We have searched the
world over for the latest and most cost-effective technologies that allow us to
achieve our environmental goals. These technologies encompass every phase of living. We believe that the key to success is making these technologies
affordable to the average American, without this, large-scale adoption of
environmental alternatives will not happen. The following is list of major
technologies that we hope to employ at RansonGreen. Click on the technologies
listed below to go directly to pertinent information. Click your browser's
"Back" button to return to this section.
Although not as well known as some of
the of the other technologies listed below, geothermal energy is one of the most
cost-effective and reliable alternative energy sources available today. When
powered by electricity geothermal systems produce no greenhouse gases or other
pollutants whatsoever. In addition when addition when the cost of the
geothermal equipment is included in the price of the home as all new homes in RansonGreen
will, geothermal heating and cooling produces a positive cash flow from
inception. This is to say that you will pay less in
additional monthly mortgage fees than the cost of heating or cooling your home by
any other conventional method!
Lower
Operating Cost
Our
geothermal heat pump systems operate more efficiently than an ordinary heating
and air conditioning system because they can deliver an astounding five units of
energy for every one unit of electrical energy used. By combining stored earth
energy with safe electric power, many geothermal owners realize savings up to
70% for heating, cooling, and hot water. Our geothermal heating and cooling
systems have a tendency of paying for themselves within a short time frame
thanks to the enormous energy savings generated.
Enhanced Comfort
Our
geothermal systems provide precise distribution of comfortable air all year
long, often eliminating hot spots and cold spots. During heating, you'll
experience warm air without the hot blasts associated with ordinary gas furnace,
or the cooler air of an air source heat pump. Additionally, when cooling, our
geothermal units deliver cool, dehumidified air.
Quiet
Unlike
ordinary air conditioners or heat pumps, there is no noisy outdoor unit to
disturb your outdoor environment or your neighbors. Geothermal heating and
cooling systems are designed and constructed for "whisper quiet" operation.
Reliable
Unlike air
conditioners and heat pumps, geothermal units are installed indoors, so they are
not subject to wear and tear caused by rain, snow, ice, debris, extreme
temperatures or vandalism. Geothermal units have proven to be very reliable and
require less maintenance.
Environmentally Friendly
According
to the Department of Energy and the EPA, geothermal systems are the most
environmentally friendly way to heat and cool your home. Our systems emit no
carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide or other greenhouse gasses, which are considered
to be major contributors to environmental air pollution. They are truly a
natural, green heat pump.
No matter
what climate you live in, the temperature throughout the year varies. For some
climates that means blazing summers that cool to frigid winters. What many
people don't realize is that the temperature below ground (regardless of climate
or season) stays fairly consistent all year.
The ground
is able to maintain a higher rate of temperature consistency because it absorbs
47% of the suns energy (heat) as it hits the Earth's surface. Our geothermal
systems are able to tap into this free energy with an earth loop. This
technology is then used to provide your home or office with central heating and
cooling.
Heating
During the
heating cycle, a geothermal system uses the earth loop to extract heat from the
ground. As the system pulls heat from the loop it distributes it through a
conventional duct system as warm air. The same
heat energy can also be used for a radiant floor system or domestic hot water
heating.
Cooling
In the cooling mode, our
geothermal system air conditions your home by reversing the heating process.
Instead of extracting heat from the ground, it is extracted from your home and
either moved back into the earth loop, or used to preheat the water in your hot
water tank. Once the heat is removed from the air, it is distributed through the
duct system in your home.
Solar panels have been around for decades. However with recent increases in the
cost of energy and heightened awareness of global warming issues people are
beginning to show increased interest in photovoltaics. Traditionally these
panels were made panels were made of silicon the same material used to make
transistors and microchips. However recently the increased demand for silicon
has driven up the cost of silicon to the point the industry has been forced to
look for alternatives. Demand has a way of inspiring
This new material is
referred to as CIGS (short for Copper, Indium, Gallium, and Selenium). While
panels made with this new material doesn't produce quite as much
electricity as silicone it makes up for this by being significantly less
expensive and more versatile. Two of the most promising manufactures are
Nanosolar and Solyndra. To watch videos about this technology
click here.
This photograph shows the basis of Nanosolar's
technology. The CIGS semiconductor "ink" is literally printed onto a thin
metal strip which carries the electricity produced by the PV (Photovoltaic)
layer to its destination.
The Nanosolar company
was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world's largest solar cell
factory in California and the world's largest panel-assembly factory in Germany.
They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient
solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar
technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere
30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power
cheaper than burning coal. These coatings are as thin as a layer of paint and
can transfer sunlight to power at amazing efficiency. Although the underlying
technology has been around for years, Nanosolar has created the actual
technology to manufacture and mass produce the solar sheets. The Nanosolar plant
in San Jose, once in full production in 2008, will be capable of producing 430
megawatts per year. This is more than the combined total of every other solar
manufacturer in the U.S.
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The photo above shows a rooftop array of
Solyndra's cylindrical CIGS PV cell. Each cell is a glass encased PV tube
similar to a fluorescent light with contacts on each end to carry the current
away from each cell. The most important feature of the Solyndra design is that
it can lay flat since it is capable of absorbing radiant energy directly and
also from reflected light striking the cell from the bottom. This means
that the installation cost can be dramatically reduced since the panels seen
above do not have to be attached to the roof. Also since air is able to flow in
and around the panels these array are capable of sustaining hurricane force
winds without damage!
Wind energy has been used for thousands of years to pump
water, grind grain, and more recently to produce electricity. Like all of
the alternative forms of energy under discussion wind turbines have undergone
significant improvements making them smaller or in some cases much larger, more
efficient, with less impact on the environment. In general wind turbine
fall into two groups: large-scale industrial or regional "wind farms" and small
residential or recreational wind turbines. Both groups have traditionally
suffered from some inherent drawbacks. First, they take up a great deal of real
estate. Large wind farms can take up thousands of acres and even much smaller
residential units may require guy wires that extend a considerable distance from
the base. Another issue is their visual appearance which for some is
unpleasing to the eye and in certain instances can be seen from a considerable
distance from the installed site, sometimes miles. Lastly many wind turbines
produce a considerable amount of noise which is particularly important in a
residential setting. For this reason many condominium and neighborhood
associations have banned these devices.
As suggested earlier technology is addressing these drawback
and have made considerable strides towards the mitigation of these drawbacks
resulting in dramatic improvements in efficiency and reduction of drawbacks. We
offer a description two of the most promising devices under development in the
wind turbine market today.
The Maglev wind turbine, developed by Maglev Wind Turbine
Technologies, Inc. is based in Sierra Vista Arizona. The Maglev is a
gigantic (by anyone's standards) wind turbine. However, when compared to
conventional wind turbines the Maglev occupies a small fraction of the space to
produce the same power as 1,000 conventional industrial class wind turbines.
The Maglev only requires about 100 acres of land as compared to 64,000 acres for
a conventional wind farm with the same electrical generation capacity.
Maglev wind turbines
have several advantages over conventional wind turbines. For instance, they’re
able to use winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s).
Also, they could operate in winds exceeding 40 m/s. Currently, the largest
conventional wind turbines in the world produce only five megawatts of power.
However, one large maglev wind turbine could generate one Gigawatt of clean
power, enough to supply energy to 750,000 homes. It would also increase
generation capacity by 20% over conventional wind turbines and decrease
operational costs by 50%. If that isn’t enough, the maglev wind turbines will be
operational for about 500 years!
Maglev is headed by
long-time renewable energy researcher Ed Mazur, the company claims that it will
be able to deliver clean power for less than one cent per kilowatt hour with
this new technology making it the most cost-effective electrical generation
technology on the planet. Mazur also points out that building a single giant
maglev wind turbine would reduce construction and maintenance costs and require
much less land than hundreds of conventional turbines. The estimated cost of
building this colossal structure is $53 million. To learn more about this
technology click here.
On the other side of the spectrum is the
diminutive Tesnic wind turbine. Developed by Tesnic, Inc. of Laval Quebec.
The Tesnic wind turbine is based on the designs of Nikola Tesla, one of the
greatest inventors of the Twentieth Century. The end result is a very small wind
turbine that produces almost no noise or vibration making possible to be located
almost anywhere.
The wind
turbine patented by TESNIC is a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), defined by a
rotor assembly having more than 200 disks stacked one on top of each other with
a narrow gap between them (≈2mm). The rotor also includes on the circumference
of the stacked disks a plurality of twisted airfoil blades as such to redirect
the air flow tangentially to the disks surface.
Around the
rotor there is a stator assembly playing the role of wind capture augmenter and
to neutralize the turbulences on the rotor. The arrangement of the stator vanes
and of the rotor blades is as such to redirect the wind tangentially to the
disks assembly regardless of the wind direction. The disposition of the stator
blades also prevents the disruption of rotation by shielding the rotor from
turbulences or from any wind direction shifts.
The TESNIC
turbine extracts the wind energy via several ways. First the wind energy is
extracted in the standard way lift and drag via the blades on the circumference
of the rotor. Then the airflow enters in the gaps between the disks where, as in
the case of the Tesla turbine, it adheres to the surface of the disks which will
contribute significantly to the rotation of the rotor. This new way of
extracting the wind power via adhesion, in addition to the classic drag and lift
extraction, enables the TESNIC turbine to achieve a very high efficiency.
The TESNIC
turbine is able to operate with the same
efficiency in turbulences as the vanes disposition shield the rotor from any
turbulence. Moreover, the vane's disposition hides the rotor as such that the
moving parts of the turbine are barely visible from the ground level.
Accordingly, the TESNIC turbine is esthetically in harmony with the surrounding
areas, being that urban or rural, residential or commercial. To learn more about
this technology click here.
Pictured above is the Testla
turbine conceived by Nikola Testla in 1923. Testla and his invention are
pictured in the center photograph. The Tesnic vertical axis wind turbine
is pictured to the left. This unit stands at less than five feet tall.
Please note the bolts on the bottom of the turbine intended to enable staking of
multiple units. Due to the quite vibrationless operation of the Tesnic
these units can be mounted on rooftops or just about anyplace where wind
conditions are ideal.
Gasification of biomass is not new, however it has recently undergone
several improvements making this process an extremely efficient environmentally friendly
technology. Feed stocks for this
technology range from coal to trash. Essentially it will works with any kind
of organic matter that has a high content of hydrocarbons.
The process begins by crushing the
feed stock in to very small particulates. These
particulates are the introduced into a sealed container where air or oxygen
and water is introduced. Very high heat and pressure is applied to the
mixture yielding a synthetic gas referred to as “syngas”.
Syngas is then pumped to various reactor components that separate unwanted
particulates and gases until the syngas is purified. At this point the
syngas is comprised mostly of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, both of which
are quite flammable. This purified syngas is then fed into a gas turbine
connected to an electrical generator.
In
a combined cycle gasification plant (IGCC) the hot gas exiting the gas
turbine is then pumped into a heat exchanger which is the used to produce
steam. This steam is then used to
power a steam turbine generator which produces additional electricity making
the process much more efficient. The
heat recovered from the steam turbine is then used to heat the facility or
to be fed back into specific stages.
Along the way pure hydrogen can be extracted from this process and can be
compressed in the gaseous for or it can be used to power fuel cells and
become yet another source of electricity. Other
chemical and solids extracted during the process can be sold to various
industries. Depending on the design and the feed stock used gasification
facilities can be up to 80% efficient all without producing any significant
greenhouse gases or particulate pollutants.
Green Steel
Green Steel refers to steel derived from recycled ferrous metals such as junk automobiles and construction steel.
The great benefit is that we are not depleting our natural resources by removing new iron ore.
Also the energy consumed to produce "Green Steel" is far less than producing steel from raw ore.
Secondarily, since steel is an excellent building material when compared with alternative materials
such as wood, green steel can help to conserver our nation's forests. Of equal importance,
green steel can be cost-effectively manufactured and fabricated domestically relieving the huge foreign
deficit in trade for new steel. As compared with wood green steel is stronger,
impervious
to insect
infestation,
will not
rot, mildew,
and is
fireproof.
In addition,
the
materials
and labor cost of
construction
is lower
while
providing
greater
structural
strength,
faster
construction
times, and
lower
insurance
rates.
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