Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,744
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
^ Yep. ^
Nope!^ Yep. ^
In due course, yes we could. The amount of solar energy hitting the Earth is 174,000 terawatts; the amount of energy human civilisation uses is on average 12 terawatts. The energy hitting the Earth is 10,000 times the amount we use. If we really needed to, we could grab a 1/10000th part of that energy to power our society.We're never going to run the energy requirements of the whole planet on wind turbines and solar panels, not even close to.
In due course, yes we could. The amount of solar energy hitting the Earth is 174,000 terawatts; the amount of energy human civilisation uses is on average 12 terawatts. The energy hitting the Earth is 10,000 times the amount we use. If we really needed to, we could grab a 1/10000th part of that energy to power our society.
Our Uranium can be dug up in Cornwall.
Sorry, Rynner.
There is still a hot spring at Bath. Probably the main reason why it's not used for hydrothermal energy is because of all the historic buildings around it.Geothermal energy is present all over the world, a few kilometres beneath our feet; but it isn't possible to extract it economically everywhere. You need to go to hotspots like the Reykjanes peninsula, where heat is constantly rising towards the surface.
If you tried it in the UK, for example, you could extract energy for a limited period, but then the rock around the borehole would cool down, and the energy gradient would vanish. This is known as local depletion. Rock is a very good insulator, and forms a barrier of cooler rock around any borehole that doesn't tap into an active hotspot.
The ripples from this project reach as far as Cornwall:
It would allow the development of thousands of new wind turbines around the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea and provide renewable power for up to 80 million people.
Cables would connect it to the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Belgium.
The island would be created by the German and Dutch arms of the company TenneT along with the Danish company Energinet.
The European Union has given its assent for a consortium to be created by the two companies to push the project into reality.
Torben Glar Nielsen, Energinet’s Danish technical director, said: “Maybe it sounds a bit crazy and science fiction-like, but an island on Dogger Bank could make the wind power of the future a lot cheaper and more effective.”
Hm. Off-shore wind capacity claims might well be subject to manipulation.This seems a good scheme:
Proposal To Build Artificial Island In North Sea As Hub For New Offshore Wind Farm
Solar Power Harnessed to Generate Hydrogen
A team of scientists have found a way to use solar power to generate a sustainable and relatively cheap fuel by using natural light to generate hydrogen from biomass.
Moritz Kuehnel, Ph.D., from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and joint lead author, said that lignocellelose—the main component of plant biomass—can be used to harness hydrogen.
“Lignocellulose is nature's equivalent to armored concrete,” Kuehnel said in a statement. “It consists of strong, highly crystalline cellulose fibers, that are interwoven with lignin and hemicellulose which act as a glue. This rigid structure has evolved to give plants and trees mechanical stability and protect them from degradation and makes chemical utilization of lignocellulose so challenging.”
Burning methane produces CO2 and water vapour, both of which are greenhouse gases.
CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O
So it's hardly clean energy.
It's 'clean' inasmuch as it produces no particulates (such as those produced by coal and oil).Burning methane produces CO2 and water vapour, both of which are greenhouse gases.
CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O
So it's hardly clean energy.