4 posts tagged “environment”
From Popular Mechanics:Super Soaker Inventor Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half
Published on: January 8, 2008
Solar energy technology is enjoying its day in the sun with the advent of innovations from flexible photovoltaic (PV) materials to thermal power plants that concentrate the sun’s heat to drive turbines. But even the best system converts only about 30 percent of received solar energy into electricity—making solar more expensive than burning coal or oil. That will change if Lonnie Johnson’s invention works. The Atlanta-based independent inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun (a true technological milestone) says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine. It represents a breakthrough new way to turn heat into power.
Johnson, a nuclear engineer who holds more than 100 patents, calls his invention the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, or JTEC for short. This is not PV technology, in which semiconducting silicon converts light into electricity. And unlike a Stirling engine, in which pistons are powered by the expansion and compression of a contained gas, there are no moving parts in the JTEC. It’s sort of like a fuel cell: JTEC circulates hydrogen between two membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). Unlike a fuel cell, however, JTEC is a closed system. No external hydrogen source. No oxygen input. No wastewater output. Other than a jolt of electricity that acts like the ignition spark in an internal-combustion engine, the only input is heat.
Here’s how it works: One MEA stack is coupled to a high- temperature heat source (such as solar heat concentrated by mirrors), and the other to a low-temperature heat sink (ambient air). The low-temperature stack acts as the compressor stage while the high-temperature stack functions as the power stage. Once the cycle is started by the electrical jolt, the resulting pressure differential produces voltage across each of the MEA stacks. The higher voltage at the high-temperature stack forces the low-temperature stack to pump hydrogen from low pressure to high pressure, maintaining the pressure differential. Meanwhile hydrogen passing through the high-temperature stack generates power.
“It’s like a conventional heat engine,” explains Paul Werbos, program director at the National Science Foundation, which has provided funding for JTEC. “It still uses temperature differences to create pressure gradients. Only instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or wheel, he’s using them to force ions through a membrane. It’s a totally new way of generating electricity from heat.”
The bigger the temperature differential, the higher the efficiency. With the help of Heshmat Aglan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Alabama’s Tuskegee University, Johnson hopes to have a low-temperature prototype (200-degree centigrade) completed within a year’s time. The pair is experimenting with high-temperature membranes made of a novel ceramic material of micron-scale thickness. Johnson envisions a first-generation system capable of handling temperatures up to 600 degrees. (Currently, solar concentration using parabolic mirrors tops 800 degrees centigrade.) Based on the theoretical Carnot thermodynamic cycle, at 600 degrees efficiency rates approach 60 percent, twice those of today’s solar Stirling engines.
This engine, Johnson says, can operate on tiny scales, or generate megawatts of power. If it proves feasible, drastically reducing the cost of solar power would only be a start. JTEC could potentially harvest waste heat from internal combustion engines and combustion turbines, perhaps even the human body. And no moving parts means no friction and fewer mechanical failures.
As an engineer, Johnson says he has always been interested in
energy conversion. In fact, it was while working on an idea for an
environmentally friendly heat pump (one that would not require Freon)
that he came up with the Super Soaker, which earned him millions of
dollars in royalties. That money allowed Johnson to quit NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Lab (where he worked on the Galileo Mission, among other
projects) and go independent. His toy profits have funded his research
in advanced battery technology, specifically thin-film lithium-ion
conductive membranes. And that work sparked the idea for JTEC. Besides,
he jokes, “All inventors have to have an engine. It’s like a rite of
passage.”
They're not mad about the content of the Energy Bill-- the billions of dollars being wasted in tax breaks to oil companies that are making $40 Billion a year, the minimal investment in renewable energy R&D, the lack of a renewable energy mandate... They're mad at the kind of car that the bill rode in.
That's right-- two Congress members who voted against the Energy Bill because it actually included the first increases in fuel economy since the Arab Oil Embargo of the 70's, are now upset that the car that delivered the Energy Bill to the White House for Bush's signature was a Japanese Hybrid.
Prius’ role in energy bill angers lawmakers
Paperwork was transported by Japanese-built hybrid to the White House
updated 5:12 p.m. PT, Thurs., Dec. 20, 2007WASHINGTON - When Congress sent an energy bill to President Bush for his signature, it arrived in a Japanese-built Toyota Prius hybrid — a move that rubbed two Michigan Republicans the wrong way.
"It is a huge slap in the face, calculated I believe, just to demonstrate their complete disregard for the domestic auto industry," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich.
To Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., it was a "slap in the face of every American auto worker."
They said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., could have provided the same symbolism by sending the bill Wednesday in a U.S.-built hybrid made by Ford Motor Co. or General Motors Corp.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the Republicans were "merely attempting to distract from the success of the Democratic energy security legislation" and noted that 95 House Republicans supported the bill. He said the bill would encourage the development of hybrids and alternative vehicles.
Hammill said the Prius was owned by an employee with the Office of the Clerk, which sends bills to the White House.
The bill requires that automakers increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.
The Prius, the most popular gas-electric hybrid in the United States, gets a combined 46 mpg in city and highway driving. The Prius and the 2008 Honda Civic hybrid, which gets a combined 42 mpg, are the only two hybrids sold in the United States today that would meet the new mileage requirements set for 2020.
Vice-President and War Criminal Dick Cheney once again shows who is really setting policy in Washington.
From Think Progress:
Cheney Repeatedly Met With Auto Execs Before White House Killed California’s Emissions Law
Before EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson “answered the pleas of industry executives” by announcing his “decision to deny California the right to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles,” auto executives directly appealed to Vice President Cheney. EPA staffers told the LA Times that Johnson “made his decision” only after Cheney met with the executives.
On multiple occasions in October and November, Cheney and White House staff members met with industry executives, including the CEOs of Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler. At the meetings, the executives objected to California’s proposed fuel economy standards:
In meetings in October with Mr. Cheney and sessions with White House staff members, auto executives made clear that they were concerned not just about the fuel economy measures in the bill but also about the California proposal for stricter emissions standards.
Johnson explained his decision to thwart California by saying that the new energy bill, which the auto industry supported and President Bush signed into law on Wednesday, “made the proposed California standards unnecessary.” One EPA staffer says Johnson’s decision was part of Cheney’s deal with the industry execs brokered at the meetings:
“Clearly the White House said, ‘We’re going to get EPA out of the way and get California out of the way. If you give us this energy bill, then we’re done, the deal is done,’” said one staffer.
Since taking office, Cheney has taken “a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business” while undermining any real action to combat climate change. For example, he stacked the Committee on Environmental Quality with industry heavyweights, killing Bush’s 2000 campaign promise to place caps on carbon emissions. In 2001, his infamous energy task force also ordered the EPA to “reconsider” a rule requiring stricter pollution controls on power and oil refinery plants.
More recently, since February, Cheney has also quietly maneuvered to exert increased control over environmental policy by federal agencies — particularly the regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
Dick Cheney is like an bizarro-world super hero.
Wherever there is a fossil fuel-related industry to protect, he'll be there.
Wherever there is a nationalized commodity market in need of western capital access, he'll be there. Wherever
there is a downtrodden multi-billion dollar corporation in need of
defense against the will of citizens and state governments, he'll be
there. He is... "The Dick".
Unbelievable. Republicans once again put the interests of the most profitable corporations first, and Democrats cower and bow to their demands.
Senate Republicans block energy bill
Senate Republicans Block Energy Bill, Opposing Taxes on Oil Companies
H. JOSEF HEBERT
AP NewsDec 13, 2007 10:40 EST
Senate Republicans blocked a broad energy bill Thursday because it included billions of dollars in new taxes on the biggest oil companies.
Democratic leaders fell one vote short, 59-40, in getting the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. Democrats said they would strip the taxes from the legislation to move the bill forward.
Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he hoped to get the revised energy package approved later in the day, including the first increase in automobile fuel efficiency in three decades and massive increases in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel.
He said we will "eliminate the tax title."
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted the revised bill would be approved with wide bipartisan support.
The legislation, if passed by the Senate, would have to be voted on by the House, which a week ago approved legislation that included the $21 billion tax increases with revenues marked for promoting renewable fuels and energy efficiency.
But Senate Republicans stood firm on opposing the tax increases, which they said would guarantee a veto by President Bush.
McConnell chided Democrats for pushing a "massive tax increase" that he said "they knew would never be signed into law" because of the president's opposition.
Reid countered that the Senate shouldn't back away from the needed tax measures "just because the president doesn't like it."
"We must begin to break our country's addiction to oil," Reid said.
