Steven asks…
Is lightning the largest and most abundance amount of renewable energy for Earth?
Lightning and thunderstorms occur all around the world. Some areas receive denser volumes of lightning than other parts of the world. From what I know, in the large bodies of ocean, there are usually strong winds and storms that gives off an abundance and nearly constant amount of lightning in the air.
Here is my suggestions and questions:
Construct a large ship with conductive material & technology to withstand and insulate high amounts of heat energy to boil h2o into steam, and then further powering and spinning a turbine to generate electricity off shore back into our power grid with power lines.
Nuclear power plants also contain rods that can withstand high temperatures of heat to generate large amount of electrical energy. Is it possible to divert and spread the enormous heat of lightning onto a piece of conductive material, making it extremely hot to boil water into steam to power a turbine?
Advantages for implications:
A ship is able to move around the bodies of water to capture an optimized amount of lightning.
Using mother nature to produce energy is a clean and renewable method, no risk of nuclear melt down.
A large scale production of ships with platforms that can turn this idea into reality may possibly solve the world‘s energy crisis.
What kind of material can withstand heat damages from lightning strikes? Can franklin’s kite transfer the electric current of lightning from one point or location and out to another point with the use of rods? Since we can already manipulate the climate to produce artificial rain and thunder storms, can we turn this idea into efficient way to generate electricity by following a nuclear power plants model?
I know there are a lot of things to consider like the cost to implement, safety of the ship from disaster and terrorist, and even the amount of lightning strikes that occur. I would like to receive your feedback, especially from scientist who have studied this subject. What are the flaws and problems that arise?
The suns surface temperature is 4600 Celsius.
The temperature of a lightning in mid air is ten times hotter than that. The sunlight is heat that is absorbed and captured over a period of time to consistently turn water into steam.
It is not tiny when the strike of one lightning is ten times hotter than the sun. On top of that, my idea is not to transform the energy of electricity from lightning DC directly into AC into our power grid. Nuclear power plants do not work that way either.
The Expert answers:
No, it is tiny compared to the others. Much easier to use solar panels or solar heat, that is within our technology.
And it is unpredictable and of voltages much too high to harness.
Edit, yes, lightning has a lot of power, but it is for a very brief period of time, and you collection hardware has to be there to collect it.
Bottom line, the amount of energy that you can collect over any area is very small compared to that you can get from sunlight.
.
Susan asks…
How can a Renewable Resource such as Solar Energy be used to reduce the world’s dependency on Fossil Fuels?
And alleviate the world‘s energy crisis?
The Expert answers:
All renewable energy resources are used by all agencies to reduce the usage of fossil fuels. Cheap and easy available source of energy is solar energy by using photo cells. Most of the government buildings are installed with solar energy generation and usage and also enacted to enforce solar energy usage in dwellings for all purposes such as lighting, cooking, pumping water and so on. This is a great valuable substitute for fossil fuels.
William asks…
What is the best renewable energy?
The world is rapidly changing and our dependence on the earths fossil fuels are diminishing. As we turn to alternative methods of energy, what is proving to be the best renewable power source?. Examples of renewable energy are Tidal Power, Wave Power and Solar Power.
The Expert answers:
Wind while widely promoted is quite inefficient.
Solar is pretty good, especially in equatorial regions.
Speaking from the UK perspective I would promote tidal and wave energy. They are efficient and predictable.
I would also not dismiss nuclear in this debate, although it is not considered truely renewable in the same sense as these others, it is currently undergoing many methodological improvements which would allow the reuse of waste to a much lower level. (also it is the grey area between renewables and non renewables)
all in all i would rate the true renewable as tide, solar, wind in that order.
Then nuclear would outweigh all these but due to misinformation and scare mongering its not being considered the same.
Joseph asks…
1.What energy sources, if any, cannot be traced to sunlight falling on the earth?
2. What are some of the disadvantages that have kept renewable energy sources from supplying more than a small fraction of the world‘s energy?
3. when two objects attract each other electrically, must both of them be charged?
4. When two objects repel each other electrically, must both of them be charged?
5. What reasons might be there for the universal belief among scientists that there are only two kinds of electric charge?
Please help me with this…..i badly needed your help.
If possible please answer all the questions with explanations..
May God bless us all. Happy New Year
The Expert answers:
1. Geothermal energy based on the decay of radioactive isotopes within the core of the earth.
2. The issues are specific to the sources of the renewable energy. There is no general answer to this.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
5. That is all that has been found, and two charge types are all that are needed for electromagnetic phenomena.
Sharon asks…
help with my renewable energy poster?
I’m making a renewable energy poster, and I want to work on it and finish it this weekend. I already have an idea of how to draw it out, and what goes where, but I would like some help with these areas:
– a simple definition of Clean/Renewable Energy
– why using that type of energy is good
– three facts on wind power, solar power and bio fuel power.
Also, what do you think of my slogan; “Cleaner Energy for a Cleaner World“?
Please go all out in your answers. I’ve done a lot of research into the area, but I can’t seem to condense everything so that it can go onto a poster and not be too overwhelming for the reader…especially since I found out the posters are going to be made into a calendar for 2011. Thanks! 🙂
The Expert answers:
Clean energy – energy whose production doesn’t contribute to pollution or global warming
Renewable energy – energy derived from sources which can be fully replenished indefinitely (for the life of our planet) using environmentally sustainable processes
Why good? – because it provides a sustainable pathway to the future
Wind power – intermittent, highly variable, easily harnessed using high turbines, fully renewable and sustainable, “clean”
Solar power – 50% maximum availability, highly variable, easily harnessed using photovoltaic or thermal collectors, fully renewable and sustainable, “clean”
Bio fuel power – partially renewable but not fully sustainable (may produce net CO2 emissions, may compete with food production), not “clean”
Slogan: For a renewable energy poster, why not “Renewable Energy for a Sustainable World” ?
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