Automatic Refueling of Drones and Developing Electric Airplanes of the Future

Electric Airplanes have a basic physics problem, batteries currently don't hold enough energy to power the vehicle for a long enough flight to be commercially useful on  a large scale.   (the youtube channel Real Engineering does a great overview of the balancing of range of a plane relative to the size of the batteries)  Commercial airplanes like the 737-900 has a range of 5900 kilometers ( a bit more than 3600 miles) current examples of passenger electric airplanes have a range of about 160 kilometers (100 miles).  Flying 100 miles can be helpful, but not many people are going to want to take 25 legs to fly from Seattle to Boston.  For electric aircraft to be able to actually begin to replace more conventional planes on a larger scale range will need to be drastically expanded.  The range of electric airplanes are limited by how much energy can be stored in each gram of battery, this is referred to as the energy density.  Battery energy density will often be listed in watt hours per kilogram, the idea being, under ideal circumstances if you have a battery technology that provides 100 watt hours/kilogram, you should be able to power ten 10 Watt LED bulbs for an hour using a 1 kilogram battery pack.  Modern Lithium Ion batteries currently fall in around 150-190 Whr/kg  impressive, but nowhere close to the 1000 Whrs/kg that you would need to make a commercially competative electric airplane under current paradigms.

The reason I mention current paradigms for electric airplanes is that the 1000 watt hour/kilogram calculation was done under the premise that you are designing an airplane that would have the same parts and components at both take off and landing.  This is a valid assumption. for the last 100 years of the aerospace industry almost all planes have been designed under the impression that a plane will start its trip with everything it needs to complete a journey.  For long haul electric aircraft to be considered a viable alternative, without allowing for revolutionary battery technologies, it may be necessary to look at our design parameters from a different perspective, what happens when you open your design considerations to include recharging in flight?

The United States' Department of Defense has been concerned with the range of its aircraft since they started to use them as part of our strategy for projecting American might around the world.  This desire for extending the range of planes has lead to a littany of strategies and innovations including midflight refueling.  In 2015 the US Navy released news that they had refueled an autonomous aircraft in mid flight.  If an autonomous vehicle can refuel in midflight, would it be possible to do the reverse, have an autonomous aircraft dock with designated vehicle and resupply it.  (At this time I can't find any materials that contradict this general premise so I'm gonna go with it)

Imagine a large electric plane that was designed from the ground up with the understanding that it was only required to carry enough energy for traveling 100-250+ miles while powered, this would provide a reasonable starting point for designers and engineers to work from.  For longer journeys to be appealing to consumers it would be necessary to recharge the plane in mid-flight, one way would be to have small scall aircraft designed to meet planes along their flight path dock and top off onboard energy stores.  These smaller aircraft would need to be able to be quickly charged and discharged so that they could rapidly cycle from their base of operations to charging a cruising plane to returning to their base to recharge and meet the next plane on their list.

There are several major challenges with respect to using support aircraft to keep bigger electric plane up in the air.  The first is challenge is that of the efficiency of the recharging aircraft, if the drone supplying power cannot provide enough power quickly enough to appreciably extend the range of the electric plane the project would be a non-starter.  Ex.  If my parent electric plane has a range of 100 miles and a cruising speed of 300 mph and recharging provides enough power to extend my range by 10 miles and it takes more than 2 minutes to rechage the parent aircraft, the drone isn't helping that much*.  Right after the concern of providing enough power quickly enough, the next big concern for our electric plane system is how much drag the recharging system is adding to the design of the plane.  If the recharge system impedes flight range significantly the design will not be commercially viable.  Infrastructure is another concern, each of the recharge drones will need a base of operations to get its power and be maintained.  Realistically it would make the most sense to have the recharge drone stations near regions with existing grid infrastructure (or at least a low maintenance sustainable energy source) these requirements make water based platforms unlikely in any obvious narrative for a technology approach like this, as a result our electric aircraft would be limited to operating in regions with relatively short water crossings.  Most importantly (and like super outside of the scope of an afternoon's writing and research) is the overall ecological impact of making the infrastructure necessary to make our rechargeable electric airplane viable, if the life cycle emissions of the plane, rechargeable drones, drone base stations, and increased grid supply exceeds that of carbon neutral fuels** then it is unlikely to be a good decision from just a green house gas emissions perspective.


(A possible vision of the future)
The year is 2045 and the eEU (expanded European Union) and the European parliment is celebrating beating their zero emissions goals by 5 years.  Many attribute their success to the Airbus Electric Aircraft Network.  Citizens and visitors are able to travel across the economic zone with mobility once thought impossible.  Electric Heavy Lifters follow set routes connecting the continent's capital cities.  Travelers wishing to quickly go from Budapest to Berlin simply request transit to the nearest Airbus Sky terminal, here they match with a Passenger Certified Recharge Drone, that will dock them with the Electric Heavy Lifter going towards their destination.  Once they dock with their Electric Heavy Lifter they will have space to sit relax, or meet in a cafe for coffee.  Ten minutes before they are set arrive at their target destination they are reminded by the EHL's systems that a smaller plane will be docking to take them to on of Berlin's many Sky Terminals.  As new battery chemistries enter the market there are questions as to whether Airbus will continue to build out the Sky Terminal platform.  Investors across the African Union and Brazil have answered with their wallets investing millions into bringing Sky Terminals into their countries, noting the advantage of standardized components and decade of safe operations.

I hope you enjoyed this post if you have any questions, feedback, would like more details please feel free to comment. 







*to avoid making this more visually messy than it already is I'm moving the math down here, basically the electric plane is moving at 5 miles per minute so if the drone can only provide enough power to add 10 miles of cruising range it needs to dock, top off the batteries and get out of the way before the electric plane has exceeded that range boost, so it would need to be under 2 minutes (pretty darn fast)  (please feel free to ask for clarification)

** so far I'm honestly pretty skeptical of claims of developments in "carbon neutral fuels" and how sustainable they would actually be.  That being said if someone produces a peer reviewed article in nature (that I skim the synopsis of on slashdot) saying that they have developed a carbon neutral fuel that is legitimately sustainable I will be supportive of using that technology in airplanes while we develop better battery technology



random text I didn't use, but I might use if I do a different version of this post


Without a more indepth analysis it would be premature to provide exact specifications on things like flight behavior, size of vehicle


  Your average passenger doesn't care about how their plane gets from point A to point B, so long as they can travel safely and affordibly, if this means that their airplane is recharged midflight. 



There are several ways that an electric airplane can extend its range, wireless charging in flight, recharging in flight, and ejecting useless mass through out fligh.  Ejecting useless mass through out flight is technically feasible, you design a plane with battery packs that can easily be released as their voltage falls below a certain value.  Conceptually straight forward, but not too many people under a flight path would appreciate having massive battery backs rain down from the sky.  The fact that these batteries are expensive would be another mark against tossing discharged batteries overboard through out flight.  Wireless charging has more potential, as outlined in the web comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, you could build a network of towers (or airships) with lasers on them, as airplanes fly past the laser would aim at the airplane's recharge surface and top off the battery. 
As of today there are no obvious innovations in battery technologies that seem likely to give an aircraft the necessary range at take off to take passenger distances in excess of 1000 miles.

Preliminary Investigation on Greenhouse gas sequestration via Liquid Air Energy Storage

Global innovations in renewable energy give hope that humans will be able to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and slowly mitigate the impact of human caused climate change.  While innovations in renewable energy are significant the majority of innovations do nothing to offset warming that results from surplus greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere.  So called "negative emissions" technologies may serve as a way to reduce the volume of greenhouse gases dispersed in the atmosphere.  There are 6 major technologies that can be used to help remove surplus carbon dioxide they are reforrestation, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, soil carbon, biochar, enhanced weathering, and direct air capture.  Each of these technologies should be considered as part of a long term solution to mitigating climate change, this paper will focus on means of enhancing Direct Air Capture technologies. 

Direct Air Capture is a very clean description of the technology, broadly speaking researchers are developing various means of blowing air across a capture medium, as the air flows past the capture medium grabs carbon-dioxide molecules.  Once the capture medium becomes saturated a second process will be used to extract that carbon dioxide where it can be used to help plants grow in a greenhouse, or to carbonate a beverage, or with an altruistic enough buyer that carbon dioxide can be buried underground.  As of the writing of this article estimates for Direct Air Capture put the cost of removing a metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at somewhere between $250-$800 not a small cost.  To put this in perspective the United States produces something like 6.5 billion metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent green house gases*, this means that to capture American greenhouse emissions you would need to spend between 1.625 and 5.2  trillion** dollars per year, to remove those emissions (for perspective the American economy in 2017 was about $19.5 trillion).  Part of the reason it costs so much to capture the carbon dioxide is a tremendous amount of energy is being used to do one thing, capture the carbon dioxide, of the publicly available information on direct air capture technologies, no firm indicates that they are doing anything but capture carbon from ambient air.  What these technologies need is a way to concentrate the air that they are extracting carbon dioxide from.

Liquid Air Energy Storage(LAES) is a relatively new entrant to the world of grid energy storage.  Using advanced refrigeration, companies like Highview Power are developing tools to use surplus grid energy to turn air into a liquid.  When electricity prices are low a refrigeration cycle is run on the air around the power storage facility.  This refrigeration process turns the air into a liquid that can be stored in massive cryo-tanks.  As the electric grid goes from a surplus to needing more power, that liquid air is cycled to expand back into its gaseous state, this expansion is used to run a turbine that provides electricity for the grid  (a more in depth explanation can be found here).  What is exciting about liquid air energy storage is that you are already moving the air for useful work, providing an opportunity to create symbiosis between the liquid air and direct air capture.  

There are at least two potential ways where Liquid Air Energy Storage can be used to augment Direct Air Capture.

1.  Add carbon scrubbers at either the beginning or end of the energy cycle.  During either the capture or release phase of the LAES lifecycle the air is run past a carbon capture materials.  This approach allows you to augment an already existing LAES system.  The tradeoff is that the capture medium is going to directly impact your intake/release systems ability to work efficiently.  On intake your intake fans will need to work that much harder to bring in the source air.  On the other end of the cycle where the "exhaust" of regasified air is being released the filter mediums will also be able to take advantage of exiting outflow, but the outflow will be slowed down by the obstruction (this is the same reason why you should clean filters on your computer and AC system)

2.  Capture the carbon dioxide during the refrigeration process.  The nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide in our atmosphere all of their own temperature for when they turn into a liquid (or solid in the case of carbon dioxide at 1 atmosphere of pressure).  This range of temperatures gives us an opportunity to integrate a way to scrub out the carbon dioxide by capturing it as it changes state from a gas to a solid.  Nitrogen becomes a liquid at −195.79 °C, oxygen liquifies at −182.96 °C, and carbon dioxide sublimates at −78.5 °C.  The relatively high temperature of carbon dioxide's freezing appears to give an opportunity to add a stage to the LAES lifecycle where solid carbon dioxide is scrubbed from the liquid air energy storage before being returned to the atmosphere.  The potential risks of this approach, would include, increased complexity of the refrigeration cycle, as the chamber/stage where the carbon dioxide is removed might not work with standard approaches to making cryo-liquids, and maintenance cost increases.  

At this time there is no way to cleanly model*** how Liquid Air Energy Storage would impact the cost of Direct Air Capture, that being said we can at least estimate how much energy the US would need to store to impact carbon dioxide levels.

So it turns out liquid air systems already filter out the carbon dioxide, this is just an inherrent part of the design, so basically I like this technology.

REGARDLESS we can still look into how much power you would need to store to filter out CO2

According to the wikipedia entry on liquid nitrogen engines, a kilogram of nitrogen stores about 100 watt hours of power.  To make life easier we are going to assume that all liquid air has about the same energy density.

From the table above we see that for every 1625 kilograms of air you liquify, about 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide would be extracted from the atmosphere

that indicates that for every kilogram of carbon dioxide you remove from the atmosphere you would be able to supply the grid with about

1625 kilograms of air - 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide =1624 kilograms of air for power

1624 kilograms *100 Wh/kg= 162,400 watt hours or 162.4 kWhrs

to extract a metric ton of carbon dioxide you would store enough energy to produce 162.4 megawatt hours of power

to extract all American produced carbon dioxide through LAES how many kilowatt hours of power would we need to store?

the US produces 6.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent green house gases of those 6.5 billion metric tons 82% are actuall carbon dioxide  (to make life easier the author is assuming that it isn't possible to capture the remaining 18% of green house gases through air liquification)

This means that the US currently produces 5.33 billion metric tons of CO2

the total energy storage requirement would therefore be

[162,400 kilowatt hours/metric ton of CO2 ]*5.33 billion metric tons of CO2

which works out to 865.6 trillion kilowatt hours of energy stored.  To put things in perspective the US currently consumes 3.7 trillion kilowatt hours of energy.  What is even crazier, the 865.6 trillion kilowatt hours is how much power is being stored, LAES is about 60-75% efficient which would mean the grid would need to produce closer to 1200 trillion kilowatt hours of electric power.

Obviously the United States can't afford to capture its carbon emissions in the way described above, but what if the country decided that we were going to go to 100% renewable energy and we, for some bizarre reason, decided that all power would be first used for carbon capture via liquid air before the energy went to the grid.  How much carbon dioxide could we capture?

3.7 trillion kilowatt hours of energy*(1 metric ton CO2/162400 kilowatt hours)= 22.783 million metric tons of Carbon dioxide

Thoughts and feelings

Honestly when I started this post I was hopeful that the math would indicate that there was a relatively
 affordable technology that was waiting in the wings to make our world more efficient.  The above
calculations are a great way to highlight how complicated the climate change challenge really is.
I still feel that liquid air energy storage should be considered, even if it doesn't filter the atmosphere 
as aggressively as I had hoped.  As of 2017 something like 28% of American green house gas emissions
are from electricity production, smart grid technologies can offset a tremendous amount of emissions.
Large scale grid storage also makes it that much easier for electric cars to be run in a cost effective 
fashion.  As a society we should challenge ourselves to look for solutiosn to the major problems facing 
us.  Fingers crossed that technologies like direct air capture and liquid air energy storage help to make 
our future more sustainable

*an equivalent ton of carbon dioxide is a way for scientists to communicate that while not all greenhouse gases have the same greenhouse effect, they can use this equivalency to communicate what the warming impact is.

** 250 dollars/metric ton *6.5 billion metric tons = $1.625 trillion

     800 dollars/metric ton *6.5 billion metric tons = $5.2 trillion 

(this math assumes all greenhouse gas emissions are carbon dioxide as I am lazy and it gets me within 25% of the actual answer and I wanted this to look clean)
*** for me, I mean I don't doubt if I could get some Direct Air Capture and Liquid Air experts in a room we could figur it out, but that's just not in the cards right now, sorry 'bout that

Called it Nov 6 2017 (on semi-transparent solar panels on greenhouses)

Really cool news in the world of developing sustainable technologies.  The concept outlined in the blog post "Making Green Houses Pull Double Duty" has turned out to be an actual avenue of research.  Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have indicated that not only can greenhouses have a semitransparent solar panel on their exterior to produce electricity, the plants growing inside consume less water than their counter parts (not something suggested in the original post, just very exciting)  To learn more please go to this article on New Atlas or the UC Santa Cruz page.

also really grateful to know that the color for this paneling would be magenta, nice to know.  

It would be fun to imagine a future where smart glass panels allow for the growth of plants, control climate, produce power, and help to regulate the local temperature.  One question I have is can we make a smart glass that normally promotes plant growth, read magenta, but when needed turns optically transparent so to be more comfortable for people to hangout.

Sustainable Water Towers

Water Towers are an impressive feet of engineering, allowing municipalities and buildings to maintain relatively constant water pressure throughout the day.  Awesome concept, what I wonder is why aren't these water towers doing more, there is plenty of available surface area that the water tower provides for green energy production.  Additionally the tower's height already provides much of the altitude gain that a wind turbine would need to ensure maximum energy production.  For municipal applications I could see concerns about liability or aesthetics, but for smaller use cases a water tower working in tandem with renewable energy sources would make a huge difference.

Imagine a traditional water tower 30-45 feet tall, providing water pressure for an off-grid house.  Rain water is collected in lower tanks, and when the home's energy production exceeds use, water is pumped up to be stored for later use. 

A more complicated use solution would integrate a range of technologies, solar panels, wind-turbines, and that really cool transparent blackbody material.  The solar panels would be on the side of the tower, the rational for the solar panels being on the side of the tower are two fold, the added height reduces the potential for the panels falling into shadows, and the mass of water behind the solar panels would minimize overall thermal fluctuation.  On the backside of the tower would be a passive radiator solution, intended to avoid direct exposure to sunlight, hopefully maximizing the passive cooling ability.  On top of the tower would be the wind turbine(s), while this does add another element that requires maintenance, the increased reliability of power production for an offgrid solution should make it appealing.

10/11/2015 (I'm taking a break from finishing this article as it is 1 AM and I should try getting some sleep

Window Heating Units

As an Alaskan transplanted to the New England area, my battle with the summer heat has been a constant uphill struggle to find some kind of happy medium to keep my core temperature from becoming entirely unpleasant.  My current solution has been to have a window AC unit at home set to as close to glacial as physically possible.  Come winter I have a different problem of not wanting to spend excessive money on keeping my apartment warm.  In an ideal world my residence would have thermostats in each individual room so that my bedroom was toasty, the living room pleasant, and if I magically had any other rooms in the space they wouldn't be huge energy draws.  In a more realistic version of reality getting a rented apartment to have a highly granular zoned temperature control is unlikely, so how is a renter to reduce their apartment's heating costs.  REVERSE AIR-CONDITIONING otherwise known as "Air Source Heat Pumps" can be used to capture the thermal energy of the outdoors (yes, if it is above zero degrees Fahrenheit, possibly colder, you can harvest thermal energy from the ambient air).

Currently there are a range of these heating systems available for general consumption, but none of them, according to my ten minute web search, are designed to be seasonally added to a window sill.  The benefit of this could be huge, instead of home owners buying incredibly inefficient heating element style home heating systems, consumers could buy a smart window unit that would capture ambient outdoor energy.

 Design challenges would be great, but not insurmountable. The total cost of the unit would need to achieve a reasonably short ROI, preferably less than three years, ideally less than one.   Cost consideration is where a clever business plan is most important.  Depending on the actual material cost of this system home-owners might balk at the up-front cost and not buy in, regardless of long term saving potential, so how do you get people to invest in a long term money saver, options include but are not limited to a model similar to roof top solar companies that rent your roof space and sell you the power.  The window heat pumps would not be owned by the home owner, but by a leasing organization, where the home-owner/renter simply buys the hot air from the company (some political joke here).  Power producers that identify customers who use electrical heating in their space could provide financial incentives to offset the cost to the consumer.  The window system would need to weigh no more than that of a currently available window AC unit that consumers would use in the summer.  After cost and weight are accounted for in the design, ease of use and ideally overall attractiveness of the design should then be accounted for.

Down the line dream features, the system can change which side it is pumping heat to and from, cooling in the summer, warming in the winter.  Connectivity to smart home systems, allowing the unit to know when to crank up the heat, ideally it could work with other systems in the home in concert, allowing for finer control of home energy use.

An alternative technology that I am unsure if it deserves its own post, so I will write it down here for the moment.

Smart blinds and curtains.  Windows can allow for a large amount of thermal energy to enter or escape the home, even well insulated windows can allow the energy of visible spectrum light to come and go as it pleases.  Well designed window coverings could offset some of a home's energy use (I'm going to need to look into that particular number 7/27).  On hot days in the summer, when no one is home, the smart blinds would lower a white and or silver curtain intended to reflect away excess sunlight.  In the winter the blinds would lower a darker covering designed to convert the visible energy of the light into thermal energy that would go into the house.  A very simple version of this system would use a small solar panel to power itself (or plug if need be) and use two types of curtains, one black one reflective to cool the house.  More sophisticated versions would use either smart materials or several layers of curtain material to give finer control of the amount of light allowed in and energy converted.

links for me to embed later http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/air-source-heat-pumps
http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/heat-pump-systems

Re-using Waste in Forward Operating Bases

One of the many unsexy challenges facing servicemen and women deployed in nations like Afghanistan is the disposal of the incredible amount of material waste that deployments produce.   Many smaller Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) are relegated to simply burning their waste, ranging from packaging material from care packages, to unneeded paper products, and, some of the least pleasant, human waste.   What I would like to propose is a technology that might aid in reducing the problems associated with waste disposal on a FOB.
Rocket Stoves are considered one of the most efficient means of utilizing traditional fuel sources, including, wood, grass, and dung.  The objective is to develop a product design envelope for a rocket stove that works in multiple ways to help manage waste production in remote areas.  In Figure 1 is an simple example of a rocket stove.  Fuel burns in the combustion chamber with the smoke from the fire being pulled into the larger volume chimney, the placement of the chimney promotes strong air flow aiding in the burn process, the lay out also allows for greater use of the energy produced by the burn.  (the red lines show the path of air through the system)

Figure 1:  Basic Rocket Stove

The high temperature burn produced in the combustion chamber of a standard rocket stove is most likely enough to promote a cleaner burn process than an open pit burn more can be done.  According to a 2010 US Army Corps of Engineers report the average warfighter will produce roughly one third of a pound of waste per day.  Often human waste is what is being disposed of in open pit burns.  The platform shown in Figure 2 is a preliminary concept for handling human waste.

Fig 2:  the modified rocket stove design

The first major change you should notice between Fig 1 and Fig 2 are the red radiator pips now surrounding the chimney segment of rocket-stove, the purpose of the radiator pipes is to allow personnel to take greater advantage of the thermal energy produced by the stove.  In this particular approach I assumed that the quality* of the heat produced by the rocket stove is not great enough to warrant a fully fledged steam generator .  Based on my assumption about heat quality I suggest that between the radiator pipes and the chimney section would be a network of thermo-electric generators (TEG), making the platform a true co-gen system.  The heat that is carried away from the chimney system allows for a maximum delta T, improving the performance of the TEG, this waste heat, while of a lower quality still has a great amount of value, I will emphasize the nastier sounding narrative that I believe has the greatest use.  After absorbing sufficient thermal energy from the rocket stove the working fluid will need to transfer its heat somewhere, that somewhere could be the dehydration of poop (sorry I wanted to say that for ever and this isn't a fully professional document so work with me).  Boiling water, as many home chocoletiers know, is one of the most effective ways to keep a temperature constant, human waste contains an incredible amount of water.  As the intent of this design is to reduce smell it would be silly to try dehydrating the liquid waste in an open environment consequently the dehydration chamber's off gas would be pulled into the air intake of the combustion chamber, causing the materials to be combusted into less noxious component materials. (I hope)  After the waste has been dehydrated enough it can now be more thoroughly disposed of by being utilized as a fuel source.
(I need to insert a thermal diagram of the cooling deal)


*Energy Quality relates to how easily you can get energy to change from form A to form B.  In the case of boiling water you've already changed the form once and to said steam into electricity means you are going from B to C, doing this by means of a turbine generator, is most likely not possible.

** I totally forgot to note the suggestion of having TEGs and a heat exchanger in the exhaust/intake section of the design.  Darn.  At least one other Alaskan likes the idea of a TEG in a stove exhaust.

This post was originally intended to be a section on suggesting my own take for developing a rocket stove for rural communities that would serve as a hot water heater and electrical generator for homes.  For whatever reason the narrative of a co-gen platform at an FOB felt easier to write, but both applications are viable, the only difference would be the statistics and sources I referenced.

Wave Energy Concentration Via Metamaterials

One of the most interesting (for engineering and physics nerds) technologies to come out of the 1990's, while they were first theorized in 1968 it took over 30 years before researchers could develop the first application of a metamaterial, altering the magnetic properties of a material.  As our understanding of metamaterials grows the number of potential uses have skyrocketed.  Articles dealing with creating "The Cloak of Invisibility" have received some of the greatest attention, but some of the other uses should not be ignored.  Researchers have created so called superlenses, earning the name as a result of their ability to see at resolutions once considered impossible  ex. viewing a protein under an optical microscope.  While metamaterials that work within the electromagnetic spectrum receive more press coverage, researchers are also utilizing the underlying physics of the technology to guide the energy of physical waves, including seismic, acoustic, and hydraulic wave-forms.

The ability to guide the energies of ocean waves has tremendous implications, from the DoD's efforts to eliminate energy lost to wave action on Naval vessels to cloaking ocean structures from tsunamis.  What I would like to suggest is utilizing these wave guide technologies into ocean energy production.

The available wave energy from the world's oceans has been estimated to be roughly 2 trillion watts, or enough power to help 8 Del'Oreans to travel back to 1955 (in non-science fiction terms this would be the equivalent of powering 800 Million American households)  While the available ocean energy is tremendous, the sea is also one of the harshest environments for energy production, the technologies needed to provide an affordable generating platform are still being developed.

What I would suggest is using a network of structures intended to focus the energy of waveforms that occur most frequently in a given area.  By concentrating the energy of the waves onto a single point engineers would minimize the number of moving parts and consequently critical failure points.  (see figure 1 below) The site of the concentrated wave action could utilize any number of suggested wave capture technologies.  The concentrated energy of the wave system would also allow for additional safety features on the generating element, further increasing the systems life expectancy.  The likely ecological benefits of using a complex structure as opposed to the guide wall approach used by the Wave Dragon would stem from allowing organisms to flow more naturally around the structure as needed.

Fig 1:  Potential appearance of a the wave generator, (lacking a deep understanding of geometric requirements of a meta material lens the configuration above is arbitrary (my bad))

 The primary rational for having the metamaterial configuration for energy concentration versus the solid wall approach being implemented by the Wave Dragon platform (besides the fact that it would be awesome), is based off a personal theory as to the robustness of a walled approach for a floating platform, it is my belief that a metamaterial structure would allow for more redundancy in the structure, increasing survivability.  Additionally conversations at an MREC conference in 2012 highlighted that the more variable the wave forms a given generator would have to accommodate, the greater the potential cost of the system through outs a given life expectancy.  A metamaterial wave guide would concentrate the force of some of the most common wave frequencies while (hopefully) more chaotic elements would only minimally interact with the platform.  In Figure 2 you can see how the amplitude of the wave grows as it comes closer to the focal point of energy production.

Fig 2 Cutaway view of the metamaterial wave power plant.

The largest concern for this wave generator proposal is that of cost efficacy, while the design is intended to reduce the quantity of moving parts for a given production capacity, the installation of the wave guides is far from a non-trivial component of the overall cost.  That being said with the huge reliability and availability of wave power for coastal communities, it is my opinion that at least some degree of research would be worth the investment.  Accounting for the maintenance of the guide pylons is another consideration as bio-fouling has the ability to drastically alter the geometry of a given wave guide.

The wave generator system should be thought of as a renewable energy deployment platform, not just a hydro-kinetic generator.  The tops of the wave guide pylons could have wind turbines or solar panels mounted on them, transforming them from simple inert structures to more surface area for offshore energy production.  The interior volume of the pylons might also be considered for pumped air energy storage, (an slightly different version of the idea, and one more) as proposed by the MIT Energy Initiative or pumped hydro-electric.  The two storage mechanisms could work in tandem with the pumped hydro being utilized during low tide and the pumped air energy storage being utilized during high tide.  The interior volume of the pylons might also be considered for a micro-server farm, being in  a location with relatively constant sea temperatures (or at minimum cold enough to benefit processor cooling), while not necessarily optimal for all applications, it could serve as a very remote back up location for important data.

TL:DR (what I was trying to say was) energy developers could use crazy geometries to build a structure intended to concentrate the energy of ocean waves onto a small point, theoretically lowering the cost of producing energy from ocean waves

During my research I cam across a selection of articles I didn't necessarily fit into this narrative but they either informed comments to one degree or another or might be useful for further reading
people actually researching into the idea.
This groupd of post docs based in France is doing some work associated with water based metamaterials, but not for wave form concentration (as I can barely understand from their abstracts)


List of other Wave generating technologies

http://mhk.pnnl.gov/wiki/images/5/58/Wave_Energy_Utilization.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

http://www.icrepq.com/icrepq-08/380-leao.pdf

http://www.oceanrenewable.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/futuremarineenergy.pdf

Using Metamaterials for Hiding sea craft from ocean waves
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/a-submarine-that-doesnt-make-wav.html

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Invisibility-Cloaks-Could-Hide-Ships-from-Waves-256723.shtml


Alternative wave generator
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141118712000648
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycloidal_Wave_Energy_Converter

The Metamaterial that I used as a reference (now I realize as it was a cloak design it was probably a poor choice, but you know... I was making it up)
http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com/2011/01/newly-developed-cloak-hides-underwater.html

Background research on wave energy
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Wave%20Energy/thorpe%20review%20.pdf

Reflected Light Nano Materials and Better Solar Panels

Fig 1:  Albedo Values of materials
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_roof

                    Human built environments have a nasty habit of becoming too hot in the summer time.  A combination of materials that love to convert visible light into heat, large blocks of materials like concrete retaining said heat, and air conditioners dumping their heat into the air around residents.  One solution for mitigating the thermal gain of urban environments is to increase the albedo, or the ability to reflect sunlight (this should not be confused with libido).  Increasing the albedo of an area can be done in a myriad of ways the most popular being painting rooftops a reflective color such as white.  An extremely cool (no pun here) version of the white roof has been developed by graduate students and faculty at Stanford University, they have created a material made out of intricate nano-structures that pull double duty for cooling.  First the material works as an extremely reflective material increasing the albedo of the region that it is placed.  The second and by far more sci-fi sounding feature of this composite is that it is designed to emit thermal radiation in a frequency that our atmosphere is generally transparent to (for people who like thermal dynamics this is really impressive.)

                Other members of Stanford's faculty believe that it is more worthwhile to install solar panels, as the solar cells are generally more reflective than traditional black tar rooftops found on many large buildings and allow for electricity production.  To them I ask ----------------------->

             Recent research has indicated that the snows of winter can actually improve the performance of a solar panel, so long as it isn't covered in snow.  The snow acts as a reflector concentrating more sunlight onto a solar panel, while the cold temperatures of winter can increase the overall efficiency of the system.  Merging this thought with the properties of the Stanford nano-material, which I will call Silver-Surfer for the remainder of this post, one potential design solution came to mind.  Place a solar panel on an easily mounted structure that has Silver-Surfer placed in such a way to suck heat away from the solar cell and reflect a certain amount of incident radiation back towards the solar cell.

Fig 2:  Straight on view of Collector Reflector

The initial configuration would operate as an angled trough with the solar cell at the bottom and Silver-Surfer angling out in such a way that the reflective/emissive surface is maximized without interfering with the ability of the panel to gain sunlight.

Figure 3: Θ and the panel

One critical consideration, if this approach is considered a rational choice, would be determining the angle at which the solar cell and the Silver-Surfer are mounted relative to each other (assuming a non-tracking array). Figure 3 Highlights the angle of interaction, in the case of the quick model Θ (theta) was set at 30 degrees arbitrarily.  The actual angle would be a balancing act of potential shadows cast during day time operations (particularly early morning and evening), increased solar reflection onto a given area of solar panel, and cooling benefits as a result of the area of the Silver-Surfer sub assembly. The trump considerations, deserving their own sentence, would be the impact of cost of materials, installation, and maintenance.  A lower theta value would most likely indicate a lower life time cost of operation relative to net energy production/savings.

Fig 4: Panels on roof top

As an installed platform the array could look something like figure 4, where the collectors create a direct route for precipitation to slough off.  Placing the panels horizontally is possible and may make sense in regions with accommodating climates, it would also allow for the panels to have much larger theta value, increasing the cooling surface.  Other panel orientations should not be ruled out as they could find a sweet spot between dealing with local weather and maximizing the cooling energy generating/saving potential of the system.

One final note, it should not be ignored that in addition to working as a passive generating platform there is the potential for adding piping or ducts into the system.  During the day the system would most likely operate in a similar fashion to the more passive design suggested above, but at night the Silver-Surfer elements could be used to help chillers to produce ice to further offset day time HVAC needs.  This kind of approach would be targeted at facilities like server farms that tend to produce tremendous amounts of heat, even before thermal gain is considered.  Domestic installations would be unlikely to benefit from a more active system as the Gizmag article on Silver-Surfer stated that an average 1 family 1 floor home could achieve a 35% reduction of air conditioning needs by installing Silver Surfer on 10% of the area of a house's roof top.

An Overly Grandiose Scheme for Climate Change

Of the wide array of ambitious geoengineering projects intended to fight global climate change, one of my favorites suggests using robotic ocean going vessels to produce seed clouds intended to increase precipitation and general cloud cover.  The underlying logic behind this proposed idea is to increase the Earth's overall albedo and as a result mitigate some of the effects of the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.  While theoretically a decent idea, there currently is no financial incentive to develop these vessels, which are estimated to cost between one point five and three million dollars (I'm converting from British pounds from the source article).  Government bodies may eventually decide that geoengineering programs will be part of their climate change portfolio, but as it stands now only anti-desertification programs  are being applied on a large scale (as far as I know, there may be other geo-engineering projects actively  being done, I just don't know them.  Please note I am ignoring the weather modification program of the Chinese government and other groups.)  Without international support how might we develop these seed ship technologies to promote the preservation of polar ice caps and mitigate changes in sea level rise?

One, long shot, solution for promoting ice production in polar regions would be to take advantage of the frequently mocked notion of shipping icebergs to the world's deserts as a source of fresh water.  The direct economics are questionable (but this is for fun so who really cares), according to one article the price of desalinated water is roughly $1/cubic meter, providing an excellent reference for what the cost structure should look like.  Most publicly available information appears to strongly suggest that shipping icebergs is not cost effective, at least when considered as a single product.  What I would like to suggest is a more complete package where a business(es) would develop a series of technologies intended to produce large quantities of  both water ice and liquid atmosphere as products intended for sale.
Imagine large artificial islands, possibly made from pykrete, in the Indian Ocean covered in wind turbines, solar panels, and possibly wave generators, growing every winter to massive proportions and slowly shrinking as the extra ice is shipped to water poor regions.  In addition to the water ice production the islands turn any surplus electricity into refrigerating gases like oxygen and nitrogen into their liquid states, storing energy for a later day.  The liquid gases and ice could be used in concert with intelligently designed regional distribution centers intended for both water and power production.  The liquid gases could also be moved via pipeline to nearby factories where waste heat could be more effectively used for localized co-generation plants. To help ensure cost efficacy (maybe) and improve long term sustainability (probably) the liquid gases and ice would be moved by some kind of smart sailing technology.
The selection of the Indian Ocean is not arbitrary, the region is currently at risk for both energy and water consumption matching ever increasing demands, in tandem with relatively few sea routes occurring below the 60th southern parallel.  Providing a reasonably underused volume of water that is relatively near its target markets.  I have no misconceptions that if my proposed addition to the ocean seeding concept would immediately or fully alleviate the challenges facing our planet, I do believe that by finding an economic benefit that a business could take advantage of trying to increase the Earth's albedo, without government incentives is paramount to long term sustainability.

Turning Neighborhoods into Micro-Grids

A major challenge for adopting larger scale renewable energy production the United States is our aging infrastructure's difficulty in accommodating the variable nature of demand and supply.  Utility operators, energy management firms like EnerNOC, and individual consumers are working to help reduce consumption to help their bottom line, there seems to be less effort into more directly lowering the dollar cost of energy for domestic energy consumers.  As a consequence of the extremely variable nature of domestic energy demand the average household will spend 11.62 cents/kWhr while commercial consumer's spend 9.82 cents/kWhr and industrial users spend an average of 6.54 cents/kWhr.  While net-metering approaches have started to help home owners in some states reduce their monthly power bill there are major limiting factors in adoption rates, until very recently residents in Hawaii and California were limited in how much generating capacity could be installed in a given neighborhood.  Improvements in policy will help increase the utilization of distributed energy, new technology will play a major roll.  Micro-grids have gained a greater degree of prominence as the various underlying technologies have shown how much more efficient power production and consumption can be made by more closely matching supply with demand.  The Department of Defense has already started to develop a strong push for implementing micro-grids as a means of improving the safety of the warfighter as well as offset the operational costs of larger facilities.

What I would like to propose is a plug and play micro-grid platform intended to work within the energy demands of traditional American neighborhoods.  This system would be designed to be plugged into the primary distribution line for a given service area and through use of batteries and control systems, surplus power from the local and larger grids would be stored for later use.  By creating a packaged system meant for entire neighborhoods the number of man hours required to make regions energy smart should be drastically reduced.  This local energy storage capacity would allow for a much smoother power demand curve, aiding in utilities operating generating facilities at optimal efficiency.
               Neighborhoods that install this technology could begin to negotiate for prices closer to those of commercial consumers (This may not be guaranteed to be correct, this is more theoretical than anything else) .   Alternatively utility operators may work with neighborhoods to implement localized micro-grids to improve overall power availability without adding new power lines or plants.  Another potential draw for packaged micro-grids, even if consumer energy prices are unaffected, could be disaster preparedness.  After Super Storm Sandy, large swaths of the East Coast lost power as a result of downed power lines. Having micro-grids attached to neighborhoods with small scale generating capacity would mean that freezers could keep operational and maybe at least one or more houses in a neighborhood would have enough power for all of the modern conveniences.

 For this platform to succeed from a design standpoint it must achieve some rather critical properties (I'm going to be vague here because I know far too little of the minutia to give hard and fast numbers).  The system must have minimal maintenance costs and ideally be as forgettable as possible for those using the technology, this means the installations must be effectively invisible to consumers.  Where-ever the system is installed consumers cannot see their energy costs go up as a direct result (there are a range of external variables and indirect costs that might eventually cause a rate hike, so only direct costs can honestly be factored in)  Have an ROI that is less than 10 years, depending on how a technology like this is marketed that timeline may need to be shorter, longer might be feasible for really solid market matches (this is doubtful to make financial sense for the company making the micro grid box.)  Personal experience in talking to small energy producers indicates that if the utility is paying for a technology an  ROI less than 4 or 5 years is generally necessary.

Some features that could be considered for the micro-grid plug and play box.  Warm water production, as there will invariably be at least some degree of waste heat produced, why not heat up water and pipe that to nearby buildings, while this would require a more complex installation it might make sense for getting people on board.

Fuel cell integration, either natural gas or Hydrogen, as the platform has the potential to be treated as a back up generator for an area adding this capability could make sense, the hydrogen fuel cell suggestion would likely make sense as a 3rd tier energy storage mechanismm after the system's flywheel and/or capacitors and secondary power storage mechanisms have reached maximum stored energy but there is still extra electricity coming from a local renewable source.  I should back track on the fuel cell comment for a moment and quickly explain the 3rd tier comment.  As I understand the technologies involved in energy storage batteries are rarely a good idea for extremely variable energy loads, where they must rapidly switch from storing to supplying power and vice-versa.  Fly-wheels and ultra-capacitors are solutions with properties that make them an excellent option for rapidly charging and dis-charging, the trade off for this ability is the reduced energy storage capacity, relative to both mass and overall cost.  For periods of less variability batteries will serve extremely well.  The reason fuel cells are put in the 3rd tier category (at this time) is the fact that they have some kind of additional fuel cost and a high upfront cost for a unit of generating capacity.  In the case of market available fuel cells there is the initial hardware investment and cost of fuel during operation (natural gas is most cases), making it an acceptable solution for emergency needs or extreme peaks in grid demand.  Hydrogen fuel-cells have the challenge of costing more per-watt of listed generating capacity and there is still the energy required to produce 1kg of Hydrogen from water, which is currently about 48kWhrs (while the system is technically using surplus power it is still worth considering) of that 48 kWhrs/kg of fuel, only 25% of that energy would be returned to energy users (sorry for using wikipedia on that, the primary source is being updated)  It should be noted that the 25% figure only accounts for electrical output with respect to electrical input (for every watt of power you're getting out of the generator you would need to spend 4 watts breaking the water).  If the fuel-cell is also being used with a waste heat generator the efficiency grows to closer to 85%.

Let's Make Greenhouses Pull Double Duty

The initial seed of this idea stems from an article I read 18 months ago highlighting how artificial plant growth can benefit from using light sources that only use the colors that plants actually absorb as opposed to full spectrum lighting, which would invariably waste energy.  Anyways, my ADD being what it is I forget why I was thinking that there should be solar panels associated with green houses, the general concept was to have a semi-transparent solar panel, that is designed to absorb the colors of light that plants normally don't metabolize (I think I remember what started the idea going, I saw an article on a building in Germany powered by algae and I wondered why solar wasn't being used (turns out the design was meant to be algae only from the get go, I just didn't read it thoroughly the first time)).
By developing a solar panel that is transparent to the frequencies of light that plants metabolize, it would be conceivable that we could turn more farmland into usable energy.  Unfortunately I don't know enough about PV technology to even roughly estimate how much energy we could produce with a technology like this, that being said, I am darn curious (gonna keep it PG here).

March 20:  Countries like Dubai, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia would seem like a robust match for a technology like this.  With intense sunlight, low fresh water availability, and with a desire to become financially diverse from their currently oil dependent economy a semi clear solar panel could be incredibly useful.  Vast stretches of coastal desert could be converted into electrically and biologically productive land.  Most likely the majority of the energy produced by the solar panels would go into pumping salt water the algae growth tanks, with the remainder of the electricity going into processing the algae into bio-fuels and food for various food animals.  Another potential investor in this platform would be the US Department of Defense, as their desire to produce a renewable fuel source that doesn't impact food production.  Only at extremely low price points would this technology be viable for converting the American Mid-West.  

Water and Power

While chatting wtih my older brother yesterday I was given the challenge of inventing something that would win me a Nobel prize (I'm not sure how much sarcasm was involved as g-chat doesn't really communicate tone that well)  While I was pointing out that it is unlikely that any engineering achievement would warrant any of the 6 prizes , and explaining that the only way I might win such an honor would be if I developed a technology that successfully produced both electricity and water cleanly and efficiently.  Remembering my experiences at the NorthEast Cleantech Open one water producing technology stood out in my mind.  A company called NBD Nano has been developing a technology based on the properties of the Namib Desert Beetle, whose unique evolutionary adaptations allow it to produce water drinking water in one of the driest places on Earth.  Their coating technology is both a hydrophobic and hydrophilic causing water to collect into droplets along the surface of a product.  The additional application that sprang to mind from my conversation and general idea of NBD's technology would be to apply this kind of surface treatment to solar panels.  Allowing the consumer to produce clean electricity and drinking water from a single device.  Depending on  the technical specifications of NBD's coating technology different design solutions would make more sense than others.  Ideally if the material coating is roughly the same transparency as that of normal glass the coating could be applied to the panel in addition to the glass layer, while there would be some loss in generating efficiency users would benefit from a system that should be relatively easy to maintain.

If the surface coating turns out to be too opaque for the solar panel to operate efficiently the coating could be applied to the underside of the panel (as shown below).  By placing the water collecting surface on the back side of the solar panels additional design requirements would need to be considered, first and foremost being that of air flow, without a constant supply of new air there would be no way to continue to produce any quantity of water.  Accommodating access for cleaning might also need to be considered (as I don't know if the technology qualifies as self cleaning).  Whether or not the design could be made to promote passive flow with out over complicating the installation process for users in extremely remote locations would also need to be considered.  (I consider active air flow much easier to implement as it just requires that the offset design have fans at one end or another, but more likely to have a mechanical break causing problems and reduced net electrical output from the panels (ok that might not be the case as the more active cooling could increase the solar panel's overall efficiency in hot climates, I really don't know, something like that needs lab testing))

 Personally I'm very curious if something like this A) was efficient enough to be used by anyone at all B) easy enough to use in the water stressed regions of the planet C) cost effective/environmentally friendly enough to actually improve sustainability.  Hopefully an approach like this, or realistically something way more elegant and effective will happen sooner than later.

Hybrid Energy Production via Compressed Air

Using compressed air as a means of storing surplus grid energy is one of the many proposed means of increasing our energy grid's overall sustainability.  By reducing the variability of energy produced from renewable sources and allowing output to match demand we would be able to offset a good deal of our current coal based energy production.  One of the many challenges of using compressed air as a means of energy storage is reheating the air back to a viable temperature when you want to produce power. What I would propose is the development of a class of power plant that is intended to be reasonably environmentally friendly, but acknowledges that use of additional technologies would provide the necessary short term risk reductions that current utilities embrace.
None of the technology components I will suggest are untested or high in maintenance costs (as I understand things, not saying much but I thought full disclosure and all that)
Solar thermal plants are an established platform for producing cost effective renewable energy to the grid.
Natural gas has been suggested as a means of augmenting solar thermal plants to allow them to operate at night.
Firms like LightSail Energy (actually they may be the only company exclusively doing this tech) have made tremendous strides towards making the compression phase of compressed air energy storage more energy efficient.

By combining these various technologies into a singular facility you could produce an extremely efficient hybrid facility capable of producing grid levels of power 24/7 in tandem with storing surplus energy from the grid until demand arrives.

In the image above you can see how the system configuration might be roughly laid out.  As the grid produces more energy than customers demand through out the day, large compressors would operate to store air in tanks place throughout the facility (as solar thermal plants already have to disrupt their region of operation you might as well take full advantage of that and keep the tanks close to home)  During day time operations the solar thermal power plant would operate almost exactly as traditional solar thermal facilities excluding one key feature, the cooling system, the waste heat of the plant would first be piped through a heat ex-changer connected with the compressed air generator.  Providing a wonderful operational synergy between the two operations, the compressed air gaining the necessary thermal energy to output as much power as possible, while the solar thermal plants operating fluid receives more robust cooling than ambient air temperatures would allow for (also providing an efficiency boost).
Earlier I alluded to the use of natural gas in this configuration which might seem confusing if this system is so "cool" on paper.  This is a feature that hopefully might not be necessary, but being realistic is rarely a terrible idea.  There are proposals on the books (there may also be facilities in operation) to have solar thermal  power plants that have natural gas burners near the heat collectors to allow for night time operations.  This theoretical power plant could most assuredly take advantage of this design characteristic as well to help ensure utilities found the design as useful as possible.
All in all what I'm putting down is a relatively straight forward design suggestion, as it turns out most of the elements were already suggested by others before I wrote this entry (I just didn't find out until I started putting words to webpage)

Power from Waste

Three weeks ago MIT press released an article highlighting developments in the nebulous field of metamaterials, in this particular case, creating a means in which to control the direction of flow of heat, by means of converting the vibrations caused by heat, into a form that can be more readily manipulated.  The article indicates that as understanding of this research becomes deeper it will be possible to develop thermal diodes, making it so heat will only flow one direction.  Depending on a range of variables including cost efficacy, overall rate of heat transfer across the thermal diode, size requirements of the meta-materials etc.. a range of cool options could become available.  If found to be very expensive, thermal diodes/lenses, would allow for remote sensors to operate without requiring costly batteries, this would make sense in situations where other traditional remote energy sources, solar and solar, make little sense.  As cost goes  down, cooler options become available, the obvious option is taking advantage of the waste heat from factories or other industrial facilities, where historically the energy density from the waste heat was too low to be captured.  The technology I would like to see, just because I'm curious, would be to concentrate the heat that radiates off of nuclear waste onto some kind of generator, either thermo-electric generators or boiling some kind of operating fluid.

Now let's get cray cray, assuming thermal diodes are efficient enough and sufficiently low cost you could theoretically create a network of thermal lenses to concentrate the thermal energy found in extremely deep underground mines that are no longer used for resource extraction.  Such concentrated thermal energy would allow for a very different type of geothermal power generators to exist without requiring excessive disruption of the surface environment, beyond low level cooling systems.

An Additional Idea Occurred Recently
This idea is entirely dependent on how the engineering parameters of a thermal diode material, but one field of technologies that could benefit from thermal diodes would be that of solar hot water heaters.  Currently solar hot water heaters need to come in a relatively large single assembly.  By directly applying a thermal diode underneath the black coating on the pipes used to transfer the heat to the working fluid it would be possible to eliminate the need for the extra weight of the systems glass cover.  Designers would have a much greater degree of flexibility when it would come to designing a home solar hot water heater that emphasized aesthetics while still being efficient.  (hey we're saying the thermal diodes are magic right now, when I get specs I can make less outrageous proposals)

DC to AC PV (pretty sure we could get some more acronyms in here)

This is partially inspired by an idea I had a long ways back, integrating capacitors into the fabrication of PV arrrays, and a product I saw recently that is intended to make PV easier in countries that have robust net metering laws.  The platform shown in the link appears to send power directly into the home's powerlines by immediately rectifying whatever output that comes from the individual solar panels, while it works for a rudimentary net metering platform I would be interested to see what would happen if you slightly changed the approach.
By adding in a series of capacitors, or ideally super capacitors into the body of the solar panel, it could be possible to stockpile up to N minutes of peak panel output. Additionally by having a robust array of the capacitors working in tandem with control chips, it would be possible to allow the solar panel to operate more efficiently (in my theoretical dream world).  My reasoning behind this is that the nature of the power output by traditional solar panels is heavily influenced by the performance of individual cells.  If one cell is producing less current than others, the net power output of that line of cells will be reduced.  With the right mix of control software and low enough energy requirements for the control systems, the net output of a given solar panel will increase.  (this part of the idea comes from a source that I don't remember off hand, lo siento)  The final intent of the capacitor array would be to serve as a means of helping to give the grid that uses this technology a little more flexibility when solar power is used, within a single package.

At the end of the day I can't say if there would be any overall benefit to the grid, but the idea intrigued me on an intellectual level and I thought I would  outline it for fun.

Leveling Renewable Power with Sewage Plants

Building on the post about building my dream doomsday bunker, while using more of an eye towards 

rationality I would like to present an idea that I hope is pseudo original.  At this time pumped hydropower is still considered one of the most cost effective ways of storing power.  What is suggested here is using existing waste water facilities as a possible source for the water that is pumped into the storage lake.  The logic of this approach comes from a few key factors, the first comes from the established "ruined view", as sewage plants are rarely considered aesthetically pleasing, it would be reasonable to assume that developing a pumped hydropower facility near a sewage plant will have fewer NIMBY issues (not in my back yard).  The Second consideration also deals with sight availability, while proposals for using pumped hydro already exist, deployment options are limited by the availability of water that can be used for the storage water, by utilizing recently purified waste water, you allow more usage from a given unit of water before it is returned to the watershed or reserve aquifer.  Realistic modeling of the ROI of a technology like this are well beyond my current resource portfolio but I would be curious to see if this solution might turn out to be economically viable for some markets.

March 13  Another Feature that could be considered for this configuration, to a lesser extent the compressed air storage facility suggestion, would be to augment the facility's revenue stream by providing space for a decent sized server farm.  The synergy for the server farm would stem from being as close as possible to an extremely reliable supply of electricity and relatively cool water to mitigate the need for more active cooling solutions.  For the facility operator there would be the benefit of having a guaranteed inbuilt customer for some percentage of their output.  Additionally depending on how a facility like this was constructed it wouldn't be unreasonable that if the storage lake's altitude was partially a product of it being of artificial construction, building in a certain amount of industrial volume wouldn't be too unreasonable.
On the idea of making the storage lake artificial, as it isn't different enough for a full on post, a pumped hydro facility built out of an old landfill, waste storage site, etc.. could help make it a very long term solution for a range of problems.  

Cooling with Hot Water Heaters

Solar hot water heaters are considered one of the most cost effective ways to add a renewable energy source to a home or business. Another way to decrease your energy bill is to take advantage of technologies that consider the cost of energy as a factor of the time of day, one approach that does this very effectively is the production of ice at night to aid in cooling during the day.   (wow this is feeling like I'm writing a report for 9th grade science, but darn it I have no better intro coming to mind)  Several months ago I asked myself if it might be possible to find some kind of synergy between these two technologies.  

For engineers and people who understand my ADD I will provide the quick and dirty thusly immediately below.  As I have time I will add explanations at the bottom, or as requests for clarification come in.

Figure 1

The concept I am presenting here is based on the fact that optimal cooling systems are as close to black body ideal bodies as possible.  The collectors in a solar hot water heater have a relatively large surface area and are painted to behave as a black body.  Traditionally this trait goes unused for half of the day, what I am curious to see, is would it be possible to utilize the black body characteristics for night time cooling, most critically would it be cost effective to utilize the configuration I propose or something similar to it?
To minimize cost, the design shown Figure 1 utilizes a single hydraulic pump and a flow switch that alternates between the two heat exchangers.

Figure 2

  As day turns the night the characteristics of the system will change in a few critical ways.  First and most obviously the flow switch will alternate from having the working fluid move past the Water Heater to the Refrigeration Radiator Augment (yeah I know the name isn't sexy, I'm an engineering geek not a marketing guru, whaddya want from me?) The altered configuration is shown in Figure 2.  For the system to be used as an effective additional convection and black body radiation cooling surface, to augment the standard radiator found on refrigeration systems, the body design will need to under a range of potential configuration changes.  With respect to radiative cooling, the insulation layer that is so critical for day time operation must have the ability to either dynamically alter its thermal resistivity or physically rearrange itself to allow for maximum exposed surface area to the ambient environment.  To increase the overall efficiency of the system convective cooling should also be considered and a design that promotes both active and passive air flow, at night, could drastically alter thermal performance.  One potential approach is roughly shown in Figure 3

Figure 3

 What Figure 3 attempts to convey is that, warm working fluid is piped up through the base of the cooling system, which has expanded itself to aid in nighttime reverse energy transfer.  The glass covers which kept heat in during the day are now open to the night and letting infrared radiation and warm air escape into the night, additionally fan(s) might possibly be used to promote forced convection to aid in the cooling process.  One way to power the fan system might be to utilize some kind of thermal electric generator to minimize the system's energy demands.

Overall I am really curious to see whether or not a design like this would actually be more energy efficient than using the two technologies separately.  The solar hot water characteristics are rather known and the financial models for the technology are readily available and the cost analysis of implementing an HVAC system that utilizes night time cooling can be done by any number of contracting agencies.
       
               The real questions for the system's theoretical synergy stems from the fact that heat syncs experience diminishing returns on their ability to transfer thermal energy. Would this system only be considered beneficial if it was manufactured as a single platform, reducing the amount of radiator surface area built into the actual AC unit?  Could it be utilized as a way to augment existing systems as a way to lower energy costs?  While I can put together the basic equations I unfortunately don't have the resources to do an in-depth analysis on the potential ROI if there is any.  Realistically I  have my own doubts about this concept, no matter how cool I think it is, simply put there are too many moving parts that need to be factored in to the system's design and sadly moving parts/having more parts generally = greater overall cost.  Anyways I hope this at least gave you something to think about, please feel free to provide your own input.

The basic concept of a solar hot water heater is relatively straight forward, a number of pipes are coated in as dark a material as possible, the closer to true black the better.  As sunlight is absorbed by the pipes the energy of the light is converted into heat energy.  This heat energy is transferred to some kind of carrier liquid, with respect to what I will be describing this liquid will be any material that will not freeze or boil within the temperatures normally seen on the Earth's surface (-70 F-250 F).  The carrier liquid will move from the heating pipes through a pump until it reaches the heat exchanger, at the heat exchanger the warmth from the carrier liquid will be used to pre-heat a water source, before that water goes into a hot water heater.  After the heat exchanger the carrier liquid is cool enough to be cycled back towards the hot water heater.