[AT] energy

[Francis Robinson]

	I'm not advocating this... it is just something I read some time back and 
kept because it was interesting. Again, this just capture and storage like 
everything else but good storage can be your friend... We know there are no 
free dinners but a good discount is all we really need.   :-)
Even just a senior discount.   :-)

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By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
Mon Dec 31, 2:14 PM ET



SCHARWOUDE, Netherlands - If you've ever blistered your bare feet on a hot 
road you know that asphalt absorbs the sun's energy. A Dutch company is now 
siphoning heat from roads and parking lots to heat homes and offices.

As climate change rises on the international agenda, the system built by 
the civil engineering firm, Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV, doesn't look as wacky 
as it might have 10 years ago when first conceived.

Solar energy collected from a 200-yard stretch of road and a small parking 
lot helps heat a 70-unit four-story apartment building in the northern 
village of Avenhorn. An industrial park of some 160,000 square feet in the 
nearby city of Hoorn is kept warm in winter with the help of heat stored 
during the summer from 36,000 square feet of pavement. The runways of a 
Dutch air force base in the south supply heat for its hangar.

And all that under normally cloudy Dutch skies, with only a few days a year 
of truly sweltering temperatures.

The Road Energy System is one of the more unusual ways scientists and 
engineers are trying to harness the power of the sun, the single most 
plentiful, reliable, accessible and inexhaustible source of renewable 
energy — radiating to earth more watts in one hour than the world can use 
in a whole year.

But today, solar power provides just 0.04 percent of global energy, held 
back by high production costs and low efficiency rates.

Solar advocates say that will change within a few years.

Other renewable sources have drawbacks: Not every place is breezy enough 
for wind turbines; waves and tides are good only for coastal regions; 
hydroelectricity requires rivers and increasingly objectionable dams; 
biofuels take up land once used solely for food crops.

"But solar falls everywhere," says Patrick Mazza, of Climate Solutions, a 
consultancy group in Seattle, Wash.

Compared with other energy sources, "solar comes out as the one with the 
real heavy lift. It's the one we really need to get at," he said.

Ooms' thermal energy system is actually a spin-off from attempts to reduce 
road maintenance and costs.

A latticework of flexible pipes, held in place by a grid, is covered over 
by asphalt, which magnifies the sun's thermal power. As water in the pipes 
is heated, it is pumped deep under the ground to natural aquifers where it 
maintains a fairly constant temperature of about 68 F. The heated water can 
be retrieved months later to keep the road surface ice-free in winter.

Though it doubles the cost of construction, the system is designed to 
provide longer life for roads and bridges, fewer ice-induced accidents and 
less need to repave worn surfaces.

But the same system can pump cold water from a separate subterranean 
reservoir to cool buildings on hot days.

"We found we were gathering more energy in summer than we needed, so we 
asked a building contractor what we can do with the extra energy," said Lex 
Van Zaane, the commercial manager. The answer was to construct buildings 
near the tarmac and pipe hot water under the floor.

The water usually isn't hot enough on its own, and must go through an 
electricity-powered heat pump for an extra boost, Van Zaane said. The 
installation cost is about twice as much as normal gas heating, but the 
energy required is about half of what would otherwise be needed. That 
translates into lower monthly heating bills and a 50 percent savings in 
carbon emissions.

Rooftop solar water heaters have been standard in some countries for 
decades. In 1954 Bell Labs created the first photovoltaic cells, which use 
sunlight to create electric current.

But it is only in the last decade that researchers have begun raising the 
efficiency of photovoltaic cells to economically generate electricity, and 
new technologies aim to make them commercially competitive without 
subsidies from taxpayers.

Experimental technologies involve new methods to concentrate the sun's 
energy by using mirrors or lenses, or devices that track the sun's path 
across the sky. New materials are being developed to make better cells. And 
scientists are working with electrochemical cells using a liquid rather 
than a solid component to absorb light.

"The prospect of relying on the sun for all our power demands is finally 
becoming realistic," says report in New Scientist.

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--
"farmer"


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
Robinson at svs.net