Alex Van Aken
Professor Liang
University Colloquium
16 June 2015

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Solar and Wind Power: Staples of Plan B Renewable Energy

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In his critically-acclaimed book, Lester R. Brown brings up one of the single most important topics of all time: the switching of our society’s energy structure to a greener, more renewable configuration. This is hands down one of the most important topics brought up in his book, however, I don’t really think people see exactly how important it is just yet. We live in a society where almost everybody has a car. Tens of millions of cars are produced every year, and billions of gallons of gas are used annually (Total Cars Produced in the World). But do people realize what they are doing? Carbon emissions, also known as “smog” are becoming so dense, and a lot of them can even cause awful illnesses, like cancer. Some people even kill themselves by parking their car in their closed garage, letting the engine run, and then the exhaust becomes so thick in the room, that the Carbon Monoxide prevents the hemoglobin in their blood from getting what it needs—O2 (diatomic oxygen). Gas isn’t the only awful thing that we’re using nowadays, however. We use a lot of coal and natural gas, also. These forms of energy are proven to run out, so why on Earth are they are favorites? Unfortunately, there is a very simple answer to this: greed. People who sell the energy don’t want it to be free and unlimited, because that means these billion-dollar corporations won’t continue to get billions. But hey, how is billions of dollars not enough? When are the average humans, the political shot-callers, the corporate giants, going to step forward and say “enough is enough”? We need renewable sources of energy, or our society is going to collapse like a house of cards!” This is what we need to make happen. The sources of clean, renewable energy are here already. They have been for millennia. Some of the cleanest, most widely available and un-ending sources of energy are wind power, water power, solar power, and geothermal power. These sources of energy won’t end, and they use things that will not only free up other resources, but it will free up man-hours, also. This essay will work to elaborate a little bit on how and why switching to renewable energy sources (specifically, my two favorites; Solar and Wind power) will significantly help our society reach its true potential.

Can you imagine a world where you don’t have to pay to go somewhere, or to do something? Imagine running your home off of energy which nobody really had to do anything to make happen. This type of energy is all around us, remaining mostly untouched by us. Why is this? Doesn’t it sound ludicrous that we, an extremely advance species, don’t go and get the easiest, smartest, most efficient and infinite energy. If you think for a moment about what we are capable of, what are currently are doing seems sort of primitive. The sooner that we start endorsing these cleaner sources of energy, the better.

Before I go into detail about how we should be powering our electrified world, it is important to establish what it means to have electricity moving through something, like a phone, a computer, or a lightbulb. Most of our “gadgets” which have batteries run off of DC (Direct Current, the invention of Thomas Edison). But what does this mean? What is a current? As you may already know, mostly everything we’ve come to know and love is composed of atoms, the most exterior portion of which is a negatively charged component, called an electron. These electrons repel each other, and in the average metal (such as copper, which is typically used in wires for electronics), there are many “loose” electrons in the outermost valence shell (orbiting area for electrons). When a battery is hooked up to something, these electrons like to flow from atom to atom, from a source of higher concentration to a source of lower concentration, in an equal way. This is much like if you poked a hole in the bottom of a cup filled with water (the area of high concentration), the water would flow out into whatever is nearby (the area of lower concentration). So, if you can imagine, the battery of your phone, trickling little electrons into the other compartments of your phone, causing many incredible functions to occur. These electrons don’t move that fast, however, they push on one another, causing an electric “current”. So, one electron coming from the batter of the phone causes one electron to be pushed into the camera of your phone, and you take a picture. This is pretty fascinating, and it is all around us. On the other hand of the electrical current spectrum, you have AC (alternating current, the invention of Nikola Tesla). Most buildings on this planet have technology which run off of AC, so it is important to know what it is. Instead of all the electrons going in one direction, the electrons alternate, going back and forth. This still causes the “output”, being electricity, at the end, however, it gives the utility companies a specific advantage. Let’s say you have a 40 watt lightbulb in your home, which you want to turn on. If the local power plant used Direct Current to send the electricity to your house, that light bulb would get a huge amount of energy (most likely megawatts, instead of watts). The lightbulb would probably explode, or catch something on fire. DC can be dangerous when sending it to a home, which is why they devised AC. With Alternating Current, they can send power in very large quantities, and then “downgrade them”, into lower, safer levels in what we call transformers. They “transform” energy levels from very high to very low, so people can use little bits in their houses. But what about your lightbulb? How does that work. Well, it’s quite simple. You flip the switch, which completes the circuit, allowing the electrons to continue pushing each other down the cord, and into the light fixture. The energy gets to the filament, and thus, you have light! So, in the end, the energy that people need is simply kinetic energy: energy of motion. All you need is a little bit of internal motion (the electrons moving around) to have the “energy” which we all feel so necessary. Seems quite simple once the whole energy charade is broken down, doesn’t it? Now, you’ll note that I didn’t cite a single thing during that explanation, this is simply because I have taken a conceptual physics course, here, and as you can see, there are many aspects which intrigued me.

Now that we’ve gone over what this mysterious “energy” is, let’s start with one of the most obvious sources of energy. I’m talking about the Sun. We can’t live without the Sun, and it isn’t “going anywhere”, so why don’t we use it to its fullest potential? It is literally a nuclear reactor which we orbit, so technically speaking, it has the potential to power about 50% of our time spent on this Earth (if you think about it, it is visible about 50% of the time, considering the fact that at night time, the Sun is not visible). That is, however, if we integrate enough solar panels into our energy systems today. A very interesting thing that is starting to take hold is that families are starting to integrate solar panels into their homes (typically on the roof), and not only can they do that to downgrade the amount of energy they will need from the local utilities production, but what many people are starting to do is invest in Tesla Batteries. Tesla Batteries are being used to privately store energy, meaning, a house can get energy from their very own solar panels, store whatever energy they get from that, which they don’t end up using, in the Tesla Batteries they have (SolarCity, using Tesla’s Batteries, Aims to Bring Solar Power to the Masses). Just to reiterate that if it sounds too good to be true, people can get energy from the Sun (which is free), use that energy, and whatever they don’t use, can be immediately stored, kind of like “rollover energy”, in a Tesla Battery. This unused energy from the last days energy, or the last weeks energy, piles up in the Tesla Battery, so if the “power goes out”, it won’t at your house, because you have a huge battery filled with it. This means that people literally have the potential to stop paying for electricity. Now, with all this being said, solar panels are pretty expensive, and Tesla Batteries are even more expensive, however, if you could cut away the electrical portion of your utility bill for good, isn’t that a worth-while investment? I hear a lot of people talking about how “thrifty” they are, and how much money they’re “saving”, but let’s think about this for a moment… If they are repeatedly doing this imaginary saving of money by making shortcut after shortcut, is the saving of money there long term, or short term? It sounds a lot like short term saving, which is the illusion of saving. Not having to pay for electricity anymore, now that is saving money! However, now that we have talked about how a few solar panels and a Tesla Battery could save you money, let’s dive into how solar technology actually generates clean, renewable energy. There are many types of ways that solar energy can be harnessed. First and foremost, what many people have already heard of, are called Solar PV cells (solar panels). The PV stands for Photovoltaic, and what these things do is directly convert sunlight into electricity (Brown, p.117). The sun emits photons, which are waves of electric and magnetic energy (EM waves). These EM waves interact with the electrons of the Solar PV cells, in a way which causes the kinetic energy needed to derive electric current. Sounds pretty simple, right? The hardest part is installing the panel, and that is a one-time thing, so more people need to take advantage of this option, and they are; that’s the good news. Brown says that Solar PV cell amounts double every year, and will continue to do so until at least 2020. Another form of solar energy harnessing is Concentrating Solar Power, which uses huge reflectors to concentrate light into a source of water, which is generated into steam, which is in turn used to spin a turbine, thus creating the kinetic energy potential which is needed so much to power our everyday, energy consuming lives.

People need to get over the face value (which is the most expensive part of converting to solar power), because, according to brown, “When a [person] buys a solar PV system, that person is in effect buying a 25-year supply of electricity” (Brown, p.118). Brown mentions in Plan B 4.0 that for some places which are using candles due to a lack of electricity, “… The monthly payment for a solar cell installation over 30 months is less than the monthly outlay for candles”. It is mind blowing to think of solar panels being less expensive than candles, which goes to show, that renewable sources of energy are the way to go. According to the scientific journal Nature, “Photovoltaic module costs have plunged by about 10% per year over the past 30 years and the costs of wind turbines have fallen by roughly 5% per year. Production levels for both technologies have risen by about 30% per year on average” (Renewable Energy: Back the renewables boom). This is fantastic news, because it is clear that the future of this planet lies within the potential of renewable energy.

However, what else is there, other than solar energy? Since all we need to generate electricity is kinetic energy, look no further than wind. Brown calls wind the “centerpiece of the Plan B economy” (Brown, p.113). Wind is one of the biggest sources of kinetic energy we have ever seen. Just like the electrons in a wire, the individual atoms and molecules that make up wind bump into one another, and alternate all over the place (much like our AC energy). We have all seen the huge wind turbines, and by now it shouldn’t be too much mystery as to how that works. The kinetic energy of the wind causes the turbine to spin, which moves a driveshaft (much like the one in your car), which moves the generator (much like the alternator in your car). The components of the generator all have electromagnetic fields, and when these fields all move, it causes the electrons to interact with these electromagnetic fields, thus causing the electrons to be “pushed or pulled”, resulting in a current flow. This current is then sent down the tower of the wind turbine, and is received at a transformer, to be sent again in the correct voltage, as needed. Quite interesting, right? So, while somebody might be saying “Oh, it’s too windy outside!”, somebody else might be saying “Thank God we have that Wind Farm over there; we wouldn’t have electricity without it!” Just like with solar power, it is the installation price which is the biggest downside (unlike un-renewable energy, in which, the day-to-day operating price is the downside). However, there is good news to be had here as well. They are now working on mass-producing wind turbines which have no blades, which are the most expensive parts of our big bladed wind turbines. It also makes the one anti-wind turbine argument useless and void. Many people are against wind turbines, simply because they “kill birds”, however, with no blades, you have no bird deaths. Instead of spinning a large blade, wind spins the whole cone-shaped structure, which causes the kinetic energy needed (The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades).

So now that we’ve gone over my two favorite renewable options, it’s time for a little bit of commentary on why it is so important to switch to these forms of energy. The first and most obvious one is that they will never run out. Wind will always blow, and the Sun will always shine, and if it doesn’t we will be thrown into an “ice age”, and electricity will be the last of our worries. The second reason is still one of the best: they practically operate and run themselves. You don’t need to keep fighting wars to get more oil, or transport the oil anywhere in huge trucks (which, ironically enough, run off of oil). What happens when the oil runs out? Most car tires need oil to make them, so our whole economic structure will collapse if we don’t have an infinitely abundant source to fall back on. I believe, and clearly, I’m not the only one, that renewable sources of clean energy are truly the future of this planet, if we are to remain an energy-consuming species.

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Works Cited

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Brown, L. (2009). Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to save civilization. New York: W.W. Norton.

Bullis, K. (2013, December 5). SolarCity, Using Tesla Batteries, Aims to Bring Solar Power to the Masses. Retrieved June 16, 2015, from http://www.technologyreview.com/news/522226/solarcity-using-tesla-batteries-aims-to-bring-solar-power-to-the-masses/

Stinson, L. (2015, May 15). The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades. Retrieved June 16, 2015, from http://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/

Trancik, J. (2014). Renewable energy: Back the renewables boom. Nature, 300-302.

Total Cars Produced In The World. (2014). Retrieved June 16, 2015, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/cars-produced-in-the-world/