching, discussing, and most probably trying to invent the wheel again but name it differently...

The text is in German but the cake should be obvious; it is on the 'worldmarket of PV' in 2008, i.e. solar power, better named photo voltaic (not to be mixed up with the generalisation 'solar energy') . Did you find the UK on the list? No, but you should: it is an insignificant part of number 12!

I will try to find the latest figures which are clearly up again as the industry in 2009 has been booming - at least in those countries that invested in it and will now see the benefit.

In one of my next blogs I will also demonstrate how PV is even working in latitudes like ours here in Scotland, may be not quite as good as in Spain but then we must have one benefit from living on this island!

Carpe diem!

Years later on "an island...

on its roofs"!

FITs for power from photovoltaic

So it only took a couple of - lost - years until finally a "Feed-in-tariff" will be introduced for power from photovoltaic cells on your roof animating and supporting you to invest into what is the one and only renewable energy - remember, water always needs to be on the high side ....

From 1 April, households with approved­ schemes will be paid for the electricity they generate, even if they use all of it themselves.
...
The payments will physically come from your existing electricity supplier, but will be overseen by the regulator Ofgem.

Endless times I had to listen to how bad and stupid those continental (not to say global) incentives schemes would be and what harm they did hindering the healthy and free development of a so-called "free market".

Rubbish! Yes, those schemes hinder, but they hinder the economies that pretend to think on a global scale while they are entrapped into national feud and lobbyism. If nothing else they hinder the ones not following such schemes as they get financially decoupled from investing into what has an extremely bad ROI lacking FITs. We wanted to play globally, so we have to face it.

So may be somebody read this blog post on the UK falling behind fast; most unlikely. Anyway, there is some hope that on their path to think energy and the known and proven methods to generate energies (yes, they are coming in plural) to an end our decision makers will find the guts to also put incentives in place for simple but highly efficient Combined Heat and Power units instead of half-hearted scrappage schemes. May be by then BRE will finally look into that technology - without inventing any wheels again!

That is because the final step taking energy seriously will be when we understand that efficiency comes close once avoiding wasting energy has become the dominating factor of all this.

Might only take some more years now.

Carpe diem!