The Greener Truth » Green Living

Solving the Energy Crisis

Aaron Midgett — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:58:17 +0000

I apologize for not posting recently. As many of you may not know, I am a graduate student and I am defending my thesis in two weeks. This has meant that work has taken precedence over the more interesting task of blogging. Until I have more time, here is the beginning of the introduction to my dissertation that I thought would be interesting to the majority of you. Hope you get something out of it, and in a few weeks, I will try to get back to a regular blogging schedule.

The Energy Crisis

Coal Power Plant

The motivation behind the search for cost effective, carbon neutral, renewable energy sources is readily apparent in all areas of our daily life. Since the industrial revolution, the human need for high quality, inexpensive energy has driven both exploration and technology. For most of that time, that need was filled by fossil fuels, which today comprise 85% of the U.S. energy supply. Since their rise to power in the industrial revolution, fossil fuels have always been readily available and inexpensive. The problem with fossil fuels that the cost of mining and distributing coal and oil does not take into account is their cost to the environment and their finite availability. Because of these two missing factors, fossil fuels are sold for considerably less than their true costs, on a larger scale, meaning that other energy sources are not able to compete. This has meant that for the last two hundred years, fossil fuels have had a monopoly on the energy market, while slowly changing the climate of our planet. We have now come to expect an unlimited supply of relatively inexpensive energy, and therefore, any replacement must be cost effective, easily transportable and widely available.

Power of the Sun

Based on these criteria, there are a limited number of sources that are capable of providing the energy needed, and none that can do so for the same price that oil, coal and gas are sold for today. The most obvious untapped energy source is harnessing the power from the sun. More energy strikes the earth, in the form of sunlight, in a single hour (4.3 x 10²⁰ J) than humans consumed on the entire planet in 2001 (4.3 x 10²⁰ J). The current technology for collecting this energy is insufficient. While fossil-fuel-derived energy can be produced for as little as $0.02-0.05 (kW-hr)^-1, the average cost of solar cells, based on a twenty year lifetime, are in the range of $0.21-0.46 (kW-hr)^-1for a commercial utility scale power plant. Due to the large discrepancy between the costs of these two energy sources, incremental improvements to the cost of solar cells are not enough, and instead, new revolutionary ideas must be implemented that are not only more cost effective, but also more efficient. This is the area of solar research categorized as third generation.

Solar Cells: Generating Electricity from Light

Thanks to Tree Hugger and the Pope

Solar cells are designed to absorb photons from sunlight and convert that energy into electricity by taking advantage of the photovoltaic effect and separating an electron and hole across the bandgap of the semiconductor. If a photon does not have enough energy to excite an electron across the gap, it will either be transmitted or scattered. On the other hand, if the photon has more energy than the bandgap of the semiconductor, the excess kinetic energy is lost to heat as the high-energy electron and hole cool to the bandedge. Once the electron is separated from the hole, a built in asymmetry in the device (usually created with a junction of electrically different materials) causes the electrons to flow through an external circuit where they can be used to do electrical work.

The delicate balance of collecting the most photons possible while keeping the highest voltage based on the solar spectrum creates an upper limit to the theoretical efficiency of a traditional, single bandgap, terrestrial solar cell. This detailed balance calculation, originally defined in 1961, leads to the Shockley-Queisser limit of 30-33% for solar cells with bandgaps in the range of 1-1.6 eV. While some of the energy loss is due to the transmission of low energy photons, the majority of the lost energy (almost 50%) is due to heat created as the high energy charge carriers cool to the bandgap. By accessing this lost energy, the theoretical efficiency of a solar cell increases, and the goal of third generation solar is realized.

A Bendable Bike

Aaron Midgett — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:55:26 +0000

I am alsways looking for new ideas that will make greener forms of transportation easier and last week I found a great one. This may seem like an odd concept, but in big cities, where bikes locked with massive chains routinely dissapear, what better way to keep your bike from being stolen than to use it as the lock. Now, I am not too sure how this works, or how well it rides, but the idea behind this bendable bike is genius. Kevin Scott’s bike simply bends around a post and the two wheels and the frame can all be locked together with a U lock. In order to make the bike bendable when needed and stable when being ridden, a crank tightens a cable inside the frame. The next step will be to incorporate the lock so that the bike can just lock to itself. But for now, what a cool invention.

Peddle Power at the Copenhagen Crowne Plaza

Aaron Midgett — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:11:49 +0000

I have often fondly talked about my experience with biking in the Danish capital Copenhagen, but a the Crowne Plaza has come up with a great idea to take this to a new level. They have installed two bikes in the hotel lobby that are used to generate electricity. This by itself is a brilliant idea, not so much different from the idea of a gym powered by the patrons (one of our Greener Truth bloggers has always wanted to start a gym like this called the Powerhouse), but they have taken this idea a step farther and passed the savings along to the people doing the work. If you are staying at the hotel, a short workout on the bikes will earn you a free meal or drinks at the bar. This is the first such program that I know about and the Crowne Plaza is using this as a test program before expanding to other hotels. On top of this idea, the hotel was designed with energy saving in mind and uses 90% less energy than traditional buildings. Here are just a few of the energy saving ideas that have been implemented.

-solar pannels on the roof and exterior

-a geothermal well for heating and cooling

-the use of a biogas facility for organic waste

-organic food

-water saving faucets

-low energy lighting and electronics

I think that this is a great idea and would love to see these sorts of ideas catch on. To date, most business think of green practices as costly and unnecessary, but ideas like this will show that it is possible to run a greener business and save money as long as people are willing to think out of the box.

Lance Leads the Leaf Electric Car Charge

Aaron Midgett — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:38:41 +0000

Lance Armstrong may be 17 minutes behind the leaders in the Tour de France this summer, but that is ok with me, because he is stepping up to lead the charge for the Nissan Leaf. Not long ago, Lance was named the official spokesperson for the electric car, and now he stars in their new commercial about the clean design of the car.

While this may just be another paycheck for the cycling superstar, he is also set to be the first recipient of a Leaf and genuinly seems dedicated to the cause. More celebrities are standing up for causes they care about, and in a culture that is always trying to find the best deal, this is one way that alternative forms of transportation and renewable energy are going to take hold. Next time you see you see Matt Damon or Brad Pitt driving around in a sporty Tesla Roadster, don’t think about the $100K that they dropped to get the car, but the service they are doing to promote a cleaner driving experience for us all.

More Information about the Nissan Leaf and Electric Cars

-Wikipedia:Electric Car

The Starbucks Karma Cup

Aaron Midgett — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:49:10 +0000

I have railed on Starbucks (and all the other coffee stores) in that past over all of the wasted paper coffee cups, but after a long time coming, the company has joined with the Betacup program and decided to make some improvements. The Betacup program initially asked for sugestions from customers on how to fight the coffee cup waste. Here is a video explaining the problem and how to find the solution.
Now the winning idea has been chosen, and it is a brilliant one. Instead of redesigning the reusable coffee mug, the solution was simply to give folks an incentive to remember their mug. Every coffee addict that I know has multiple reusable mugs, but I don’t often see them being used. Reusable mugs are hard to clean and easy to forget, so to help people remember, the Karma cup idea will reward every tenth customer bringing a reusable mug with a free cup of coffee. This is so much smarter than a punch card, or a discount, because you never know when you are going to be a winner, so you always have to be on your toes and bring your mug. The only addition that I would make would be mug cleaning station. How many times have you had a reusable mug, wanted to use it, but just couldn’t stomach drinking out of the same cup for another day without washing it? So now, what if Starbucks had a quick wash station so that while you were waiting in line, you could wash out and sanitize your mug? Now that would be convenient, and with the addition of the Karma cup idea, could change some attitudes about coffee.

More information on Betacup and the coffee cup problem

-Betacup: Check out these other great solutions

-Treehugger

-Coffee Waste Calculator

-Sustainability is Sexy

Bike to Work Day Denver

Aaron Midgett — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:55:51 +0000

In many cities around the country, the official bike to work day has already passed, but here in Denver and many other mountainous cities, the weather is a little less predictable in May and so Bike to work Day is moved to late June. Here in Denver, I will be participating in Bike to work Day on June 23rd. As I have written before, I have a decent commute to work on the bike that takes about an hour each way, but I really enjoy it and on days where I bike, that is often the favorite part of my day. I actually biked to work today, and am looking forward to the ride home. Bike to work day, is just a normal day for many commuters, but if you choose to ride to work, there are some nice benefits like free breakfast and bike aid stations. If you are luck enough to live in the Denver area, go sign up for bike to work day right now, but if you aren’t, try biking to work anyway. I think you will like the nice change of pace to start your day.

More information on Commuting by Bike

-How to bike to work, from the Greener Truth

-Wikipedia: Bike to work day

-Denver Bike to work Day

-San Francisco Bike Coalition

-Commute by Bike

-Bike Commuters

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Aaron Midgett — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:06:14 +0000

It has been a beautiful spring here in Colorado, and my garden has been growing like crazy. Since my last garden post, I have planted cilantro, basil, swiss chard, summer squash, spaghetti squash, beans and black eyed peas to go with my tomatoes, potatoes, onions, peas and spinach. We also have eaten our first salad from the garden, and I need to pick more today before the spinach takes over. So, as you can see, I am pretty proud of my garden and I bet that the rest of you are too.

Here is a picture of our garden, and we would love to have pictures of yours too. So, in the comments, leave us a link to your garden and we will post pictures from our readers in an upcoming post. If you are yet to get your garden going, get out there and give it a shot. It is still a great time to plant, and not too late. This post on square foot gardening will help get you going. You will love doing it, and every time you eat some of your beautiful home grown organic vegetables, you will be glad that you did.

Square Foot Gardening Links

-Square Foot Gardening From the Greener Truth

-Square Foot Gardening Foundation

-Tim’s Square Foot Gardening

-My Square Foot Garden

Spring Planting Schedule

-The Vegetable Garden

-The Farmers Almanac

Reusing Empty Swimming Pools

Aaron Midgett — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:58:06 +0000

It is easy to get bogged down in the recession, espicially if you are out of work or livng in California. So it is important to think about some of the benefits that come from this crazy situation. I thought that this video showed not only the amazing amount of waste and overspending that was prevalent during the build up to the housing bubble, but also a really creative idea to reuse some of the wasted space.

The movie Cannonball was developed by California is a place.

Maybe in the future, we should learn something from these skaters and try to reuse what we have before spending above our means to build something that we can’t afford.

Planting Tomatoes and your Local Garden Center

Aaron Midgett — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:17:23 +0000

This weekend, we had some beautiful weather here in Colorado and my wife an I took advantage of it. In Colorado we had snow last week, so we are just getting around to doing our “last frost” plantings. It is a little later than most parts of the country, so if you are waiting to get started now is your chance. We started out by heading to our local garden store and bought a few tomato plants. I have been gardening on my own for a few years now, but I have never attempted tomatoes. For some reason I have always been a little apprehensive about growing tomatoes. This may seem silly to all of you professional gardeners out there, but growing up in the south, I don’t think that we ever had tomatoes that made it all the way through the season so that we could enjoy them. I am not sure exactly why, because my mother can grow anything, but tomatoes always gave her trouble. Maybe it was all the wet weather that we had in the mountains of North Carolina.

But anyway, this year I am giving tomatoes a shot. I lucked out with a great local garden center, O’Toole’s, and so that was my first stop. I was blown away by the selection of plants that they had. There must have been 20-30 different varieties of tomatoes, I had no idea where to start. It was a busy Saturday, but after a few minutes of looking I found a very helpful employee, who seemed to know everything about growing tomatoes. I told her exactly how I felt about these delicious red fruits, and she guided me right to the easiest and most disease resistant plants. I ended up with a Brandywine herloom tomato, an early girl variety (that is suposed to mature by the 4th of july), and a super fantastic tomato (after all, how could I pass up that name). They are all vine tomatoes, so they take up about a 1-2 squares of my square foot garden, and I am hoping for the best.

The service that I found at my local garden center is enough to make me avoid the big chains for life. If you are on the fence like I was, then I suggest you get online and find your local garden center. If you go on a weekday, then you can probably find a very helpful employee who would love nothing more than to talk to you about your garden for as long as you want, and even on a busy Saturday, I am sure you will get the help that you need. Stop procrastinating and get planting, and don’t forget to take advantage of all the resources that you have, especially your local garden center.

Granola for your Computer

Aaron Midgett — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:34:35 +0000

By Guest Author: Josh Holt
PhD Scientist at the National Renewable Energy Labratory

About a year ago, I began thinking about how much electricity my computer used. I’m not talking about using my computer, but about not using it. Really, how much of your computer do you really use? I’m watching the resource meter right now as I’m typing and the CPU history rarely spikes above 25%. That’s when I’m “using” it. Most of the time it spends on, I spend in the other room.

Your computer power supply is rated in Watts, just like light bulbs, and is built into the design of the whole computer to handle the maximum power load that all the hardware could possibly require. For average systems, that maximum rating is somewhere between 250-400 Watts. However, higher-end hardware such as hefty video cards for gaming or large monitors, multi-core processors, cooling fans, multimedia encoding/decoding, optical disc drives (say, burning DVDs), multiple or high-speed hard drives, or other power-hungry components can bump that peak demand above 1000 Watts. Most of the day you probably float at less than half your peak power. Even so, your computer can easily draw 100 Watts idling. Did you ever think of your computer as an extra light in your house, one that you leave on when you leave the room, or, like some people I know, while you’re sleeping? Sure, I try to turn off my computer when I don’t need it (I usually get more done then anyway), but sometimes it’s just not practical. When that extra proverbial light bulb needs to be on, wouldn’t it be nice to dim the lights when only need mood lighting or you leave the room, while still enjoy the brightness when you need it? Enter Granola.

Granola is software that does just that. It emerged out of beta on Earth Day 2010 and, best of all, it’s free and runs on Windows and Linux, and may be planned for Mac OSX down the road. Formerly MicroMiser, Granola was renamed to “more accurately capture our goal of making a serious impact on the planet through the reduction of wasted energy,” says MiserWare, the company behind Granola. According to the email they sent me announceing the newest version: “There are over a billion personal computers in the world. Together, they consume hundreds of billions of kilowatt hours annually. If each of these computers ran Granola and reduced their power consumption by even 10%, it would be like taking 7 million cars off the road. Or planting 900 million trees. Or turning off 65 coal power plants.” So far, they claim that the Granola community has saved as much CO2 as tens of thousands of trees. That’s assuming that every download equates to “average saving” of 56.9kWh and runs on a computer 24/7. Even though reported numbers seem to be best-case scenarios based on assumptions and averages, more awareness of green-aware computers goes a long way, especially with the climbing ubiquity of personal computing. And to be honest, if there’s any chance of trimming my electricity bill, I’m interested.

I have Granola running on three linux computers at home: a newer quad-core CPU computer, an older single-core CPU computer, and a small server with an low-power Intel Atom processor. Granola saves a bit over 45% CPU energy on all three, and claims to save about $25/year each, after setting our local energy rate to $0.10/kWh. Scale that by how often they’re on, and the savings comes to about $40/year. My wife claims to notice her computer runs a bit slower, but I don’t notice much change on mine. Next step is to find a Kill-A-Watt meter to check the power savings.

But Granola can only throttle the CPU power. Other managements are built into your operating system to quell power draw, such as timing monitor power-off, spinning down the hard drive, or hibernating, which are especially appreciated on laptops. The sure-fire hacks to save computing energy still remain: use laptops instead of desktops, turn them off when not in use, and don’t buy higher performing systems than life demands. But if those don’t work for you, Granola can bring some peace of mind and a little green to your CPU.