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  • Spanish student solves wind power problem

    A voltage dip is a sudden reduction in potential in the electric grid, followed by a rapid return to its normal value. This, at times, can be caused by lightening or by a tree falling on power cables. It can also be due to a large company consuming a lot of energy all at once. This drop in voltage happens in a matter of milliseconds. “We are aware of it because the lights begin to flicker or because they go off and on momentarily — but, for a machine, this can be an eternity,” explained López. In fact, an interruption of half-a-second in a productive process can cause the whole process to block and it may have to be re-initiated.

    Lopez said that in the normal operation of wind turbine, the flux in the stator rotates synchronously, i.e. at the grid frequency. As the rotor turns near this speed, the voltage induced by this flux is small. The sudden dips on the grid cause the appearance of a new flux in the stator, which has been named the “natural flux.” This second flux, as opposed to the normal flux, is fixed to the stator, that is, it doesn’t rotate. Therefore, its relative speed in respect to the rotor is much larger and it induces voltages in the rotor much greater that those corresponding to the normal operation.

    Usually, the electronic converter connected to the rotor is not able to overcome to theses voltages and the converter, as a consequence, loses the control of the currents. In this situation, there appear overcurrents that can damage, depending on the depth of the dip, the converter.

    To date, one system has been in place to protect converters, however it’s not an optimal solution.

    “The current system of protection, known as Crowbar, has the advantage of being able to protect the machine but the disadvantage of the machine coming to a halt,” López said.

    “For example, if a large company suddenly consumes a lot of current, the voltage drops. This causes the wind power units at El Perdon [in Navarre, Spain] to disconnect and cease producing electricity. As a result, the power dip is even more accentuated and, consequently, it is even more difficult to bring the voltage up to its normal operating value.”

    Taking into account that, in Spain, there are days that wind-powered energy can account for fully one-third of electricity production, the problem can prove to be a serious one.

    Engineers are tackling the problem by trying to find a way that the generator will behave more like a conventional power plant and not disconnect during a voltage dip/power failure but rather help to bring the grid voltage back up.

    Two new protection techniques patented

    “Before looking for a solution, the problem has to be studied from a theoretical perspective, i.e. why does this machine behave as it does when there is a voltage dip? And why, if we do not install a protection system, the machine starts to burn out?”

    The research produced a rotor model that was “sufficiently simple to be able to deal with without having to carry out simulations. A model in which we can see what role each parameter of the machine plays, how they interact, how the current drops if we increase the leak inductances, etc,” said Lopez.

    Once this model was developed, Lopez says that it was more or less easy to propose solutions. “The most important thing is that we have achieved solutions that enhance the behavior of the machine without any need to change anything, except the control. It’s like changing the version of a text treatment program on the computer, without needing to change the PC. There a number of computers inside a wind energy converter and one of these — that which controls the electrical machinery — is the one the control of which we have proposed to modify in order to enhance the behavior of the machine.”

    In his PhD thesis, López proposed two different systems of protection and both have been patented. The first, which only requires changing the control of the machine converter, has been transferred to a manufacturer for introduction into wind parks worldwide; the other requires changing elements inside the machine and continues to be developed for applications in new creation wind generators.

  • US tax break for solar worth 25 billion

    “By extending the solar investment tax credits, Congress can provide an immediate boost to the floundering U.S. economy by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and injecting billions of dollars of new investment capital into the economy, while at the same time driving down energy costs for consumers,” said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), based in Washington, D.C.

    “The solar energy industry creates jobs that are the foundation of our economy — jobs for manufacturers, construction workers, engineers, roofers, electricians and plumbers. These jobs are needed now and Congress is in a position to extend the ITC and ensure that these jobs are created here in the U.S.”

    According to the study, by 2016, the solar energy industry would create 440,000 permanent U.S. jobs with much of the direct growth occurring in domestic manufacturing, construction and the trades. This figure reveals the strength of the solar job creation engine when compared to the current 79,000 direct employees of the coal mining industry and the 136,000 direct employees in oil and gas extraction.

    “There is the potential to create significant U.S. employment and investment opportunities,” said Jay Paidipati, Managing Consultant at Navigant Consulting. “An 8-year extension of the ITC would allow the market to maintain or possibly exceed its current growth rate.”

    Since many solar energy components are manufactured near the markets the industry serves, extending the ITC would create manufacturing and installation jobs in all 50 states, with California, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Washington as the states most likely to see the largest economic boost. In some states, the number of jobs could grow as much as 300% or more.

    Similarly, the economies of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and the rest of the Great Lakes region would grow significantly from solar energy if Congress passes the ITC extension, according to a press release issued by SEIA. With the recent decline in automotive and traditional manufacturing jobs that has hit these areas, an economic boost would be a welcome change.

    “We strongly urge Congress to seize this opportunity to extend the solar investment tax credit for 8 years now before leaving for the campaign trail,” said Resch.

    The Navigant study also pointed out that the solar industry creates high quality domestic jobs. The greatest growth will occur in new manufacturing, construction, and engineering jobs, and in the roofing, electrical, and plumbing trades.

    Beside jobs, its is estimated in the report that should Congress pass an 8-year extension of the 30% ITC, solar energy could produce 28 gigawatts (GW) of power by 2016, which is 19 GW more than is expected to be installed should the ITC not pass, according to the study.

    Navigant also pointed out that 84,000 U.S. jobs were lost in just in August 2008, with 39,000 of those in the auto-making industry alone. The additional 440,000 jobs that would be created in the solar industry if an 8-year extension of the ITC passes would go a long way toward rebuilding a struggling American economy.

    Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that includes ITC extensions, however the Senate is not expected to enter into debate on this version of the bill and is instead working on crafting its own bill that may include its own version of ITC extenders.

  • Designated drivers should film their mates

    As someone who claimed that lifting a beer glass is good exercise, who thought of whiskey as a tool for increasing concentration and who defined social lubricants as two or three shots before you answer the door to your dinner guests, I had to rediscover human society.

    I found that I was a basically nervous person with very few listening skills and not particularly good table manners. I had sailed through life in a haze of grog fueled shenanigans, preceded by my reputation and protected by a sharp and somewhat bitter tongue.

    Now, it sounds like any drunk from the hundreds we all know and wish we could love, then, it was a shocking and unhappy realisation. So shocking, it drove me to drink a number of times, until one of my daughters refused to go to a restaurant with me unless I left the wine behind.

    As I slowly relearned the art of human intercourse I began to realise how deeply rooted alcohol is in our culture. Bob Hawke with his yard glass drinking record and his off the cuff support for hungover workers after the America’s Cup is an iconic symbol of the drinking Aussie. The distance between the local automatic teller machine and the nearest bottle shop is a simpler measure of the problem.

    I’m not invoking a conspiracy theory. I’m simply pointing out that because we grow up in a culture that engages in excessive drinking as a matter of course, our view of what is normal is somewhat tainted.

    Last week’s drink driving figures for the Tweed Byron Coast in NSW and the Gold Coast in Queensland simply reflect that when we are on holiday and have a little more free time, we hit the turps a little harder.

    As a resident of Mullumbimby, you might expect me to promote a good mull as part of the solution, but pot insulates us from the real world as effectively as the booze. Besides, the famous Mullumbimby Madness strain of cannibis sativa is no more, wiped out by a police-helicopter invoked wave of hydroponic weed and more chemical highs.

    Unfortunately, the answer is really, really daggy. We need to spend more time being perfectly ordinary, gossiping about everyday things and supporting each other through the drudgery of everyday life. Every autobiography of every recovered addict tells the same story. It takes years to realise that it is not about chasing the high or escaping the low, it is about embracing the average.

    We have to learn this lesson across all areas of consumption, but the grog is not a bad place to start. Your family will appreciate it.

  • Pioneer rednecks vote Green too

    Their neighbours, fellow descendants of those same pioneers, return to the farming methods that grandpa used, sell their produce at local markets like grandpa did and rehabilitate the creek-beds and marginal land best protected by native vegetation. They adopt integrated pest management to harness nature instead of fighting it.

    A lot of Greens supporters are true conservatives who believe that the best way forward is not globalisation, free trade and foreign ownership but solid communities supporting each other exactly as our pioneer great grandparents did.

    Farming communities and the Nationals Party are split between those who still believe that the latest fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified seed will help us beat the elements and subdue nature and those who recognise that fighting nature is a losing battle that could cost us everything.

    Left completely out of this robust and meaningful debate are the economic rationalists who wish we could pump more money into the economy and sustain the miracle of post war economic growth that has made us the luckiest of generations.

    That twentieth century fantasy is behind us now. It’s time to get real about how we go forward. Last century’s political divides are increasingly irrelevant.

    Fifty percent of the Byron Shire voted One for Jan Barham. Katie Milne got the highest primary vote ever for a candidate in the Tweed Shire. The only Greens candidate in Ballina got the highest vote in his ward. This means something. It means that voters have recognised what the Greens have been saying for fifteen years. It is time to reorganise our relationship with the world. It is time to change the way we think about politics.

  • Crowd loves colour by number politics

    The anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin watches the Allied armies marching on her home town in 1945 and observes that many women welcome the Russians because of the simplicity of their flag. Simply grab some red cloth, or a bed sheet and dye it red somehow, and you were on the team. By comparison, siding with the Americans or British required a day of cutting and stitching. Consequently the Russian quarter was ablaze with flags when Hitler finally used his revolver.

    As a party named after a colour, the Greens offer a primal political experience: Line up behind the colours or not.

    When I commended the Greens for being the only party to stand in Tweed earlier in this election cycle a number of you wrote to say they that political parties should not operate in local government.

    I disagree.

    It is true that good governance comes in all political flavours. It is also true that ideology is often the enemy of wisdom. Nevertheless, good natured team rivalry is healthy for the political debate and allows the deep issues that might otherwise be buried to get a public airing.

    In my book, the real problem has been the lack of guts shown by our ageing political parties. Since the split between the Catholic and Communist wings of the labour movement in the nineteen fifties, Australian politics has not stood for anything.

    Locally, we have seen representatives of last century’s parties lining up behind vested business interests to divide up the community pie. Little wonder that political parties are on the nose. The problem is that the idea of politics has been corrupted. Politics itself is not the problem, just the lack of vigour that has been applied to the practice of it.

    Everywhere that the Greens have had a hint of political influence, the Labor and Liberal parties have joined forces to vote them down. It happened in Tasmanian state politics, it happened in the Federal seat of Melbourne. It has happened in the Byron Shire. The ALP gave its preferences to conservative independent Ross Tucker, rather than see the Greens consolidate their slim hold on elected office.

    This is because The Greens actually stand for a future that is different from the past. The Greens are a political party that does not accept donations, that makes policy by consensus, that guides its candidates by principle rather than a party whip.

    Saturday’s result in Tweed Heads was predictable, but the result across the state tells the bigger story. The Greens are a rising force in Australian politics and are building from the grass roots up.

    We do not need less politics at a local level, we need some real politics for a change.

    Giovanni is on air on Bay FM 99.9 this morning between 9 and 11.

  • Bee kill gets pesticide banned in Germany

    The German Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has reportedly suspended the approval of eight pesticides after the mass death of bees in one State. The German Research Centre for Cultivated Plants reported that 29 out of 30 dead bees it examined in Germany’s Baden-Wuerttemberg state had been killed by contact with clothianidin, a product found in one of the seed treatment products.

    The suspended products are: Antarc (ingredient: imidacloprid; produced by Bayer), Chinook (imidacloprid; Bayer), Cruiser (thiamethoxam; Syngenta), Elado (clothianidin; Bayer), Faibel (imidacloprid; Bayer), Mesurol (methiocarb; Bayer) and Poncho (clothianidin; Bayer).

    Beekeepers and agricultural officials in France, Italy, and the Netherlands all noticed similar phenomena in their fields when planting began a few weeks ago. The use of these pesticides has also affected the population of wild bees and other insects, prompting the ‘Coalition against Bayer-dangers’ to demand that the pesticide maker withdraw all neonicotinoids from the market worldwide. “We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid and clothianidin for almost 10 years now,” Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the ‘Coalition against Bayer-dangers’ said in a press release. He added that since Bayer has an annual turn-over of nearly €0.8 billion (US$1.25 billion), it makes imidacloprid and clothianidin its most important products. “This is the reason why Bayer, despite serious environmental damage, is fighting against any application prohibitions,” Mimkes added.

    According to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s fact sheet, clothianidin, which is a non-selective poison, is highly toxic to honey bees. The chemical is often sprayed on corn fields during spring planting to create a protective film on cornfields.