Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Our Environment

Innovation and a post carbon water sector

Courtesy of BusinessGreen
Aug. 26, 2011
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Managing Britain's water and wastewater services can often appear to be a case of running hard to stand still, as utilities have to balance the demands of a surprisingly limited water supply, rising consumer expectations, and a series of European directives within Ofwat's robust pricing regime.

Once you factor in the challenges of population growth and climate change, the challenge can appear pretty daunting.

Carbon costs matter as much as financial costs. The sector faces a double bind in that rising standards means that more sewage needs to be treated to a higher standard while more water needs to be shipped across networks to cope with greater seasonal variations in rainfall.

When facing challenges such as these, it can be useful to take a fresh look at how water and wastewater can be managed both in terms of technology and techniques. We are at the cusp of a series of breakthroughs that are set to de-carbonise our management of the water cycle which in turn offer the prospect of making universal and sustainable water and sanitation services a realisable ambition.

This is why innovation is so important at a time when utilities are being asked to do more while spending less money. It seems implausible, but it can be done. However, such a change must be brought about by rethinking how the individual components involved with water and wastewater treatment can deliver more on a holistic basis.

To give a simple example, the most popular form of secondary sewage treatment today is the activated sludge process, which was developed in Manchester in 1913. It has done wonders in delivering basic sewage treatment for urban areas across the world, but the world has moved on.

In Britain, we are dealing with concerns such as service delivery within constrained areas and the need to optimise energy reuse from sludge streams. Looking beyond, just a third of the wastewater generated by the 3.35 billion people living in urban areas worldwide gets at least secondary sewage treatment. Along with the 2.23 billion without treatment, a further 3.04 billion are forecast to be living in urban areas by 2050.

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Saturday, 3 September 2011

Environment-wind power


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Energy Resources of Wind Power




"Wind power" is nothing but the successful conversion of wind energy into something other useful form, usually electricity by using wind turbines specially designed long blades, shaped such that they can capture the rushing wind and rotate providing for mechanical motion.

It was reported in the year 2005 that the world's wind power capacity was about 60000 megawatts, constituting about 1% of the world's present electric power usage. Although not much of this renewable energy is used in the U.S, countries like Denmark and Spain make use of this technology to contribute, in quite respectful doses, to their electrical energy needs.

Modern electric power is generated by converting the rotary motion of the turbines, caused by the wind, into electrical energy by the means of a electric generator. Wind power is used to provide electricity ranging from huge wind farms to stand-alone mills to provide energy for isolated places.

It also has to be noted that wind energy is renewable, abundant, mitigates the greenhouse effect, contributes nothing to the air pollution and is reasonable easy to produce. The cost of producing wind power has tumbled down considerably over the time. It is worth mentioning the fact the amount of wind power being produced in the U.S alone has seen growth rates of about 15 to 20%.

About 1 to 4% of the solar energy is converted into wind energy, while most of it is again absorbed by the vegetation for photosynthesis; the rest of it keeps rushing about at high altitudes and low-altitudes with varying velocities and intensities. The power of the wind is captured by letting it flow past the turbine blades which in turn induce a torque in the motor attached. The amount of power generated is proportional to the density of air, the area swept by the rotor and the cube of the speed of the wind.

Higher velocities of wind cause more power to be generated, however, all locations no not all always have winds blowing at the same speeds or velocities. It has been noticed that the power is averaged out and most of the windmills capture power in short wind bursts.

Wind power is quite a popular way to economize on the energy costs and most customers in the U.S can opt for some utility power service providers and subscribe to power from these forms of new alternative sources of energy mostly wind energy.


Jason Uvios writes about "Energy Resources of Wind Power" to visit: portable generator, home generator and honda generators.






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