Google Floats Wave-Powered Data-Center Idea

Pelamis/Google combination will use the ocean to cool data








Google has filed a patent for the rather brilliant idea of a deep-water cooled data center, and describes it, here.


"A system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of units."

The platforms, to be positioned between three to seven miles offshore in water ranging from 50 feet to 250 feet deep, are designed to use renewable power created by Pelamis wave energy converters connected to a floating platform holding Google's data centers. Standard shipping containers would house racks of computers that could be transported by truck and placed onto a boat, and transferred to the floating center by crane.

Each joint of the floating Pelamis unit has a 2.25 megawatt capacity, and each data center would have enough to supply 40 megawatts. Google also has plans to use direct current electricity to run DC-capable computers, so no energy would be lost in transmission.

In addition, pipes will circulate cold deep water throughout to cool all the hardware inside the containers, preventing overheating.

The ocean thus supplies Google with the two critical needs of data centers, cooling and power. (Not to mention that the ocean is a vast rent-free space. Data centers can be as large as 100,000 square feet which takes lots of electricity and costly real estate.)

Google mentions an additional important advantage of basing data centers such as this patent envisions on the open seas: when critical infrastructure has been taken out, for instance by earthquakes or hurricanes, the data centers could be towed back in close to land to re-establish local computing power and telecommunications.

Related:
Next, Google Brings Cheap Energy From The Earth

Via Good Clean Tech

For Matternetwork Read more...

Air-Conditioning Cities With Deep Water

Virtually any city or town next to a lake, ocean or river could pump chilled water from the depths for natural air cooling

China is considering using deep ocean water to aircondition Hong Kong.

The high rise office buildings of Hong Kong; man-made "cliffs"-- are right next to the ocean. This makes it easy to cool them, by leveraging the differential between the cold ocean depths and warm surface temperatures.

Hong Kong will circulate deep ocean water through a district-wide cooling system.The water is pumped to a heat exchanger at the shore and the warm water from the buildings flows down to push cool water up to the buildings. The system is both elegant and cost effective.

Similar projects to cool large building complexes and downtown areas are underway in Singapore, Gibralta, Stockholm and Honolulu.

The same technique can be applied using the cold depths of lakes and rivers too. And not just for cities. This natural cooling be used by smaller communities like universities, hospitals or hotel resorts.

Cornell University has a pilot project utilizing lake water for its cold water source. Pumps draw cold water from a nearby deep lake, Lake Cayuga.

Enwave also uses lake water, to cool downtown Toronto. Their interactive diagram shows you very clearly how their deepwater cooling works using the icy-cold water of Lake Ontario as its renewable energy source of naturally chilled deep lake water.

How fortunate that all through history, we built so many towns and cities near water. Back then, that was because it was easier to move stuff along waterways. Early roads got muddy, but water made for easy hauling.

And now that we are looking for low-carbon alternatives, that fortuitous proximity to water comes in handy for another use. Eco air-conditioning.

Published at Matter Network Read more...

Japanese Hotsprings Resort Protests Geothermal Power

Local tourism workers fear that nearby geothermal drilling could dry up tourist supply for Kusatsu's famous hotsprings resort

About 1,100 residents of tourist town Kusatsumachi held a protest rally against a plan to build a geothermal power generation plant 2 miles from their famous Kusatsu Onsen (hot springs) resort. More than 90 percent of the villagers earn their living from tourism-related jobs. Gathering around the town's symbolic natural thermal well, they waved fans bearing slogans such as "Geothermal power generation dries up our hot springs," and "Protect Japan's hot spring bath culture."

Natural hot water at the Kusatsu Onsen hot spring resort is scalding hot and cannot be used for bathing.

In the town's hot spring baths, a practice called yumomi--stirring up hot water to lower the temperature--is preferred over adding cold water, which thins minerals in the hot water believed to be healthful.

Ironically, this practice of yumoni wastes heat energy, but geothermal power generation would more efficiently utilize such wasted power. That's because in modern geothermal development, steam is turned to liquid water and reused, without negatively affecting nearby hot springs.

The earliest geothermal projects, in New Zealand, did not reinject fluids back for reuse. Initially only about 10 percent was returned to the earth. As a result, in Wairaki: the second geothermal development in the world the hot pools have been depleted by geothermal drilling. Only 10 percent had been reused. Reinjection began purely as a disposal method, but has now been recognised as an essential part of reservoir management.

Japan could more than double current geothermal electricity supply if it harnessed all the untapped thermal energy from 1,591 hot spots nationwide, and this can be done while also protecting their hot springs for resorts when the fluids are reinjected after use. Currently Japan is fifth in the world in geothermal power.

Via Yomiuri Online
Photography by Marc Veraart

For Matternetwork Read more...

Scientist To Tap River Currents

The US could sustainably produce electricity from 3.5 million miles of rivers, using "smart materials"

An expert in electricity-generating "smart materials" and the author of 22 papers in refereed journals is searching for a way to harness the power of rivers without the ecological consequences of hydroelectric dams.

Dr Weiland, Materials Science Professor at the University of Pittsburg has come up with a gentle way to create what could be the next great clean energy supply for the world using piezoelectric ionic polymers.

Piezoelectric materials generate a slight electrical current when moved: in this case, by river currents and eddies.

Dr. Weiland is trying out the idea of using a flowing mesh of tiny strips of piezoelectric plastic, undulating like seaweed in the current of rivers and streams, up to 30 yards wide and about a mile long, to create electricity. The resulting electrical current would pass to small substations along the river's edge before charging a group of batteries to supply up to 40% of the electricity needed for a small town.

Her method likely wouldn't generate as much energy as a hydroelectric dam but would work with the river flow keeping the river intact and healthy. "There are other materials that give better performance or have higher energy densities," said Weiland, who is a published expert in "smart materials". But she is willing to sacrifice a little power to keep the ecosystem happy.

Dr. Weiland and her engineering students are now working out the best size, shape and array to test in the Kiskiminetas River, to supply the town of Vandergrift, near Pittsburg. An important consideration in the final design will be that they maintain the health and appearance of the river which is used for fishing, canoe trips and other recreational activities. Once the array goes in on the riverbed, she said, "if you were able to look at it, you would just see a bunch of little things wiggling. It wouldn't look that different from a bunch of plant life."

According to Christopher Lynch, a smart materials researcher from the University of California, Los Angeles, this is the first freshwater hydroelectric power project of its kind. "The whole idea is very interesting," said Lynch. "Harvesting energy from rivers, ocean waves and currents are going to be an important segment of our overall energy generation in the future."

For centuries humans have dammed rivers and streams to grind grain and later, generate electricity. This could be the beginning of tapping into the power of flowing water more sustainably, using a more subtle technique. There are three and a half million miles of rivers in the nation, with towns along those riverbanks, and this small installation could supply as much as 40% of one town's electricity, so this could have wide applications...

From Mark Roth at the Post Gazette via Discovery News
Image from the Post Gazette

For Matternetwork
Read more...

Solar Power Stations In Freeways

Every 10 years or so, roads need to be dug up and replaced. Next time, tuck a power station inside.

Theres something very appealing about solving our energy needs by utilizing raw materials we already have in abundance, and we do have plenty of freeways and parking lots. Why not make them sources of energy? The Dutch are designing roads that can literally clean up pollution and we are about to put up solar power arrays along the sides of freeways in Oregan.


Now, lets put all that solar heated asphalt to work as well, to heat water. Hot water flowing from an asphalt energy system could be used “as is” for heating buildings or in industrial processes, or could be passed through a thermoelectric generator to produce electricity.

A research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute is developing a solar collector that could turn roads and parking lots into ubiquitous—and inexpensive–sources of electricity and hot water. The research, undertaken at the request of Novotech which holds a patent on the concept of using the heat absorbed by pavements is being directed by Rajib Mallick, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, who says there are many advantages to using the solar energy in roads.

"For one, blacktop stays hot and could continue to generate energy after the sun goes down, unlike traditional solar-electric cells. In addition, there is already a massive acreage of installed roads and parking lots that could be retrofitted for energy generation, so there is no need to find additional land for solar farms."

Now, you may be saying, but who wants to dig up all those roads?

Apparently, we already do. "Roads and lots are typically resurfaced every 10 to 12 years and the retrofit could be built into that cycle." says Mallick. "Extracting heat from asphalt could cool it, reducing the urban heat island effect. Finally, unlike roof-top solar arrays, which some find unattractive, the solar collectors in roads and parking lots would be invisible."

The tests were conducted on slabs of asphalt in which were embedded thermocouples, to measure heat penetration, and copper pipes, to gauge how well that heat could be transferred to flowing water. The highest temperatures are found a few centimeters below the surface. This is where a heat exchanger would be located to extract the maximum amount of energy. Experimenting with various asphalt compositions, they found that the addition of highly conductive aggregates, like quartzite, can significantly increase heat absorption, as can the application of a special paint that reduces reflection.

Hot water accounts for 17 percent (per us DOE) of the energy used by U.S. homes and buildings, making it a decent-sized chunk of greenhouse gas emissions to target. So starting with water already warmed by the sun can make a huge difference in saving energy costs.

Many countries are encouraging increased use of solar hot water tech­nology. Worldwide installations grew 14 percent in 2005, led by China with almost 80 percent of today’s world­wide market. On a per-person basis, Israel leads the way with 90 percent of all homes taking advantage of the technology. Worldwide, solar hot water capacity reached 88 gigawatts-thermal (GWth) in 2005, with 46 mil­lion houses equipped with systems.

The United States currently has 1.6 GWth of solar hot water capacity installed, or 1.8 percent of global capacity. Hawaii, with a strong re­bate program, installed almost half of the 9,000 new systems in the U.S. in 2006. California, Florida, and Ari­zona each installed about a thousand systems in the same year.

Passive solar water heating like this is not a new idea. The first Solar water heater was invented in 1891. In the nineteenth century, no easy way existed to heat water. People generally used a cook stove for this purpose. Wood had to be chopped or heavy hods of coal lifted, then the fuel had to be kindled and the fire periodically stocked. In cities, the wealthier heated their water with gas manufactured from coal. Still, the fuel didn't burn clean and the heater had to be lit each time someone wanted to heat water. If someone forgot to extinguish the flame, the tank would blow up. To add to the problem of heating water, in many areas, wood or coal or coal-gas cost a lot and many times could not be easily obtained.

To circumvent these problems, many handy farmers or prospectors or other outdoors men devised a much safer, easier, and cheaper way to heat water - placing into the sun a metal water tank painted black to absorb as much solar energy as possible. These were the first solar water heaters on record.

Of course, back then we did not realize that in a century or so, we would be blessed with an abundance of nice warm blacktop, the perfect spot for our national solar water heating system.

Traffic
Solar Freeway

For MatterNetwork Read more...

How To Turn Brown States Into Green States

...A How-To Manual For Legislators.

Imagine how you would feel if you had to abandon a very lucrative business that you had run all your life, one that you planned to leave to your grandkids, just to see all your hopes and dreams smashed, because scientists claim your lifeswork literally threatens our species' survival.

This is the horror that faces the fossilfuel titans of what I now realize are not so much Red States, but what we should call Brown States.

Complete disintegration.

It is not easy being Brown.

It is very understandable that the individuals who live off the fossilfuel dependant oil, coal and auto industries resist accepting the science of our dire future when it clashes with their own personal hopes and dreams. Its human nature to resist what harms you and your family, and resisting the massive infrastructure destruction it means to your Brown industry.

Even if that harms everyone else.

So its natural that they want to influence policymakers to resist the science that threatens them and their loved ones. Just as you and I want to influence the policymakers: thats why many of us are here. To sway opinion to save our loved ones from harm. No one wants to be hurt. Everyone wants to safeguard their loved ones.

Currently our interests, and their interests clash.

I think we all had a wakeup call when we saw a couple of defecting Democrats resisting our own side's new Green Energy policy legislation. I for one had always assumed that the battlelines were between Red States and Blue States. Us and them. And it was mostly Republican Senators and the TVA that killed the RPS bill. (“Forcing Tennesseans to either build 40-story wind turbines on our pristine mountaintops or to pay billions in penalty taxes to the federal government amounts to a judge giving a defendant the choice to be hanged or shot,” warned the Republican Senator from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander) What I see now is that the real battle is between the Brown States and the Green States.

The Brown states make a living from extractive energy. It has been called the curse of energy, because it seems to kill all other initiative.

There is considerable overlap between the Red (Brown) States and the Blue(Green) States...
States that already have adopted the Renewable Portfolio Standard:

...because the preponderance of the universities that are fueling Green innovation are in the Blue states, so the Green innovators tend to start their green businesses near where they laid down roots as young adults, attracting more brains to that state to develop those innovation industries. More brainy people are Bluer than brawny people who are more attracted to the Brown states. This is not to say that brainy people are not in brown states. Texas is a good example of a Brown State being turned Green by enough stakeholders invested in its wind industry.

In May of 2006, the Department of Energy announced it is seeking partners to build a new facility capable of testing blades up to a minimum of 70 meters long. In addition to Texas, the states of Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio and Virginia submitted applications for the test facility. The NREL Newsroom2 reports that access to waterways was a key factor in deciding that Large Wind Turbine Blade test facilities would be in Massachusetts and Texas. Both states include sites for off-shore wind farms.

...and decent tech universities!

The Lone Star Wind Alliance, a Texas-led coalition of universities, government agencies and corporate partners created to prepare the proposal for submission to the federal government.

The Lone Star Wind Alliance includes the
University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering,
The University of Texas at Austin,
Texas A&M University,
Texas Tech University,
West Texas A&M University,
the Houston Advanced Research Center,
Stanford University,

...note the assistance of 3 universities from out of state: to turn brown States Green, we need Bluebrain states to invest in the Brownbrawn states

Montana State University,

...most of the best wind potential in this country is in Montana, Idaho, and South Dakota has enough wind to run half the country, but no transmission lines to get it there:

The United States Senate passed U.S. Senator John Thune's energy transmission amendment to the energy bill, which would promote the development of energy transmission infrastructure, on June 19.

"Today's vote in the Senate is a major step in the direction of clean, alternative energy"

"This legislation is critical to promoting the development of wind energy in South Dakota and around the country. As the windiest state in the nation, South Dakota will greatly benefit from these provisions. Today's vote in the Senate is a major step in the direction of clean, alternative energy," said Thune.

Thune's amendment, #1609, would promote the creation of energy corridors that would facilitate the transference of wind energy generated in South Dakota to high-demand areas.

"We have the wind energy in South Dakota that the major power consumers in our nation need.

...for instance Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota achieves nearly 100% of their electrical energy requirements from wind energy systems located near their installations.

New Mexico State University,

...I suspect Senator Bingaman (D-NM) Chairman of the Senate Energy Comittee had something to do with this. He seems more and more to me to be a clever alliance- builder in designing policy that helps turn Brown States Green.

Old Dominion University,
the Texas General Land Office,
the State Energy Conservation Office,
the Texas Workforce Commission,
Governor Rick Perry,
Dow Chemical Company,
Huntsman and Good Company Associates.

(Texas industries, including Dow Chemical Company and Huntsman also donated toward the effort.)
The Port of Corpus Christi provided non-monetary support.

The facility will be built through an innovative public-private partnership, organized through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. Private wind turbine and blade manufacturers are expected to fully fund the operations of the facility within five years of its construction.

The Texas Legislature played a crucial role in securing the facility, pledging $5 million toward its construction. State Sen. Judith Zaffirini carried the $5 million request, and Gov. Perry signed off on it in the final budget. Another $5 million is pending final approval through the state’s Emerging Technology Fund.

Patterson has likened the potential impact of the test facility to that of NASA in Houston during the space race in the 1960s.

I think, rather than simply heaping scorn on the Senators and Representatives of Brown States voting the Brown interests of their constituencies, we should create legislation that turns them into Green States, aligning their interests with ours.
The rest of humanity is Green even if we don't think of ourselves that way. I have to confess that I myself, and I'm a dEVoted member of the dailykos environmentalists was never particularly Green till it dawned on me that our own survival as a species is at stake. When the Brown States decide to align with us and our Green interests, it will be easy to save humankind from the climate crisis that otherwise will doom our species to have lasted a mere blip in geologic time, far less than the millennia that the dinosaurs ruled this planet with the thermostat set to their liking.

The way to align their interests with ours is to build the Green economy in the Brown states.

I don't think this includes the biomass waste industries that will on a large scale would deplete our soil of the needed nutrients (nature has no waste!) and deprive low water states of water for food crops...as others have diaried here.

But I do think we could design policy to deliberately shift the manufacturing of the parts needed for the new Green economy to the Brown States.

The Europeans who are far ahead of us in these industries because they conceded the problem a decade ago (and the average UK citizen now emits a mere 11 tons a year to our 19-22 tons of carbon per person), have among many others too numerous for this diary, this interesting idea that they could power Europe all the way from the Sahara."Solar power from the desert rather than desert in Germany"with the help of efficient HVDC transmission.
By switching to DC lines they do not lose any power in long distance transmission lines. This is an idea that we in the USA could consider, because so much of our energy potential is far from where its needed.

And because it could be a way to turn our Brown States Green.


Which states should build the new transmissionlines from our sparsely populated windy states to the rest of us? From our sunny deserts to the rest of us? Which states should build the turbines we will need? Which states should print the solar film? Build the new electric auto industry?
Build the vast turbines that gather ocean power:


I think you can see from these maps which states need a stake in the Green economy.

One Green energy resource that is missing from this map is ocean power. Two states: Oregon and Alaska could have 100% of their own power needs met by ocean power, per this energy comittee hearing's witnesses on the bureaucratic roadblocks to ocean energy.

The Democrats are far ahead in creating green legislation.
As noted yesterday:

The six energy-related measures passed this month alone include:

* H.R. 2304, Advanced Geothermal Energy Research and Development Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA)

yay, Go Jerry!

* H.R. 2313, Marine Renewable Energy Research and Development Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-OR)

Yay, Darlene!

* H.R. 906, Global Climate Change Research Data and Management Act of 2007, introduced by Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Chairman Mark Udall (D-CO)

Duh!

* H.R. 1933, Department of Energy Carbon Capture and Storage Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 2007, introduced by Mr. Udall

...thats good as we may solve it if we try, don't try, cant find a solution: this is different from expanding the use of coal to use as 119% dirtier gasoline

* H.R. 2773, Biofuels Research and Development Enhancement Act, introduced by Energy and Environment Subcommitee Chairman Nick Lampson (D-TX)

... from the hearing I think this probably is about DMF the 6Carbons 1Oxygen fuel that has no CO2 that sounds very promising if you MUSt use an IC engine...)

* H.R. 2774, Solar Energy Research and Advancement Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ)

...and since that passed the evil BushCo DOE actually added a Solar button to their webpage! Previously their energy options were oil gas coal nuclear, I kid you not. They even per a recent renewable energy access podcast claimed even geothermal has zero potential!!! and tyhats why they didn't list even that.

I suggest we devise legislation that would offer a real incentive to the Green innovation industries to move and set up shop in Brown States. For instance making that ocean power equipment to
get two of us (Alaska and Oregon) off the grid could be in the Southeast.

But it's not only our own states that need a new Green energy infrastructure built. China wants to build 120,000 Megawatts of windpower (equaling 10% of their energy by 2020) and we have Brown states that need Green energy jobs.

I think we need a kind of Marshall Plan for revamping the economies of the states that provided our power yesterday and today, with a fuel that has just happened to turn out to be detrimental to our future into being the states that will power our tomorrow with Green power.

I think we all owe it to the Brown States to devise policy to replace Brown jobs with Green ones. Read more...