Wind Power without the blades.

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

Uncovered a link to this article on Facebook today.  Unbelievable new way to turn windpower into energy while avoiding every problem associated with traditional wind turbines.  The system also uses a two chamber hydro system to store energy.  I drew up plans for this exact energy storage system a while back.  Good to see that it wasn’t pie-in-the-sky thinking.  Anyway, enjoy this article and be sure to check out Discoverynews.com for more stuff like this!

Source: Discovery News
Publication date: October 15, 2010

By Alyssa Danigelis

Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving. The designers came up with the idea for the planned city Masdar, a 2.3-square-mile, automobile-free area being built outside of Abu Dhabi. Atelier DNA’s “Windstalk” project came in second in the Land Art Generator competition a contest sponsored by Madsar to identify the best work of art that generates renewable energy from a pool of international submissions.

The proposed design calls for 1,203 “stalks,” each 180-feet high with concrete bases that are between about 33- and 66-feet wide. The carbon-fiber stalks, reinforced with resin, are about a foot wide at the base tapering to about 2 inches at the top. Each stalk will contain alternating layers of electrodes and ceramic discs made from piezoelectric material, which generates a current when put under pressure. In the case of the stalks, the discs will compress as they sway in the wind, creating a charge.
“The idea came from trying to find kinetic models in nature that could be tapped to produce energy,” explained Atelier DNA founding partner Darío Núñez-Ameni.
In the proposal for Masdar, the Windstalk wind farm spans 280,000 square feet. Based on rough estimates, said Núñez-Ameni the output would be comparable to that of a conventional wind farm covering the same area.
“Our system is very efficient in that there is no friction loss associated with more mechanical systems such as conventional wind turbines,” he said.

Each base is slightly different, and is sloped so that rain will funnel into the areas between the concrete to help plants grow wild. These bases form a sort of public park space and serve a technological purpose. Each one contains a torque generator that converts the kinetic energy from the stalk into energy using shock absorber cylinders similar to the kind being developed by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Levant Power .
Wind isn’t constant, though, so Núñez-Ameni says two large chambers below the whole site will work like a battery to store energy. The idea is based on existing hydroelectric pumped storage systems. Water in the upper chamber will flow through turbines to the lower chamber, releasing stored energy until the wind starts up again.

The top of each tall stalk has an LED lamp that glows when the wind is blowing — more intensely during strong winds and not all when the air is still. The firm anticipates that the stalks will behave naturally, vibrating and fluttering in the air.

“Windstalk is completely silent, and the image associated with them is something we’re already used to seeing in a field of wheat or reeds in a marsh. Our hope is that people living close to them will like to walk through the field — especially at night — under their own, private sky of swarming stars,” said Núñez-Ameni.

After completion, a Windstalk should be able to produce as much electricity as a single wind turbine, with the advantage that output could be increased with a denser array of stalks. Density is not possible with conventional turbines, which need to be spaced about three times the rotor’s diameter in order to avoid air turbulence. But Windstalks work on chaos and turbulence so they can be installed much closer together, said Núñez-Ameni.

Núñez-Ameni also reports that the firm is currently working on taking the Windstalk idea underwater. Called Wavestalk, the whole system would be inverted to harness energy from the flow of ocean currents and waves. The firm’s long-term goal is to build a large system in the United States, either on land or in the water.

Posted in Energy, Gizmos | Comments Off

Google. Doing the right thing.

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

Here’s something to be happy about!  All is not lost for the American alternative energy industry it would appear:

Source: The UK Guardian
Publication date: October 12, 2010

By Edward Helmore

Google is extending its investment in green technology with a $5bn program to build an undersea, wind energy transmission backbone along 350 miles of the Atlantic seaboard.

The grid project, which stands to serve 1.9m homes from Virginia to New Jersey with up to 6,000 megawatts of electric power from dozens of windfarms 10 miles off the mid-Atlantic coast, is the most ambitious of its kind.

Google announced it is working with Trans-Elect and two other firms, but has not offered a timetable for construction. “This system will act as a superhighway for clean energy,” said Rick Needham, Google’s green-business operations director.

Investment in both wind energy programs and the controversial extraction of shale oil from deposits in North Dakota, Montana and Alberta, Canada, has increased since the BP spill over the summer caused US lawmakers to curb permits for offshore oil and gas drilling.

For Google, the Atlantic Wind Connection Project is in line with earlier investments. In May, it put $40m into two North Dakota windfarms, its first clean-energy investment. Two days ago the firm announced it had tested a self-driving electric car on Californian highways.

Today’s announcement offers hope that further investment will pour into the lagging US wind-energy program. Consistent wind through Montana and the Dakotas, off the South Carolina coast and across the Texas panhandle gives the US windfarm industry an opportunity to supply significant amounts of electricity to the grid.

But compared with China, now the leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar energy equipment, the US had been comparatively slow in adopting the technology. Public opposition to windfarms, including a large project off the presidential holiday island of Martha’s Vineyard, has taken years to resolve.

That may now be changing: the Global Wind Energy Council industry group estimates wind-power investment may reach $202bn over the next 20 years.

Charlie Hodges, a wind industry analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “The North American wind industry hasn’t had any players involved with the motivation and financial heft to really move this market forward. Google could play that role.”

Posted in Energy | 5 Comments

The R-5 Program and your sliding patio doors

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

Do you know about the government R-5 program?  Essentially, its a way to reduce replacement window/patio door costs by combining volume purchase economics with a pool of window manufacturers who can get government subsidies when they provide substantial discounts.  The idea is to get us motivated to replace all of our drafty old windows/sliding doors with new energy efficient ones.

The incentive provides significant cost savings since not only are volume purchases leveraged, but subsidized cost offsets are also provided.  Even better, there isn’t some complex tax rebate mechanism required to get your savings.  Instead, you simply buy at reduced rates from participating manufacturers.

So what’s the hitch?  Well, you generally need to buy a lot of windows to opt in.  However, if you’re thinking about replacing that drafty old sliding patio door (a major source of heat loss/gain btw), then you’re in luck because the volume quantity for this item is one.  In other words, there’s no reason in the world to go to Home Depot to get the project started.  Instead, leverage the R-5 program and save big bucks!  Here’s a link to get you started:

windowsvolumepurchase.org

Posted in Energy | 2 Comments

Second Place equals First Loser

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

This just in:  The United States is now second behind China as a recipient for green energy investment dollars.

A new report released on September 8th by Ernst & Young reveals China has taken the top slot from the U.S. as the best place to invest in renewable energy. The position swap has two sources: China’s increasingly ambitious green agenda, and the U.S.’s increasingly ho-hum one.

Here’s a quote from this report:

“The US dropped two points in the indices, to fall behind China, after a federal Renewable Energy Standard was not enacted this summer. Construction of new renewable energy facilities is expected to further slow down following the December 2010 expiration of an important deadline in the Treasury grant program with no assurance of renewal, generating investor uncertainty about the continuation of an effective incentive mechanism.”

If you remember, the indicated act was held up due to rejection of its “Cap and Trade” provision by the senate minority.  Renewable energy is a no-brainer from a job creation/industrial re-boot perspective.  The United States needs to be leading the way in this lucrative new industry.  What the heck is going on here!!!!

Posted in Energy, Politics | 1 Comment

DIY water conservation

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

How old is your home? To find out, take a look in your bathroom at that essential device that makes modern sanitation possible: your bathroom toilet. If your home was built before 1990, you’re quite likely to see something that looks like this:

Up until relatively recently, these gizmos all worked essentially the same way: 4 gallons of water were released through slots under the rim to create a whirlpool action that swirled waste away while additional water passed through a hole towards the bottom to provide a strong current that drew everything down the drain. The sound was classic: that swirly squishy sound to begin with followed by a rough coughing finish. If all went according to plan, 4+ gallons of water went bye-bye and the plunger wasn’t required.

Let me tell you, times have changed. Scientific design has reduced water usage to under 1 gallon per flush.  However, these levels of efficiency are designed for commercial environments and would clog up residential sewer lines.  Thankfully, standard toilets are now much more efficient too. Thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 1992, all toilets manufactured from 1994 on must use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush.  If you are willing to put up with a pressurized high efficiency toilet (HET) and the hissing sound it makes, then flush volume can be further reduced to 1.3 gallons or less.

So, take a good look at your toilets because they just might make up the majority of your water usage.

Here’s more: toilets have pretty much been standardized since the 1950s as far as installation goes. This means that flange bolts and drain placement have very little variance, so replacement is surprisingly easy. There’s a number of online how-to proceedures on you-tube that guide you every step of the way too. Essentially we’re talking about 4 (potentially rusted) bolts, a water feed disconnect, and a bit of scraping to remove the old seal. Then install a new seal, put in two new flange bolts and drop that new commode in place. Bada bing, you’re saving 3 gallons of water every time you flush.

So what are you waiting for?  Get online and start looking for those commode specials that come with free shipping.  Happy hunting!

Posted in Gizmos, Our Fragile Planet | Comments Off

Here’s an interesting article on the state of Solar Power…

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

Solar Power’s Price to Plummet

Spurred by the Recovery Act, technological innovations will make renewable energy cheaper, government says.

Source: ECOHOME Magazine
Publication date: September 8, 2010

By Jennifer Goodman

A new federal government report concludes that by 2015 the cost of solar power will be the same as the cost of power from the electrical grid and could even be less by 2030.

Released this week by Vice President Joe Biden, the report predicts that the cost of generating power from rooftop solar panels will drop from the 2009 cost of $0.21 per kWh to $0.10 per kWh in 2015, which is equivalent to typical household electricity rates. Further, the cost of rooftop solar power could drop to as low as $0.06 per kWh by 2030. At that cost, solar power will be significantly cheaper than household electricity rates, allowing an average household to save more than $400 per year in electricity bills.

The study focused on the impact of technological innovations funded by the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, established in 2009 in response to the U.S. financial crisis to create new jobs and spur economic activity. The $787 billion act includes $100 billion for science and technology projects including a nationwide smart energy grid, electric vehicle manufacturing, and development of regional high-speed rail systems.

“We’re planting the seeds of innovation, but private companies and the nation’s top researchers are helping them grow, launching entire new industries, transforming our economy, and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process,” Biden said.

The report also predicts that the country’s capacity for renewable energy generation will double by 2012, thanks in part to more than $23 billion of Recovery Act investments earmarked specifically for wind, solar, and geothermal projects.

As much renewable-energy-generating capacity will be installed in the next three years as the U.S. had in the previous 30, the report states, growing to 57.6 gigawatts by the end of 2011, enough to power 16.7 million homes.

Examples of Recovery Act-funded energy-related projects include:

  • The largest photovoltaic power plant in North America, the 25-megawatt DeSoto Solar Park in Pensacola, Fla., consisting of over 90,000 solar panels and providing enough power for 3,000 homes.
  • Solar manufacturer FirstSolar’s expansion of its manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, Ohio.
  • Thin-film solar manufacturer Solyndra’s high-tech solar module manufacturing facility in Fremont, Calif., with the capacity to produce modules totaling 230 megawatts each year.
  • The 400-megawatt BrightSource solar thermal project in the Mojave Desert, designed to be the world’s largest solar thermal facility with approximately 349,000 mirrors.
  • Massachusetts-based FloDesign’s development of a novel shrouded wind turbine design with advanced aerospace technology that should dramatically reduce the cost and noise of wind energy.
  • The development of new approaches to make solar cells much less expensive by companies like 1366 Technologies and Semprius.
  • The addition of 18 million new residential smart meters to the 8 million currently in use.
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EcoSmart 40watt equivalent LED bulb review

Posted on September 12, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

Home Depot now has EcoSmart 40 watt equivalent LED bulbs in-store.  Having a light output of 440 lumens, these are 8 watt devices with a standard A19 profile.  They are also manufactured by Florida based Lighting Science Group through an exclusive resale agreement with HD.

There’s an interesting story here too.  LSG’s research showed that automation would be key to producing a light that can reliably last 20 years, so they eschewed the standard Chinese manufacturing route (which achieves cost savings through the use of cheap manual labor) in favor of a local facility featuring high automation for an exact construction process.  The result: LSG’s strategy massively undercuts Philips/Sylvania (who use Chinese manufacturing) in per-unit pricing while also producing what is arguably a more reliable device to boot.  20 years is a long time for any daily electronic device to run, so this is a good thing!

The other big deal to this strategy is here: LSG is building a large manufacturing facility in Florida and will be hiring 800 people to ramp up construction of this device as well as their 60 watt equivalent bulb due out soon.  Kudos to them for this!  This is how American industry needs to be thinking!

Anyway, I had known that the 40 watt equiv bulb was available online since August with in-store availability planned for September, so while we were in the store looking at water efficient toilets, I strolled over to the lighting section to check and there they were.  Since we have many 9 watt CFLs in the house that are also 40 watt equivalent, I quickly purchased one for $20 and brought it home to test.

Folks, I can now say with conviction that the world of lighting has changed.  I was so impressed with the results that I ran back over to HD and purchased 4 more.  We now have the master bathroom completely switched over to LED lighting (3 light “tulip” fixture above the sink) along with a 2 fixture floor lamp in the living room.  Unlike dimmable CFLs which only dim down to about 30% or so before they begin to flicker badly, these lights can dim down to 1%, just like their incandescent counterparts.  At 3000K these lamps are a bit less yellow than a traditional 2700K bulb but in the bathroom this is actually an advantage.  I like them in the living room floor lamp as well since this light is primarily used for reading purposes.

There just aren’t a lot of disadvantages to this light bulb.  The only difference is that very little light is thrown towards the screw in connector.  This is due to the fact that the heat sink for the LEDs themselves is located on this side of the bulb.   Consequently, light is projected a little more than 180 degrees, from one side of the bulb to the other.    These lights would therefore work best in fixtures that point the bulbs downward or horizontally.

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VMworld 2010… it’s getting better

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

VMworld 2010 is in San Francisco again this year.  16,000 geeks attending.  It’s easy to see that the technology is maturing; VMware is working hard to address the different issues surrounding enterprise virtualization.  Here’s a few notables:

vShield Endpoint.

Ok, so the hypervisor controls all IO to a VM right? Sooo, why not build a Security VM (SVM) and direct traffic there too.   Now plug in your favorite AV provider (Trend Micro now and other’s coming soon) on the SVM and voila!  All antivirus is now centralized.  No need to run it on all the VMs since the central system is monitoring all disk/network traffic.  Cool.

Watch out!  ESX is going going gone!

vSphere 4.1 is the last to support the service console enabled hypervisor.  Starting with 4.2 it’s ESXi only folks.  Better get going on vCLI and vPowershell since all your favorite command line stuff is pretty much there.  Say bye to agents too.  third party drivers are installed with the update manager now.

There’s an improved Tech Support mode, more functionality in the DCUI and in short, a few different ways to git ‘r done.  I’m firing up ESXi ASAP.

Snapshot deltas….

Are going away itnf!!! I can hardly wait.  Hopefully they’ll be leveraging some EMC tech to replace this POS implementation.  Can anyone say COFW? (EMC geek insiders know…)

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Muslims didn’t destroy the twin towers. Al-qaeda did.

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

I’m surprised and appalled by all the anti-Muslim rhetoric that’s been flying around these days.  There’s a Qur’an burning planned in Florida.  Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey wants to have the Muslim religion declared a cult and therefore exempt from 1st amendment protections.  Our president is chastised for pointing out religious freedom rights and now the people who think he is a Muslim (and therefore evil) has tripled.

Wow.  Unbelievable.

Here in the United States, we are directed to be tolerant of religion by our constitution.  In fact, our forefathers felt so passionately about religious freedom that they made it part of the very first amendment of our great constitution; the essential bill of rights that defines the core values that make this nation great.

Virtually every religion has its radicals but the acts of a few does not constitute the right to persecute the majority.  Placing a mosque several blocks from ground zero doesn’t tarnish hallowed ground, rather it reinforces the ideologies of the United States as a people who have, with their great democracy, moved beyond religion centric politics.

Heck, there already is a church there, why not a mosque as well?  We already have Muslims fighting along side Catholics in our military.  Many of these same young men and women paid the ultimate price during this country’s Iran conflict too.  American Muslim soldiers are in Afghanistan now looking for Al-qaeda and Taliban extremists, continuing to put their lives in jeopardy so that 911 won’t be repeated.

The ground at the trade center site is also sacred to to them.  It is every bit as sacred to them as it is to the comrades they fight with and the country they fight for.   We, as a nation, need to remember why we are here: to be a ray of hope for the oppressed around the world regardless of their race or religion.

I feel sick and ashamed by the depths we have fallen to.

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LED lighting developments

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Kevin Wilcox

Our world is about to change folks.  Looks like the holy grail is going to be in our hands by the third quarter of 2010.

I’m talking of course, about fully dimmable 60 watt equivalent (800 lumens) LED lightbulbs in the familiar A19 style.  Here’s some links to get those juices flowing:

Definity LED Bulbs achieve 770 lumens. Cost for these 2700K bulbs will be $30 each.  My sources are telling me that Home Depot will be selling ‘em too.  I can hardly wait to get my hands on one.

Then there’s Phillips of course:
Phillips 60 watt equivalent EnduraLED A19. Cost for these will be about $60 each.

Soon incandescent bulbs will be going the way of the phonograph record.  The devices above draw about 7 watts and last for 25,000 hours.  It can’t happen soon enough for me.

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