A CleanTech Idea A Day For 2011

Storing the Winter Cold for Summer

All right, here's another maverick idea - something I got while I was travelling by train in London a couple of weeks back, in relatively cold weather.

Why not store the ginormous cold that many parts of the world experience during summer to be used during winter? In fact, we don't even need to have special implements to do it, because nature does this on its own by making water freeze into ice and so on during the winter. The question is, isn't possible to store these gigantic quantities of ice until a few months later when it can be used to provide air conditioning?

What do you think of this idea? Brainy or brain dead? Your thoughts are welcome...

Making clean technology and sustainability fun

Say the words cleantech and sustainability, and everything that is dry, complex and boring are brought to our minds. But cleantech can sure be cool and fun, right?

I am sure it is, but perhaps it is not obvious. It will be great if members could share their thoughts on how to make cleantech cool and fun...

In thix connection, I had also started a page Interesting Cleantech Facts, but have not worked on it much

Keenly expecting ideas from all you folks

Eight Bio-based Technologies for 2050

Wonder how the world will ever produce enough energy and cut back enough carbon? Here are eight technology platforms for 2050 that could make the difference.http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/09/eight-bio-based-technologies-for-2050

World’s first liquid air energy storage plant uses Atlas Copco

Atlas Copco compressors are performing an essential role in an innovative cryogenic process developed by Highview Power Storage to store off-peak electric energy by liquefying air.Worlds first liquid air energy storage plant uses Atlas CopcoUsing cheap, off-peak electricity, the CryoEnergy System pilot plant operates by extracting ambient air from the surrounding environment.Rob Morgan chief technology officer at Highview, explains that the gas is cleaned, compressed and then cooled until it liquefies. Liquefied air is then stored in an insulated tank at -196° C.When power is required, liquid air is drawn from the tank and pumped to high pressure, he says. Ambient, or above ambient, waste heat is applied to the liquid air via heat exchangers, resulting in a phase change from liquid air to a high pressure gas, which is then used to drive a turbine and power generator. http://www.plantengineer.org.uk/article/36698/Worlds-first-liquid-air-energy-storage-plant-uses-Atlas-Copco-.aspx

Solar Air conditioning technology from Swedish company , Climatewell AB

ClimateWell's SolarChiller converts heat from the sun into cooling for data centers, factories, hospitals, commercial buildings and homes. The SolarChiller captures and stores energy, releases it when needed, and provides cooling even after the sunset

One of interesting companies to watch out for in the Solar air-conditioning space. Climatewell has a partnership with Trustone Environmental technologies in India. Turnstone Environmental Technologies also announced forthcoming installations of ClimateWell SolarChillers for The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) and other commercial partners in India.

You can read more about the company and technology at  http://www.climatewell.com/

Health of Human beings to make it a better world

Part of my Greenearth work also involves making the human being healthy in mind and body. In our research and development we are presently growing plants out of soil and water to create a better world for everyone. I would like to hear from any Cleantech member who can help me identify the perfect LED light colouring for growing vegetables. Although we use red and blue we are not sure how much and how long we should be using the particular colours. Out objective is to be able to grow products all the year round anywhere in the world.

Stop Selling Renewables - Start Helping with Them

According to a report, about 3,000 of the Army casualties reported in Iraq between 2003 and 2007 were protecting fuel convoys. This fuel was required by the Americans to run their buildings and fortifications all over Iraq.

Regardless of whether or not you approve of the American invasion of Iraq, you will surely approve that it would be much better if the Americans had a more local production of fuel - and that would most always mean biofuels (unless you are looking at producing synthetic fuel from plastics etc) using pyrolytic processes.

The reason for my quoting this example was to note that here is a niche market where locally produced biofuels could mean the difference between life and death. Is there any surprise then that one of the key entities in the US funding biofuel research is the US Military?

In general, biofuel producers (and this holds good for all renewable energy in fact) might be much better off seeking such attractive niches to begin with, where the price of the product is not as important as some other aspect (in this case, the ability to be produced in a decentralized, localized manner). That is, cost reduction from technology is not the only way to make renewable energy and clean technology disruptive. I gave a speech on Increasing the Demand for Solar about a year back in a similar vein, I explored the possibilities of niche markets for solar that will adopt solar at current prices and technology levels...

In my opinion, the best ways to make completely new technologies (that also require quite some changes in habits and quite a few compromises) penetrate is not through some jazzy marketing to the mass market which might not have much of a need, but by spending the time and brains to find niche markets that have unserved / underserved needs which could be partially or fully met by the new tech...

To paraphrase the sales guru Zig Ziglar (what a name!), "Stop Selling! Start Helping!"

Eco Propellants - Alternatives to Hydrocarbon Based Aerosols

Here's another developing niche eco opportunity.

As restrictions and regulations tighten on the use of aerosol products, it is nice to know of a product from Cortec® Corporation, an effective alternative to hazardous hydrocarbon-based aerosols. Cortec’s EcoAir® products are water-based, and powered by compressed air as opposed to traditional chemical propellants; eliminating hazardous chemical delivery systems and preserving your health and the environment.

This type of powered spray affords several significant advantages over traditional aerosol sprays: EcoAir® has no innate harmful, hazardous, or polluting characteristics, is non-flammable, and enables the use of products rated for their biodegradability and nonpolluting characteristics. In old spray systems, the chemical used was altered by the propellant carrier. This disallowed the use of many biodegradable and water based formulations. EcoAir® spray technology lets the chemical formulation remain in pure form without being mixed, thereby guaranteeing that the product you are spraying works exactly how it should.

Since EcoAir® products are powered by compressed air, they are much less volatile and can be used instead of aerosols where shipping, storage, and application restrictions apply.

In addition to being non-flammable, Cortec’s EcoAir® products are biodegradable, environmentally friendly, minimize waste disposal, and are safe to use.

Well, if that sounds like straight out of a marketing brochure, well it actually is (source: Eco Business).

While we might discount some of the marketing eulogies, products such as these could start having increasingly more attractive markets as environmental controls and regulations start tightening in all parts of business activities.

Wind Powered Seawater Desalination

There is a method in this combo of using wind power for sea water desalination. Wind blows strongest above the oceans, and offshore wind farms promise excellent CUFs in future, hopefully at affordable costs. Combine this with the fact that seawater used for desalination is present in...where else but the sea, and you see why this idea could be interesting, and something that should be kept an eye on.

The technical and economical specifics for wind powered seawater desalination (RO) as a completely integrated solution is not yet fully known but some consider it to have the capability and potential to be implemented in medium and large scale within the next few years.

The technology to desalinate seawater by wind power focuses on the continuous adaptation of the membrane process to the current wind power generation (load management) what results in variable operation parameters. The wind energy share directly usable for the process (wind penetration) in a wind-desalination subgrid constellation will be influenced by many aspects: (Source)

• Installed capacities (desalination, wind turbine, potable water storage)
• Integrated management systems (load, energy & storage)
• Resource scenarios (wind)
• Demand scenarios (water)

Organic Rankine Cycle: The Changing Role of Water for Thermal Power

It is not my intention to say coal power plants are clean, but coal (or natural gas) power plants are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and hence, howmuch ever we are able to make these more efficient or less wasteful, guess you could call it "clean".

The Organic Rankine Cycle could be one such invention that could make thermal power plants more "sustainable" than they are currently...

"Fresh water is the most essential commodity on earth, and yet, it is a scarce natural resource. According to the National Renewable Energy Lab, thermoelectric power alone accounts for 39% of all water consumption in the U.S., consuming over 200 million gallons per day. And the majority of that water is used to cool our heated power-production equipment.

But what would you say if I told you there has been a water-free technology in existence for more than fifty years that manufacturing facilities can use to cool their systems? And there’s a good chance you haven’t even heard of it, despite its recent popularity.

The water-free technology being referred to is the organic Rankine cycle (or “ORC”), which traces its roots to the geothermal power generation sector, where it was first popularized in the late 1960s.  These systems operate on the same basic principle as the traditional steam cycle, with two important differences: ORCs use a contained environmental refrigerant instead of water and ORCs are closed-loop, meaning they don’t need anything coming in or going out to run."

More from here...

Source: Clean Technica