Renewable ENERGY

Energy and government officials from Eastern Europe toured the wind farm Friday at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority.

The group from Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries donned hardhats to get a close look at one of America’s most accessible wind projects.

ACUA President Rick Dovey said: “They asked more questions about electric rates than any other group”

Jim Black, of the Clean Air Council said: “They’re all looking at getting into solar, wind, biomass and other renewable energy”

The five-turbine project off the White Horse Pike is a popular destination for foreign dignitaries because of its proximity to Philadelphia and New York and its accessibility just a few steps from the road. The authority has hosted delegations from Sri Lanka, Japan, India, South Africa and the Baltic states.

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Many countries in Eastern Europe, including Kazakhstan, rely on coal plants. But that country is under increasing pressure to go green, said Nurlan N. Jiyenbayev, director of ND & Co. Solar Energy based in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan officials want to provide 5 percent of the nation’s energy needs through renewable resources by 2024. By comparison, New Jersey wants to provide 20 percent through renewable energy by 2020.

Eastern Europe has many options to meet this goal — from hydroelectric power to solar. But one is drawing particular attention.

“Wind — unequivocally wind,” said Andrey Khokhlov, deputy director of EuroUkr Wind, based in Kiev, Ukraine.

His company works on wind farms about 17 times the size of the Atlantic City project.

“Our investors are not interested in stations less than 100 megawatts,” he said. The five ACUA windmills produce a total of 7.5 megawatts.

Like in New Jersey, Ukraine offers government incentives to companies that generate renewable energy, said Oleh Dudkin, head of the secretariat for an energy panel in Ukraine.

Dudkin said he was impressed by the windmills’ automation and the authority’s efforts to capture renewable energy, such as its solar array and methane system.

The officials took photos and video of the authority’s presentation with handheld cameras and chatted quietly among themselves.

The authority’s operations room has a bank of 30-year-old electrical boards with dozens of colored lights that serve as a backup to the modern computers that track the plant systems, including solar and wind.

General Electric and the plant’s operator monitor the turbines remotely from California and Pennsylvania.

One plasma screen graphically illustrated the energy output from both systems and even tracked the sun’s position as it inched across the sky. The five windmills are named after the spouses of authority employees: Carol, K.C., Mary, Kathy and Diedre.

“Have you considered storing energy in the form of hydrogen fuel cells?” asked Vahe Odabashian, vice president of Armenian company H2 Economy.

Dovey said: “The way we do things, we want someone else to pay for it”

A private company built the windmills on ACUA property in 2006 for about $13 million. A partner firm sells the energy back to the authority at a discounted rate.

“That’s a very good approach,” Odabashian replied. “If someone comes up with the money, give me a call. I’ll bring the fuel cells.”

The tour was organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

This utilisation of hydrogen as a source of power, is one that is being extensively researched with everything from hydrogen fuel cell cars to hand held personal devices being powered by the most common element in the universe.

It is however, a complex process. As well as being highly flammable, storing pure hydrogen requires high pressure and low temperatures. Currently, new nano-materials with high surface areas capable of absorbing hydrogen are in production, but not on a large scale.

The science behind utilising urine is to do with chemically binding hydrogen to other elements, such as water, to make it easier and safer to store and transport.

The team under Gerardine Botte at Ohio University realised that by attaching hydrogen to another element, nitrogen, they can store hydrogen without the exotic environmental conditions, and then release it with less electricity, 0.037 Volts instead of the 1.23 Volts needed for water.

One molecule of urea, a major component of urine, contains four atoms of hydrogen bonded to two atoms of nitrogen.

Therefore, by inserting a special nickel electrode into a pool of urine and then applying an electrical current, you can release hydrogen gas. Botte”s current prototype measures 3x3x1 inch and can produce up to 500 milliwatts of power.

Speaking to NBC News, Professor Botte, said of the possible benefits: “One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses, soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel.”

She also mentioned the benefits of hydrogen cell vehicles saying a fuel cell, urine-powered vehicle could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon whilst a refrigerator-sized unit could produce one kilowatt of energy for roughly $5,000.

Another scientist, John Stickney, a chemist and professor at the University of Georgia said the technology would enable industries such as farms to be completely powered by green energy.

“The waste products from say a chicken farm could be used to produce the energy needed to run the farm,” he said.

Currently, livestock farmers who are required by law to pool their animals” waste could utilise the technology to create energy from urine within six months.

As the world continues its quest to use less fossil fuels, the latest possible solution comes from the tobacco plant. This latest news comes from the “California University”, Berkeley. It will be nice to see tobacco used for something other than lung cancer. This new discovery is based on the possibility of literally programming the cells of the plants to get solar cells from the tobacco plants. The science behind it is actually pretty simple and pretty amazing. By using a genetically engineered virus, scientists were able to literally transform the cells of the plants to create synthetic solar cells.

Instead of creating some new form of tobacco plant, they are actually applying their chemistry to full grown tobacco plants. Their custom-made virus is sprayed on the plants and then it is time to sit back and let it work its magic. The virus infects a cell which then enables the virus to spread just as any other virus would. As the infected cells form, they are creating artificial chromophores that make high powered electrons out of light.

Of course, the plants themselves are not used for direct solar energy as they still have to be harvested. Once harvested, the structures are extracted and put into a liquid solution to dissolve. This solution is then applied to plastics or glass and poof, solar cells from tobacco plants is a reality. While whole process may seem a little off the wall, if this process can be refined and work in mass form. It totally changes solar energy as we know.

While this technology exciting, the effect that could have on an economy that seems to continue to go backwards is even more incredible. One of the hardest hit industries during the last decade has been the farming industry. Farmers have been grappleing with their crops and tight times have not made things easier. An flow into the tobacco industry to create solar cells from tobacco plants could be a nice boost in the arm as farmers who are waiting for the bank to come and take their land will now have a viable way out.

These cells would not be expected to last as long as typical solar cells, but they would probably be much less expensive. That being the case, solar cells from tobacco leaves could provide both an organic way to produce solar cells and the economic boost that the farming industry needs.