Tawanai

Interesting picture from Islamabd Metroblog.

Conservation, Electricity

From Google’s offiical blog, introducing the new intiative on monitoring your energy use.

Over the last several months, our engineers have developed a software tool called Google PowerMeter, which will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer. Google PowerMeter is not yet available to the public since we’re testing it out with Googlers first. But we’re building partnerships with utilities and independent device manufacturers to gradually roll this out in pilot programs. Once we’ve had a chance to kick the tires, we’ll make the tool more widely available.

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” and we believe consumers have a right to detailed information about their home electricity use. We’re tackling the challenge on several fronts, from policy advocacy to developing consumer tools, and even investing in smart grid companies. We’ve been participating in the dialogue in Washington, DC and with public agencies in the U.S. and other parts of the world to advocate for investment in the building of a “smart grid,” to bring our 1950s-era electricity grid into the digital age. Specifically, to provide both consumers and utilities with real-time energy information, homes must be equipped with advanced energy meters called “smart meters.” There are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years.

Conservation, Consumers, Electricity

According to Aleternative Energy Board of Pakistan, a global seismic belt passes through Pakistan and the country has a long geological history of geotectonic events. The Geotectonic framework shown above indicates that Pakistan should not be lacking in commercially exploitable sources of geothermal energy. AEDB is working on a preliminary study on technical, economical and market aspects of geothermal utilization possibilities and detailed feasibility studies for geothermal energy utilization. Let’s take a look at what Geothermal energy is?

We have prepared a concise summary of Geothermal power and its use in the world – aggregated from various top sources.

Geothermal power is energy generated by heat stored in the earth, or the collection of absorbed heat derived from underground, in the atmosphere and oceans.  As of 2008, geothermal power supplies less than 1% of the world’s energy. Geothermal power requires no fuel, and is therefore virtually emissions free and insusceptible to fluctuations in fuel cost. And because a geothermal power station doesn’t rely on transient sources of energy, unlike, for example, wind turbines or solar panels, its capacity factor can be quite large; up to 90% in practice.

Geothermal has minimal land use requirements; existing geothermal plants use 1-8 acres per megawatt (MW) versus 5-10 acres per MW for nuclear operations and 19 acres per MW for coal power plants. It also offers a degree of scalability: a large geothermal plant can power entire cities while smaller power plants can supply more remote sites such as rural villages.

Geothermal resources range from shallow ground to hot water and rock several miles below the Earth’s surface, and even further down to the extremely hot molten rock called magma. Wells over a mile deep can be drilled into underground reservoirs to tap steam and very hot water that can be brought to the surface for use in a variety of applications. Geothermal power is generated in over 20 countries around the world including the United States, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Turkey, France, The Netherlands, Lithuania, New Zealand, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the People’s Republic of China, Pakistan, Japan and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Chevron Corporation is the world’s largest producer of geothermal energy.

A global seismic belt passes through Pakistan and the country has a long geological history of geotectonic events. Several projects are  on the roll these days which include Remote Sensing Studies, geothermal geology, geothermal hydrogeology, hydrogeochemical Studies, geophysical Studies and preliminary Study on Technical, Economical and Market Aspects of Geothermal utilization possibilities and detailed feasibility studies for geothermal energy utilization. Projects like these if being managed and properly financed by Pakistani government should result in a major solution for meeting the energy shortage.

A 2006 report by MIT, that took into account the use of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), concluded that it would be affordable to generate 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more by 2050 in the United States alone, for a maximum investment of 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years. The MIT report calculated the world’s total EGS resources to be over 13,000 ZJ. Of these, over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements – sufficient to provide all the world’s present energy needs for several millennia. The key characteristic of an EGS (also called a Hot Dry Rock system), is that it reaches at least 10 km down into hard rock. At a typical site two holes would be bored and the deep rock between them fractured. Water would be pumped down one and steam would come up the other. The MIT report estimated that there was enough energy in hard rocks 10 km below the United States to supply all the world’s current needs for 30,000 years.

Conservation, Consumers, Economics, Electricity, Energy, Environment, Gas, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized

State of Telecom in Pakistan has a good post about telecom’s role in conserving energy and saving money.

Last year we saw Telenor and Warid vie in the media as the first one to install solar base stations. That was a start and the trend for green, renewable and more efficient solutions will continue. There is a lot more work to be done in the energy conservation and alternative reneable sources of energy for the technology and telecom industry. The infrastructure elements such as base stations consume significant energy and the data centers needed to run the IT operations are also major energy spenders. The infrastructure sharing idea promoted in Pakistan was also a good point in theory but its actual success has not been reported yet.

Typically, around half of the operating expenditure of a network company is spent on electricity, according to Ericsson. The proportion tends to be higher for operators in the developing world because their base-stations may be in remote areas, and therefore require diesel-fuelled generators. So the recent spike in energy prices has prompted operators to look for ways to cut costs.

The Economist ran a story about green telecom networks and ways to conserve energy in the telecom world. Good tips for saving energy from Economist.com include:

There are some relatively simple ways to reduce the energy consumption of a base-station. The first is to turn down the air-conditioning. Many mobile operators now run base-stations at a standard temperature of 35ºC, rather than the previous norm of 25-30ºC. Studies show that the higher temperature does not reduce the equipment’s reliability or life expectancy. “The biggest restriction is actually our technicians, who do not like going into the hut to work at 35 degrees,” says Andy MacLeod, Vodafone’s global networks director.

Operating at this temperature means ambient air can be used for cooling, even in hot countries. An air-filter is installed on one side of the cabin, and a fan is installed on the other, resulting in a steady flow of air. Vodafone plans to replace air-conditioning with this simpler approach, called “freecooling”, in the majority of its base-stations over the next three years, as part of a plan to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% between 2006 and 2020.

Conservation, Electricity, Energy, Environment, Green, Infrastructure Pakistan, telecom

A seminar on energy conservation was organised by the Department of Public Relations and Publication and Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco). Asian Development Bank granted Rs 2 billion to Fesco to revamp its infrastructure in lines with the emerging global trends.

The participants of the seminar mentioned that micro economic policies of post-2005 resulted in import of non-productive electric appliances, which created imbalance between demand and supply mechanism of electricity. Conscious efforts need to be practised at offices, residences, factories and schools in order to save each and every unit for sustainable growth of industries, they said.

Report from Business Recorder.

Dr Iqrar said that though the government had initiated various projects of power production but, on the other hand, people need to conserve energy as much they can by switching off the unnecessary electronic appliances and launching massive awareness campaign.

Th Fesco Chief Executive said that his office was striving to streamline the load management mechanism by fixing timetable of load shading for the respective areas so as to enable its clients for their time management. He said that power generation would shortly be started from 41 points of 200 MW which were indicated for power generation in the province.

He said that his office has been granted Rs 2 billion from ADB in a bid to revamp its infrastructural mechanism. He stressed need for harnessing all sources of energy generation, particularly by using coal resources for the purpose. Ahmad Saeed said that his office has initiated the establishment of Energy Audit Cell at every factory to recommend to the respective owners workable measures for energy conservation.

FCCI president suggested to convert the furnace oil power generation system to gas and coal, as 50 percent of world oil resources have been exhausted and oil is no more a choice for energy generation. He said that energy demand was rising day by day against its availability as in 2010 supply is predicated as stagnant at 15055 MW against the supply of 20584 MW. Pointing out the Thar Coal Reservoirs, Hamid said that production of electricity by coal is needed as the country has 185 billion tons coal in Thar, which needs to be exploited.

Waheed Khaliq Ramy termed the seminar in time and said that power looms had to suffer badly due to current spell of load shedding as income of 0.5 million workers of power looms had reduced by 30 percent, which caused frustration. He underlined the need to make every possible effort for energy conservation, right from homes to schools and industries, by involving schoolgoing children, females in particular.

Muzaffar urged the participants to use maximum daylight in the rooms, making proper illumination, as over-illumination has negative impact on human health, using the spotlights at reading and working tables, installation of energy savers instead of bulb and tube lights.

He asked for true alignment and fixation of electric motors, keeping the thermostat always low and to turn off the computers soon after completion of assignments. He pointed out that energy can be conserved by designing the zero light building, by using light tunnels, green environment of 3 to 6 degrees, and by using light colours in rooms.

Conservation, Energy