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This special consists
of five articles:
Changing The Current - Wind
Turbines
Only Connect - Micro Hydro - Peru
Where There's Muck - Germany
All Done With Mirrors
- Solar Power
Green Lights - China
Changing
The Current - Wind Turbines
The European Union has made declarations to reduce
environmental damage, and to provide and develop
the technology to harness sustainable energy resources.
Technology for wind turbines has developed a great
deal in the last fifteen years and currently, in
Europe, wind energy projects provide enough electricity
to meet the domestic needs of five million people.
The wind energy industry has set itself the target
of installing enough wind energy capacity to meet
the needs of 50 million people, by the year 2010.
Only
Connect - Micro Hydro - Peru
The rural population in Peru is eight million and
it is spread over an area of more than 1.2 million
square kilometres. The majority of Peru’s rural
population live in the remote Andean highland’s
region. Communities and settlements are very small
and in remote locations. The towns and cities in
Peru have electricity, but the communities living
in the ‘cut-off’ areas in the mountains
have few facilities and little access to them.
The
cost of expanding the grid of electricity into
the widely dispersed population of the mountains
is very high and, therefore, unlikely to happen even
in the long term. Before other services to meet basic
needs can be introduced, it is fundamental that there
is power available to these communities. This, together
with the problems of expense and difficult access
to the communities has meant that government programmes
to develop education, sanitation, transport and
health services usually only get through to larger
and more accessible settlements.
Where
There's Muck - Germany
Biogas is produced by the action of
bacteria on organic material in airless conditions
which is why the process is also known as anaerobic
digestion. The bacteria slowly digest the material
(usually animal dung, human wastes and crop residues)
and produce a gas which is roughly 60% methane and
40% carbon dioxide.
Biogas is an environmentally friendly
source of energy because it produces electricity
and heat but still keeps carbon dioxide emissions
neutral and emits no sulphur. As fossil based fuels
become scarcer and more expensive and carbon dioxide
emission levels become of greater concern, the benefits
and potential of biogas as a source of energy supply
are being increasingly recognised.
All
Done With Mirrors - Solar Power
Concerns for the environment, coupled
with the heavy reliance of conventional power plants
on fossil fuels, have encouraged research and development
into sources of renewable energy supplies. Electricity
demand is growing all the time due to population
growth and the increasingly rapid industrialisation
of developing countries. Solar thermal power is an
appropriate energy source for countries located in
the "Sunbelt", that is, countries that are thirty
degrees or more north or south of the equator, where
there is high direct solar radiation all year round.
There are two main types of technology
for converting energy from the sun into electricity.
One is known as solar electricity - photovoltaic
- where sunlight is directly converted into electricity
via solar cells. This technology is most appropriate
for small scale applications. Solar radiation is
the largest renewable energy resource and has greatest
potential in the Sunbelt.
Green
Lights - China
Lighting accounts for approximately 10% of the total
electric power supply in China today. Low efficiency
devices such as incandescent lamps and magnetic ballasts
still dominate China’s lighting sector, leading
to high electricity consumption and environmental
pollution. Saving electricity on lighting will alleviate
electric power supply shortages that create tremendous
lost potential for Chinese industries and protect
the environment. At the same time, energy efficient
lighting will reduce peak load and improve the quality
of the power supply.
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