Energy (Part I)

Being supportive of the idea of information being free and accessible for all I like to use Wikipedia and in about five minutes I found out the following; there are mirrors dating back to the 6000 BC and the Stirling engine (The basic working principle of the Stirling engine can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine ) was invented and patented in 1816. So what does this have to do with anything? Well I just wanted to show that the two key components of a great way of using solar energy have been around for almost 100 years.

The technology is readily available, the components are relatively “low-tech” and the manufacturing process not at all that difficult. You might make an analogy to the RK-62 and AK-47; both have the same working principle but one is expensive and accurate and the other is cheap but still manages to do what it is made for. The same applies to this solar energy technology, it can be done cheaply without precision tools but to achieve a high efficiency you need to do it carefully with better material and thus the price tag will be somewhat higher.

So back to the fact that this technology have been around for about 100 years. What has happened in that time? Pretty much nothing until recent years. Now there are a few companies trying to market this idea but the progress is slow.

Well, onto something most people do not know. There is more radioactive material being released into the surroundings from a coal power plant (radioactive particles in fly ash) than from nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste). Another thing that is said about the nuclear power is that it is so dangerous but can you mention any other accident beside Chernobyl (there have been a few)? And think about those coal miners that were trapped for two months in Chile, think about all that have died in mining accidents and think about the greenhouse gas emissions from coal power plants.

The post WWII nuclear research ban and the negative picture media and Greenpeace have painted up has stopped the nuclear power from reaching its full potential (efficiency-vise). While on the topic of Greenpeace one should mention that Patrick Moore, one of the founders, left Greenpeace when he realized that he was the only one of the leaders with any kind of education and that Greenpeace was opposing nuclear power due to political reasons. He now supports nuclear power (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Greenpeace_founder_supports_nuclear_energy).

In no way do I wish to tell you that nuclear power is the answer but it is a much better alternative than coal power plants. The sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow which means that you have to have a versatile production base to manage simply on renewable energy sources. How about burning peat then? Well if you burn something, chances are that there will be CO2 emissions.

If you want to use renewable energy sources (excluding those where you burn anything) you can only get small quantities and thus you have to have a lot of them, a lot of wind turbines, a lot of solar panels and a lot of dams. Well dams are a bit special since they can be made large. But the point is that you need to build your net accordingly that it can handle the surges caused by usage and by abundance. There was a problem a while back in Germany when they had storms and their wind generators were producing too much electricity that the net had to be shut down not to cause too much harm.

Decentralized power is great if your net is build for it and I do support filling the Sahara with solar panels and utilizing deep-sea currents and putting up giant wind generators out at sea but I would like people to be educated that the nuclear power is not dangerous so that it would get a higher priority in research so that we may find a way for fusion power.