A jointed water tower/wind turbine controller stores wind energy in the water towers of the drinking water network. At strong winds, the extra electrical energy generated by the wind turbine can be used to pump water into the water tower. When there is no wind, this energy can be released with a hydro-turbine, and the water goes back to the wells. The pump of the water tower and the hydro-turbine are used to control the water level in the reservoir. The electricity from the wind turbine is used for pumping the water or for supplying the electrical grid. The controller can also be installed on existing water towers and water tanks placed on top of buildings.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 8th Sept 2009

External-combustion Engine for

Recovering Waste Heat in Plant

Estir Co Ltd, a venture team of Panasonic Corp, started a verification test of the “Waste Heat Recovery Stirring Engine,” which generates electric power from waste heat in a plant, in June 2009 at Panasonic Nara Plant in Japan.

The company will test the reliability of the engine at the plant in operation in the aim of commercializing it in fiscal 2011.

estir has been engaged in the development of the stirring engine in collaboration with the National Maritime Research Institute since 2005. And it has already achieved a power generation efficiency of 15% with waste heat that was emitted from industrial furnaces such as drying, blast and heat-treating furnaces, power generating facilities, boilers and motors and has a temperature from 300 to 650°C.

This time, the company will attach the stirring engine to the chimney flue of the high-pressure air distribution equipment in Panasonic Nara Plant. It generates 500W output power by using part of waste heat having a temperature of about 300 to 500°C, which is lower than before.

If estir can verify the reliability in the test, it will develop a power generating engine with a capacity of about 5 to 10kW within fiscal 2009 in prospect of commercialization and aim to release a product in fiscal 2011 as an engine able to reduce CO₂ emission at production sites.

In the industrial world, about 10% of primary energy such as petroleum and natural gas is discarded as waste heat. Therefore, energy recovery from waste heat is a major issue in reducing environmental loads.

A stirring engine is an external-combustion engine that expands and compresses the air inside the engine by using an outer heat source to obtain drive force. It can use various heat sources for power generation and is gaining attention especially in the field of energy conservation.

There has already been a stirring engine that uses heat of combustion gas with a temperature of more than 1,000°C. But it has been difficult to commercialize a stirring engine that uses waste heat having a temperature of about 300 to 500°C, such as waste heat in a plant, due to the low power generation efficiency and high costs.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 1st July 2009

WEST AUSTRALINA INVENTOR..!

WHAT IS THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT?

When the combustion process is improved more value is then gained from the wood used. Excessive smoke is unburnt fuel. SmartBurn enables this fuel (smoke) to be burnt in the fire instead of being released into the atmosphere.    SmartBurn reduces Carbon emissions (as soot and sap).

Before  SmartBurn After SmartBurn

Each SmartBurn prevents approximately 15 kg of smoke haze and      particulate emissions from entering the atmosphere.

SmartBurn contains a mixture of non-toxic natural ingredients and for best results SmartBurn should be replaced every 3 months.

SmartBurn is also effective in lounge open fireplaces and kitchen stoves.

SmartBurn is proudly Australian Invented, Manufactured and Owned.

This exciting technology has been Internationally Patented and the name SmartBurn has been Trademarked.

FIND OUT MORE HERE > http://www.smartburn.com.au/

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 29th May 2009

Chew Chew the gastrobot (Pic: New Scientist)

Related Stories

• Evolution of the shape-shifters,
• Microrobots swim with the tide,

At last, a robot that is powered by food – but watch out, this gastrobot’s ideal food is flesh!

According to this week’s New Scientist, a researcher at the University of South Florida has developed a 12-wheeled monster called Chew Chew, with a microbial fuel cell stomach that uses E. coli bacteria to break down food and convert chemical energy into electricity.

“Turning food into electricity isn’t unique,” says Wilkinson. “What I’ve done is make it small enough to fit into a robot”.

The microbes produce enzymes that break down carbohydrates, releasing electrons which are harnessed to charge a battery by a reduction and oxidation reaction.

Wilkinson says this is analogous to blood supply and respiration in a mammal – but delivering electrons instead of oxygen.

Gastrobot consists of three 1-metre long wheeled wagons complete with pumps for redox solution, battery bank, oesophagus, ultrasonic eyes, mouth, DC motor and E.coli powered stomach.

Unfortunately, the microbial fuel cell doesn’t produce enough power to actually move Chew Chew. Instead, the electricity is used to charge the batteries and only when these are fully charged does can the robot move. When the batteries are drained, the cycle must then be repeated.

According to New Scientist, early applications for gastrobots are likely to include mowing lawns – grazing on grass clippings for fuel.

The ideal fuel in terms of energy gain is meat, says inventor Stuart Wilkinson, but at the moment Chew Chew lives on sugar cubes.

Catching meat would require the robot to produce more energy and besides Wilkinson isn’t so sure it’s good to give gastrobots a taste for meat.

Conversion to eat carion flesh or decaying corpses is another option.

“Otherwise they’ll notice there’s an awful lot of humans running around and try to eat them,” he warns.

Tags: science-and-technology

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 13th May 2009

Industry

Government dithering and high commodity prices make for a tough environment.

BURLINGAME, Calif.–Can the biodiesel industry be saved? It’s remotely possible–but not unless the government steps in to jump-start the besieged market.

Biodiesel, a low-carbon fuel usually made with soy, palm or canola oil, first grabbed the spotlight a few years ago. That was when Congress started promoting the green fuel as a replacement for traditional diesel. Private-equity firms started pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into companies like Seattle’s Imperium Renewables and Green Earth Fuels, of Houston, hoping to get in on the ground floor of a nascent market.

Federal government mandates and tax breaks, driven by the broader goal of fighting pollution and cutting reliance on foreign oil, were supposed to create a mass market, even though biodiesel was often more expensive than regular diesel fuel.

It hasn’t happened. Starting in mid-2007, prices of the canola and soy oils used to make biodiesel soared. That pushed up the cost of the green fuel and wounded producers’ bottom lines. With oil peaking at $147 a barrel last summer, biodiesel still made economic sense for some customers, since regular diesel prices climbed to an average $4.77 a gallon. Biodiesel didn’t look bad by comparison.

But then petroleum prices tanked. That widened the price gap and made the green option uneconomical for even the most die-hard environmentalists. Commodity prices have since come down, but not enough to bridge the gap. The recession has damped demand for energy overall and made it nearly impossible for fledgling clean-fuel ventures, including biodiesel makers, to get credit to expand.

“The market conditions are very, very tough right now,” says Joe Jobe, head of the National Biodiesel Board in Jefferson City, Mo. Of the nation’s 176 biodiesel operators, “it’s very difficult to say how many of them are still operating.”

The industry’s woes illustrate the hazards of building a business around the prices of two volatile, and often unrelated, commodities–in this case, raw vegetable oil and petroleum. They also show that not all green fuels are created equal. Lots of environmentalists have hopped off the biodiesel bandwagon, charging that increased demand for commodities like palm oil will lead to deforestation and, in turn, even more greenhouse-gas emissions from countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 16th April 2009

Thermostat

WORLD TEMPERATURE CONCERNS

Scientists, including Obama’s science advisor, get tied in knots over geoengineering.

Oil and gas are so deliciously tempting that humans are having no success in slowing down global warming the way scientists agree we should, by going easy at the fossil fuel buffet.

So like surgeons who use liposuction to deal with obesity, scientists are considering ways to deal with the consequences of our unhealthy carbon diet. They are thinking about blowing soot into the stratosphere, hanging sunshades in space and sprinkling the oceans with fertilizer to create blooms of carbon-sucking phytoplankton.

These approaches are aimed at cooling the earth by either allowing less sunlight in or letting more heat bounce back to space by removing heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. The big idea–fighting or reversing atmospheric changes with large-scale tinkering of the earth–is called geoengineering, and it’s tying scientists in knots.

President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, got twisted up himself last week. In his first interview since he was appointed, he mentioned to the Associated Press that he and the administration had discussed geoengineering approaches. Holdren later had to write an e-mail clarifying his position in response to fears that he and the administration were considering planning something specific. They aren’t.

“I said that the approaches that have been surfaced so far seem problematic in terms of both efficacy and side effects, but we have to look at the possibilities and understand them because if we get desperate enough it will be considered,” Holdren wrote.

This highlights why geoengineering is such an extraordinarily touchy scientific subject and why there is such deep ambivalence in the scientific community about it. Almost no one thinks that humans should be trying to change the atmosphere on a global scale. But then again, aren’t we already doing that by removing carbon from the ground in the form of fossil fuels and depositing it in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide on a massive scale? And what if we don’t solve the problem in time?

TOO HOT??

What complicates things is that the scientists who are most concerned with the pace of global warming and the destruction that might ensue are the ones who are forcing themselves to think about radical solutions. It terrifies them because they know better than anyone that the climate is massively complex and that unintended consequences lurk everywhere.

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, best known for his work on ozone depletion, has advanced the idea of injecting sulfur particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from earth. James Lovelock, a hero to early environmentalists who proposed the Gaia hypothesis, has advocated placing long, vertical wave-driven pipes in the ocean that would pump nutrient-rich water to the surface to fertilize algae that would consume carbon dioxide.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 16th April 2009

BIO FUEL - SUGAR BASED

Madison, Wis.,-based Virent Energy Systems has a low-temperature, low-pressure, catalytic process for turning carbohydrates (sugars) into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. Its 70 employees now make a gallon or so daily. Targeting gasoline as its first fuel, Virent hopes within five years to raise that production to 10 million to 15 million gallons annually. Virent has pulled in more than $30 million in venture funding and has strategic relationships with the likes of Cargill, Honda Motor and Royal Dutch Shell.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 31 st March 2009

Direct-Injection Engine

DIRECT FUEL INJECTION

Direct injection refers to the delivery of fuel directly into the combustion chamber of each cylinder, rather than into the intake manifold. Its benefits are better combustion, increased fuel efficiency and lower pollution. An example: Ford introduced the EcoBoost engine this year and will make it available for the 2009 Lincoln MKS and Ford Flex. Using direct gasoline injection and turbo boosting, the smaller engine can produce as much power as a heavier traditional engine. Ford plans to have 500,000 EcoBoost vehicles on the road annually in the next five years.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 31st March 2009

carbon fibre

CARBON FIBRE CABLE

Reliance Industries Ltd is planning to source locally developed technology from state-owned National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) to make carbon fibre. The carbon fibre is a scarce, steel-like material used in building light aircraft. India’s one of the largest private sector companies by sales would make the carbon fibre at a 4,000-tonne plant in Gujarat, using technology developed at NAL. Carbon fibre is produced from polymers and is used to make composites that are as strong as steel. Vadodara-based Kemrock Industries and Exports Ltd, an export-focussed unit that makes fibre-reinforced plastic composites, is already engaged in building a 400-tonne carbon fibre plant to open in August 2009.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 30th March 2009