World of Alternative Energy

Even though my solution did not really provide affordable energy for all (such as those less fortunately than us), it turns out that places closer to home, like the states, are having cost problems with their electricity.

In a country that prides themselves on being a dominant figure of the world, we would not expect them to have such impoverished living conditions but due to the unexpected surges in natural gas prices and demands for cleaner energy source, citizens of Arkansas (and other American cities) are now fearing they will be unable to afford electricity.

Much like the solution I proposed (except funded by the government), citizens believe that the government should not only encourage a more conservative use in electricity, but also provide more funding and access to alternative sources. In the article, “Ensuring affordable electricity”, the solution for Arkansas would be to continue to invest into the renewable hydro electricity but supplement it with wind power to provide a cheaper source of energy to more rural areas. The article also suggests that the country should shift away from natural gases as a major energy source and research to find ways to permanently store away carbon emissions so that they can provide a cheaper and cleaner coal power to the country.

As mentioned before, there are currently lots of alternative energy available that is very clean and sustainable. However, the main problem is still cost. Funding is so hard to come by mainly due to the high research and development costs. For most generators, once a blue print is created, it is not that much more to build and maintain (for example harnessing wind power from a kite or biomass). That is why the solution to providing alternative energy for the world is found in a for profit business.

The “Plan”

To start, this business would need to be publicly traded, as this would be the fastest way to gain capital. This would immediately cause a huge barrier as convincing investors to devote millions into a prospective project that could potential fail is not a simple task. However, I think this barrier can be reduced by using the business strategy that Walmart uses, which is price wars. Lets use an example to illustrate this point.

Currently, biomass electricity can come as cheap as 2.5 cents per kWh. Taking our local electricity company BC Hydro as an example, they are charging us as high 8.27 per kWh. Which is a bit over 350% as much. By introducing the low costs to the city, I think it is save to say that most people would switch over. Of course, in reality there are a lot more complications to deal with, but for now, lets assume it is very easy for our business to enter this market. By increasing the price to say 4 cents per kWh after we eliminate the competitors, we can then use the profits to continue expanding to other cities. Also, once investors see the success in one city, they will be more reluctant to continue investing as we continue to expand to other cities.

Limitations – Wow… where do I start?

Ignoring funding (since we are assuming we can generate money publicly) and lobbyist (there will be people lobbying saving one eyed donkeys, so they are really unavoidable), there are still major issues to do deal with.

Since this is a publicly traded company, all people would care about is the profits. As this would have a huge payback period (assuming it becomes successful), it would be hard to hire a CEO willing to take the initial pressure of explaining why the company has not recovered its initial investment yet. Also, as most people have very short term financial goals, they may not see or care about the environmental beneficial gains that their city will gain through having a cleaner energy source. Since this company would be for profit, the goal of providing 3rd world country may never be met as people will only expand to cities where there is a profit to be made.

Another problem that would arise would be caused by geographical problems. Since each city has its own unique geographic structure, it would be hard to determine which type of alternative energy would be cheapest, cleanest and most sustainable. Ideally, we can set up biomass generators in all the cities and “buy” the garbage (much like recycling plants) from our citizens but even I am not fully convinced that turning garbage into energy is as clean as companies makes it sound.

Transformative Potential

Since the goal of this plan is to take one city at a time, the scale of it may not be too big. In reality, the project would be considered a major success if it was able to be the sole provider of energy to a couple of major cities. The impact would be huge. With a reduced emission (optimistically, there would be no emission), smogs from the cities would clear up causing less healthy problems for its citizens. On the flip side, it would only effect the people living in the cities. Even though we are providing more affordable energy, it is not to the desired people in 3rd world countries who would actually benefit more from having it. However, the most positive thing about this project would be that once successful, it will be very sustainable (only need to maintain the generator) and the benefits would be there for the city to enjoy for as long as people require electricity.

Another positive impact that a project like this could create, if successful, is that it would show people that there is money to be made from alternative energy. Right not, it is still not a major trend because no one is willing to take the initiative to prove that this is a successful venture. Once proven, the energy industry will be forced to change their business structure to provide cleaner and more sustainable energy sources to keep its competitiveness. Although, this still does not ensure everyone on earth having access to affordable electricity, but it definitely helps reduce pollution problems.

Reviewing the comments from my previous posts and looking for information online, I have discovered that biomass energy does not appeal to many people. The main objection that people have with this fasinating energy source is that it is very dirty and harmful to the environment. Personally, I use to to believe the same thing and believed the only benefit of this technology is that it is affordable and arguably substainable.

However, at a company called AES (Alternative Energy Solutions), they have developed a generator for businesses to turn their waste into energy. Based on a combination of steam and biomass power, the company has created a system in which they can turn common commerical waste into enough energy to power the business. Furthermore, they claim that there is no unwanted emission and all “waste” products from the generator is resaleable for other commercial uses.

Click here to understand system better.

Companies such as AES is a great step towards a sustainable solution towards having an alternative energy source avaliable. I find that this company’s website is especially effective because they show a typical project and the amount of money that another company can save by using their biomass energy generator (Click here to see comparision).

Currently, the government is doing a very good job exposing the need to reduce energy use to the general public, but I don’t think their incentivities for businesses is strong enough. Since companies focuses mainly on generating profit, AES’s appoarch to demonstrating cost cutting will be a great motivation for businesses to switch to a cleaner and more sustainable energy source.

Image retrieved from http://www.aesenergy.net/electricity/index.html on June 11, 2009.

While digging around for information, I came around this list from http://listverse.com/2009/05/01/top-10-renewable-energy-sources/, suprisingly enough, there are many types of alternate energy sources that haven’t receive as much media attention as the common solar or wind power sources. So please enjoy a small sample of what may one day be powering your life.

1) Tidal Power – This system operates like a underwater wind power generator. It allows the tides to move its pellars which in then turns the generator for power. Although not commonly talked about, this generator is actually more dependable than the solar power and wind power as tides are easier to predict. On top of that, the turbines are not very expensive to maintain, though costly to build. However, since tides are only strong for about 10 hours a day, the system is not sophistocated enough yet to be a constant source of energy.

Based on projections for the Severn Barrage project in Wales, the bill to build one of these is a hefty 15billion sterling pounds, equivalent to about 26.5 billion Canadian. However this will generate over 8000 megawatts of energy.

2) Wave Power – Though powerful, wave power is very difficult to capture and highly predictable. One of the main method in harnessing the power of waves to so set up buoys, called Pelamis devices, over a large stretch of water. As the waves move, it will generate a pumping action in these connected buoys will are all attached to a generator at the shore. Although unreliable, this method is relatively cheap to create and maintain and best of all, no waste is produced.

A company based in Isreal by the name of SDE Energy, is seeking to develop a wave power generator in China. According to their predictions, the cost to build a 1 megawatt generator comes to about 650,000USD.

Read more here.

3) Radiant Energy – Anyone ever been to a science lab and touched a glass globe with electricity strands following your fingers, causing all the hair on your body to rise up, will this is what causes it. Radiant energy is one of the earliest source of energy ever, though till this day, it is still not used to generate electricity. Predicted by Listverse to only cost 1% of our current energy sources, it suprises me that there have not been many serious researches in this field.

4) Geothermal Energy – This source of energy literally taps into the earths core for energy. By drilling down into the earth far enough, water is poured down to cool the molten rocks, which causes steam to bellow out the other end to power the generators. The great thing about this method is that it is forever renewable (unless we somehow freeze the core of the earth) and it causes almost no pollution. Unlike the powerful tide power, geothermal energy can produce electricity non stop and is easily controlled to increase or decrease production. However, it is very hard to find places on earth that has the suitable terrains to build these plants. Once located, developers risks the chance that the land will “run out of steam”, in which case they may have to wait decades for the plants to run again.

Currently, there is a $350,000USD geothermal energy generator running in Anaheim, providing enough energy for about 9000 households at about $13.3million USD per year.

Read more here

5) Biomass – Although this source of energy is not clean, I still decided to include it in my list mainly because its a great way for people to manage waste. In simple terms, biomass energy is generated thru burning waste. The idea was from our ancestors who had no technology so was forced to used only wood to fuel their fires. Since garbage is created everyday world wide, this could be a great source of energy for less weathy countries. Though the costs of this energy source depends on many factors such as method used to gather the energy, types of material being used as fuel, location, etc…, it is estimated that electricity can cost as little as 5-6 cents per Kw (per hour). This costs can be further reduced by half if the right type of generator is used (though of course it would be more expensive to build the generator). Once again, this method is by no means being clean or new, however, it should be something that can be easily accessible to less fortunately places if a generator was donated.

Read more about biomass

Information gathered from http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/index.htm