Even as data centers try ways to reduce power consumption, some others are looking at ways to capture the vast amount of heat that a massive IT data centre kicks out. Like telecommunications company Telehouse Europe which plans to capture the heat and pipe it to nearby homes and businesses.
When it opens in 2010, the nine-storey £80 million Telehouse West data centre in London’s Docklands will provide up to 9MW of ‘free heat’ – enough for water and space heating in about 450 local homes.
Telehouse intends to install a heat exchange unit to pump water, warmed by the data centre’s cooling systems, to the perimeter of the site, from where a developer can pipe it on to their own site and use a heat exchanger to warm or cool buildings.
If the waste heat is used to the full, it should result in an overall annual saving of 1,110 tonnes of CO2 emissions in the UK alone.
It is time for innovative thinking. Every conversion of energy possible has to be studied so that what is being wasted can be used. As we have shown here with examples from the world over – footsteps harnessed to energy, tidal power into electrical, etc.
Can you think of an innovative idea to capture energy? Let us know and you could win $10,000.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Asia most vulnerable
At an Asian Development Bank (ADB) conference last week in Manila, climate change researchers said Asia could become the world's biggest driver of climate change by 2030. The continent's share of energy use has tripled over the past 30 years alone, according to ADB.
The ADB also said Asia was the most vulnerable region to climate change. Water shortages, extreme weather and low-lying coastal cities could all be severely impacted by only moderate climate change.
Some of Asia’s biggest cities like Bangkok, Jakarta, Karachi, Manila, Mumbai and Shanghai, are vulnerable to sea level rises and unpredictable weather patterns.
Additionally, the ADB said water shortages could knock down crop yields by as much as 30% by 2050.
Can we step up efforts to stimulate low-carbon growth on the scale required? As governments focus on economic growth, is there adequate recognition of the fact that mindless use of fossil fuels could backfire?
The ADB also said Asia was the most vulnerable region to climate change. Water shortages, extreme weather and low-lying coastal cities could all be severely impacted by only moderate climate change.
Some of Asia’s biggest cities like Bangkok, Jakarta, Karachi, Manila, Mumbai and Shanghai, are vulnerable to sea level rises and unpredictable weather patterns.
Additionally, the ADB said water shortages could knock down crop yields by as much as 30% by 2050.
Can we step up efforts to stimulate low-carbon growth on the scale required? As governments focus on economic growth, is there adequate recognition of the fact that mindless use of fossil fuels could backfire?
Energy on the farm
International Development Enterprises India, a non-profit NGO has developed human/gravity-powered irrigators, water storage systems and treadle pumps that consume no electrical power, use far less water than current irrigators and are simple, low-cost and user friendly.
80-85% of water utilisation in India is from agriculture, with irrigation also being the largest consumer of agricultural energy. Only 10 percent are big farmers. The rest have to often pool resources. Pumpsets, tractors and fertilisers account for the large energy intake.
Replacing large-scale fertiliser use with mixed crop farming and crop rotation, desisting from slash and burn practice, rainwater harvesting instead of over-exploitation on groundwater, are being advocated to reduce the carbon and water footprint of agriculture.
Will it mean a return to animal power on our farms? Is there any visible reduction in the use of fertiliser? If the nutrients have been removed from the soil, can natural farming address the situation?
80-85% of water utilisation in India is from agriculture, with irrigation also being the largest consumer of agricultural energy. Only 10 percent are big farmers. The rest have to often pool resources. Pumpsets, tractors and fertilisers account for the large energy intake.
Replacing large-scale fertiliser use with mixed crop farming and crop rotation, desisting from slash and burn practice, rainwater harvesting instead of over-exploitation on groundwater, are being advocated to reduce the carbon and water footprint of agriculture.
Will it mean a return to animal power on our farms? Is there any visible reduction in the use of fertiliser? If the nutrients have been removed from the soil, can natural farming address the situation?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Steadying the wind
An ‘exergy’ analysis of wind turbines sited in two cities in Iran, Tehran and Manjil, where wind speeds are very different, promises a boost in efficiency by 20 percent and 80 percent decrease in wasted energy! The scientists’ formula offers optimized values for wind turbine rotation speed, which can be altered depending on wind speed.
Exergy is a term from thermodynamics that measures the energy in a system that is available to do work.
Turbine design must meet load requirements and produce energy at a minimal per dollar cost. In order to address this cost issue, performance characteristics such as power output versus wind speed or versus rotor angular velocity must be optimized. Exergy analysis looks at the "quality" of the energy produced by a system.
The Iranian scientists have now developed an improved exergy analysis for wind turbines, which considers the kinetic exergy of the wind in much greater detail. Their approach offers a way to optimize a wind turbine's three main parameters, cut-in, rated, and furling wind speeds, so that usable energy is maximized at any given wind speed from the gentlest breeze to a roaring gale; within the safe working parameters of the turbine.
Exergy is a term from thermodynamics that measures the energy in a system that is available to do work.
Turbine design must meet load requirements and produce energy at a minimal per dollar cost. In order to address this cost issue, performance characteristics such as power output versus wind speed or versus rotor angular velocity must be optimized. Exergy analysis looks at the "quality" of the energy produced by a system.
The Iranian scientists have now developed an improved exergy analysis for wind turbines, which considers the kinetic exergy of the wind in much greater detail. Their approach offers a way to optimize a wind turbine's three main parameters, cut-in, rated, and furling wind speeds, so that usable energy is maximized at any given wind speed from the gentlest breeze to a roaring gale; within the safe working parameters of the turbine.
Meanwhile some cheer for the sector. Large amounts of capacity of hot standby is not the only way to deal with variability of wind or solar energy. The variability of renewable energy sources such as wind, often cited as the sector’s Achilles’ heel, does not have to be a problem, according to a report by National Grid, the electricity operator in UK.
New network technology could play a strong role in managing renewable energy variability instead of back-up generation alone, it says.
Smart meters and grid would allow electricity demand to be actively managed – for example by automatically shifting demand to off-peak times. Electric vehicles, flywheels, compressed air, etc are also considered as storage options in the report.
A carbon timer
Starting this week, a 70-foot sign with a 13-character red digital display in New York’s busy lane alongside Madison Square garden and Penn Station, is tracking the trillions of tons of greenhouse gases roiling the atmosphere. The work of scientists from around the country, it takes into account all greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, and reports them in carbon dioxide equivalents. It skips the effects of natural cycles.The technical challenge of creating a real-time counter using economic indicators and other data, which are validated and adjusted as updated gas measurements become available, is no small task.Jeffrey Sachs inaugurated the counter alongwith an expert from MIT. The switch was flipped, and the 13-digit number appeared. The last three digits were a red blur.
Consider that conventional wisdom on climate change says that for average rise in temperatures not to go beyond two degrees Celsius, we need to keep rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 400 parts per million (ppm). The count was 390 ppm as on May 2009!
We have very less time to make amends! Every new study seems to reduce the time available.
Just contrast the change in stance of UN's top climate change official Yvo de Boer from June 1 to June 11! From a "There is no doubt in my mind that the Copenhagen climate conference in December is going to lead to a result" he switched to, it would be "physically impossible" to have a detailed deal to tackle climate change by the December climate change conference in the Danish capital Copenhagen.
"Delivery on four political essentials" on which the success in Copenhagen would depend, was turning out to be "impossible", he said. The four essentials, are: clarity on how much industrialised countries would reduce their emissions up to 2020; clarity on what developing countries would do to limit the growth of their emissions; stable finance from industrialised nations for the developing world to mitigate climate change and adapt; and a "governance regime".
Developing nations like India are harping on historical responsibility while industrialized nations are offering token reductions, of between 17-26 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, which just aren’t enough. The 27-nation European Union has offered a cut of 20 percent by 2020 relative to its emissions in 1990. The U.S. has proposed a 17 percent reduction compared to its 2005 emissions, which would amount to about 4 percent by comparison to 1990.
Meanwhile, in attempts to protect national growth concerns, various countries have together added some 200 pages to the 21-page proposal for amendments to the Kyoto Protocol!
Can the common man walking the road and watching the numbers racing on the carbon counter make a difference?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The jigsaw puzzle
Are we getting too specialized for good? This is an old debate with no resolution as yet. But we raise this question again in the light of energy.
Is specialization the problem? Or is it lack of integration? Whether addressing distribution problems, or retrofitting buildings and industries to gobble less energy, why are inefficiencies refusing to go away?
We have the experts but the problem arises in lack of integration skills or the big picture perspective. While optimizing components, when fit together the result is not so efficient. Where is the missing mass going, to put it in Einsteinspeak?! (When two masses fuse, the product has a mass less than the sum of the reactants. This was shown to be converted to energy.)
The answer is: Bad engineering design. Poorly designed processes and systems that do not take integration seriously end up gobbling energy and resources and go undetected.
There are other issues like being stuck in the traditional way of doing things which often requires one to shut the brain and simply build as per the norm. But by and large, it is the assembling into one efficient system that fails.
Going from the small scale to the larger arena, again integration is missing. We now know that carbon dioxide induced climate change is melting the glaciers and in turn water availability is affected, and finally food grain production. But the widest gaps in integration exist between ministries of energy, water and agriculture in most countries. Hence, they do not understand the broader effects of the decisions they take.
Specialisation helps address problems specific to the domain, but perhaps we need integration specialists now?
Is specialization the problem? Or is it lack of integration? Whether addressing distribution problems, or retrofitting buildings and industries to gobble less energy, why are inefficiencies refusing to go away?
We have the experts but the problem arises in lack of integration skills or the big picture perspective. While optimizing components, when fit together the result is not so efficient. Where is the missing mass going, to put it in Einsteinspeak?! (When two masses fuse, the product has a mass less than the sum of the reactants. This was shown to be converted to energy.)
The answer is: Bad engineering design. Poorly designed processes and systems that do not take integration seriously end up gobbling energy and resources and go undetected.
There are other issues like being stuck in the traditional way of doing things which often requires one to shut the brain and simply build as per the norm. But by and large, it is the assembling into one efficient system that fails.
Going from the small scale to the larger arena, again integration is missing. We now know that carbon dioxide induced climate change is melting the glaciers and in turn water availability is affected, and finally food grain production. But the widest gaps in integration exist between ministries of energy, water and agriculture in most countries. Hence, they do not understand the broader effects of the decisions they take.
Specialisation helps address problems specific to the domain, but perhaps we need integration specialists now?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Convenient lie
Would you sit still if the earth was shaking under you? Or if being attacked by a robber armed with a knife? Why then do most of us stare calamity in the face and stay unmoved? Any reason why climate change leaves us cold and unperturbed?
Do you believe climate change induced effects are blown out of proportion? Or do you think there is no danger?
What has the media been telling you?
Are you aware that science has been throwing up proof of human induced climate change, and that the results are already upon us? You can find umpteen studies online. The latest is the U.S. government’s newest survey of the impacts of climate change which lays out a detailed picture of the impacts of rising temperatures in the U.S., from rising sea levels that threaten the Southeast, to water shortages that will dessicate the Southwest, to the decline of the maple syrup industry in the Northeast.
Nasa pictures have shown the shrinking polar ice caps down the years and taken during the same season.
Infectious diseases are on the rise. Why? Again, studies in the Lancet have shown the link to climate change. Researchers believe that global warming is already responsible for some 150,000 deaths each year around the world, and fear that the number may well double by 2030 even if we start getting serious about emissions reductions today.
A team of scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison published these findings last year in Nature. Besides killing people, global warming also contributes to some five million human illnesses every year, the researchers found. This happens through the speeding the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea; and increasing the frequency and severity of heat waves, floods and other weather-related disasters.
In the US, a Stanford engineer showed the direct link between rising levels of CO2 and human mortality. . He found that the added air pollution caused by each degree Celsius increase in temperature caused by CO2 leads to about 1,000 additional deaths in the U.S. and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma. As many as 20,000 air-pollution related deaths may occur worldwide each year with each one degree Celsius increase.
Heavy downpour in parts and droughts elsewhere. Why?
What will make the public accept the truth? Any bright idea?
Share your thoughts as we try to understand what drives public opinion.
Do you believe climate change induced effects are blown out of proportion? Or do you think there is no danger?
What has the media been telling you?
Are you aware that science has been throwing up proof of human induced climate change, and that the results are already upon us? You can find umpteen studies online. The latest is the U.S. government’s newest survey of the impacts of climate change which lays out a detailed picture of the impacts of rising temperatures in the U.S., from rising sea levels that threaten the Southeast, to water shortages that will dessicate the Southwest, to the decline of the maple syrup industry in the Northeast.
Nasa pictures have shown the shrinking polar ice caps down the years and taken during the same season.
Infectious diseases are on the rise. Why? Again, studies in the Lancet have shown the link to climate change. Researchers believe that global warming is already responsible for some 150,000 deaths each year around the world, and fear that the number may well double by 2030 even if we start getting serious about emissions reductions today.
A team of scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison published these findings last year in Nature. Besides killing people, global warming also contributes to some five million human illnesses every year, the researchers found. This happens through the speeding the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea; and increasing the frequency and severity of heat waves, floods and other weather-related disasters.
In the US, a Stanford engineer showed the direct link between rising levels of CO2 and human mortality. . He found that the added air pollution caused by each degree Celsius increase in temperature caused by CO2 leads to about 1,000 additional deaths in the U.S. and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma. As many as 20,000 air-pollution related deaths may occur worldwide each year with each one degree Celsius increase.
Heavy downpour in parts and droughts elsewhere. Why?
What will make the public accept the truth? Any bright idea?
Share your thoughts as we try to understand what drives public opinion.
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