Renewable energy

[Tuor]

Last May 7, my country achived an historical landmark, the wholle country runned just on renewable energy for around 4 consecutive days, 107 consecutive hours.

The articles
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...e-energy-alone
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/e...hydroelectric/

Thanks to an extremely bumpy spring, that filled most of our dams, we achived this historical landmark, so my question, can we (the world) achive a stable production just on renwable energy? What do you think about this?

[Hooked]

Good for you!

[Deleted]

If you get enough of it and build a system around it, sure.

[Tuor]

If you get enough of it and build a system around it, sure.

its still very season limited, but i'm actually glad. The governement that baillouted us back in 2011 was spending huge amounts of money in renwable energies, and now it started to pay off. As i've said, its still very season limited, and we need to invest even more.

[Deleted]

its still very season limited, but i'm actually glad. The governement that baillouted us back in 2011 was spending huge amounts of money in renwable energies, and now it started to pay off. As i've said, its still very season limited, and we need to invest even more.

Yep. it's all about scale ; the main issue with renewable energy is that it's % of Efficiency versus Space and Application.

Also, pricings matter a lot. But obviously, if we can get enough of it, and get far enough in research, it'll save the world.

[nonameelf]

Norway does this as well don't they? And Sweden uses garbage for energy iirc.

Would likely be more difficult to achieve for larger nations though.

[Deleted]

Last May 7, my country achived an historical landmark, the wholle country runned just on renewable energy for around 4 consecutive days, 107 consecutive hours.

Wow. Impressive. Nice news.

While completely removing the dependency on oil/carbon/etc. seems impossible right now, I hope in the near future we can reduce it greatly in the whole EU.

[Blobfish]

Human waste like Feces can be converted into Methane Gas which can be used to
produce valuable energy.

When I am taking a dump , I would like to know that I am contributing to renewable energy.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-de...a-slums-biogas


They call them “flying toilets” – the bags of human poo that are thrown out of the windows of the thousands
of small shacks that make up Nairobi’s slums.

Umande and the British charity Practical Action have devised a solution that turns the mountains of odorous human waste from a problem into an asset.

They are building bio-centres – toilet facilities where human slurry is collected and put in a digester which collects the methane emitted from poo as it breaks down. The methane is sold back to the slum dwellers as biogas, used for cooking within the centres or to power hot showers.

“Every individual creates 300g of human waste each day, and 60% of Nairobi’s four million inhabitants live in its informal settlements – that’s 2.4 million people,” says Omotto. “What we have in Nairobi is 720,000 kg of shit. We want to turn it into biogas so that we can tackle the energy

[Deleted]

if we could harness the power of bullshit that comes out of politcians mouths we would never run out of power

- - - Updated - - -

Human waste like Feces can be converted into Methane Gas which can be used to produce valuable energy. When I am taking a dump , I would like to know that I am contributing to renewable energy. http://www.theguardian.com/global-de...a-slums-biogas They call them “flying toilets” – the bags of human poo that are thrown out of the windows of the thousands of small shacks that make up Nairobi’s slums. Umande and the British charity Practical Action have devised a solution that turns the mountains of odorous human waste from a problem into an asset. They are building bio-centres – toilet facilities where human slurry is collected and put in a digester which collects the methane emitted from poo as it breaks down. The methane is sold back to the slum dwellers as biogas, used for cooking within the centres or to power hot showers. “Every individual creates 300g of human waste each day, and 60% of Nairobi’s four million inhabitants live in its informal settlements – that’s 2.4 million people,” says Omotto. “What we have in Nairobi is 720,000 kg of shit. We want to turn it into biogas so that we can tackle the energy

its a known fact that cows produce a lot more methane than a human does

[Ripster42]

Yep. it's all about scale ; the main issue with renewable energy is that it's % of Efficiency versus Space and Application.

Also, pricings matter a lot. But obviously, if we can get enough of it, and get far enough in research, it'll save the world.

Real estate space isn't really a problem with the most likely long term solution, in my opinion. Space based solar with microwave transmission of power. I fully expect projects to be completed before I die. Now that we're testing 3d printers in micro-g environments and have an asteroid capture planned, we're making huge strides towards it.

Wonder if @Skroe knows more about it.

[nextormento]

I don't much like the wording of these newspieces. That demand is equal to the renewables output doesn't quite mean the country is run on renewable alone: gas is still operating and energy excess is distributed (to Spain, for instance).

But it will happen, eventually. Portugal is installing more and more wind turbines, and it's a nice place for solar too. And they'll be more and more involved in green energy exports. It's just a matter of time :].

[Dystemper]

If we could find away to hook people up to harness the heat the produce to use as energy like a battery ...........

[Ghostpanther]

New Zealand I think gets it's power from Hydro generators. But it is not a realistic source for some countries. If you can do it, awesome. But renewable energy sources applications will only work in some locations.

[Ripster42]

New Zealand I think gets it's power from Hydro generators. But it is not a realistic source for some countries. If you can do it, awesome. But renewable energy sources applications will only work in some locations.

It's almost like there isn't a place where there are no limitations on how big you can build solar farms that get continuous sunlight.

[Ghostpanther]

It's almost like there isn't a place where there are no limitations on how big you can build solar farms that get continuous sunlight.

When you are talking about supplying enough power for a city of 15 million people there is. :P And in the US, we have states which are larger than a lot of countries and some are rainy and cloudy more than others. Solar power is certainly a nice alternative and will work well in some places. But not in all, all the time.

[Skroe]

Real estate space isn't really a problem with the most likely long term solution, in my opinion. Space based solar with microwave transmission of power. I fully expect projects to be completed before I die. Now that we're testing 3d printers in micro-g environments and have an asteroid capture planned, we're making huge strides towards it.

Wonder if @Skroe knows more about it.

Space Based Solar has a future, so long as an alternnative to beaming down the energy can be found. It's tremendously inefficient to harvest light, turn it into electricity, then turn it into light again to get beamed down, only for it to be turned into electricity. If instead, a long, thin wire or something were used, you could skip the inefficiency problem somewhat.

Space Based solar is a pretty exotic solution that has the plus side of being able to be an industry that would accelerate the growth of the space launch industry. In truth, you could do most of what it would do just by building a simple, evolved, nuclear power plant design over and over.

[Felya]

When you are talking about supplying enough power for a city of 15 million people there is. :P And in the US, we have states which are larger than a lot of countries and some are rainy and cloudy more than others. Solar power is certainly a nice alternative and will work well in some places. But not in all, all the time.

Which is why we took pride in building the massive pipeline from Alaska. Eastern Washington produces enouph reusable energy to power at least a couple of neighboring states, as they already do with California. Our size buys us the resources for both solar and wind, regardless of the seasons. We are lacking infrastructure to push it cross country, like we built for oil. The energy that would be going to other states is being burnt off instead, because batteries are over capacity...

[Ghostpanther]

Which is why we took pride in building the massive pipeline from Alaska. Eastern Washington produces enouph reusable energy to power at least a couple of neighboring states, as they already do with California. Our size buys us the resources for both solar and wind, regardless of the seasons. We are lacking infrastructure to push it cross country, like we built for oil. The energy that would be going to other states is being burnt off instead, because batteries are over capacity...

Which is a example of why better methods can be done. But still does not prove it will work everywhere, anytime. And Washinton has some low population neighboring states compared to say...Ohio.

[caervek]

so my question, can we (the world) achive a stable production just on renwable energy?

No, it's not possible, renewable energy is a supplementary source of power not primary, you also need nuclear or fossil fuel power generation for when the is not enough sun/wind.

[Felya]

Which is a example of why better methods can be done. But still does not prove it will work everywhere, anytime. And Washinton has some low population neighboring states compared to say...Ohio.

We pump it to California. Population numbers is not the issue, as we have more than enouph to sustain them regardless of population. Washington doesn't even need it, thanks to grand coulée damn. If we did to Nevada's solar, what we did to Alaska for oil, it could power the entire country and then sell the left overs. We simply do not have the infrustracture to do it and the investment to build infrustracture, is just as unlikely to come from energy companies, as it did from oil in it's infant stages.