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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Spherical Generator ; clean electricity out of ocean waves, Innovation


A team of Cornell engineers developed a patented technology, the TO:CMA Spherical Generator, that creates copious amounts of clean electricity out of ocean waves at costs below all major existing renewable energy sources. The design was elaborated to defy the global rise in energy demand, which is projected to grow by 49% over the next 30 years and the depletion of current resources that are used for energy.

This device surpasses in potential and efficiency existing renewable energy technology, and is more economical. The innovative geometrical arrangement of the magnets within the technology generates more power and greater efficiency at less cost.

Conventional point absorbers employ linear generators, which can only harness energy from movement in the vertical motion. The limited one-degree of freedom of motion of the magnets in the linear generators drastically reduces the ability to harness energy from the waves since buoys experience motion in all six

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Pilot-Scale Comparison of Steam Gasification with Herbaceous and Woody Feed stocks, Research proposal



Background

Production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass has become an important priority to reduce the nation's dependence upon imported oil and minimize the impact upon the environment. However, a sustainable biofuels economy will require conversion processes that utilize the lignocellulosic components of plants so as not to compete with food production. [2] This research focuses on developing processes that use a variety of feed stocks, such as agricultural residues, waste from forest thinning, and energy crops. Biomass gasification combined with catalytic synthesis has the potential to meet these criteria. This approach can potentially produce alcohols or Fischer-Tropsch fuels from a variety of biomass sources. [3]

Key to the economic viability of gasification/catalytic synthesis processes is the production of a syngas with