The reactor works by cleaning gases produced by the gasification of waste products to remove excess molecules and aid in the formation of liquids or other fuel products, such as a diesel-like product that can be burned in standard diesel engines and produce roughly 10 times fewer pollutants than conventional petroleum based diesel. The electrically charged clouds working within the reactor (the same technology used in plasma televisions) allow for reactions to take place at significantly lower temperatures than are found normally and this significantly increase fuel production capabilities.

The primary factors that are seen as the benefits of such a reactor are cost, versatility and efficiency. Because all of the parts necessary to build the reactor are relatively inexpensive compared to other high-tech devices a basic reactor can be built for roughly $10,000 and the fuel products it can produce from various waste material can be harvested relatively easily and then used almost immediately in most conventional engines or mixed with other fuels to improve the base fuel’s efficiency. The reactor also allows for many of the waste products of other biofuel production such as glycerol from corn ethanol production to be easily converted into fuel as well – a process that would normally be costly to consider otherwise.

While the GlidArc reactor may not be considered a truly “green” energy source due to the fact its fuel products still have some carbon emissions all fuel generated from the reactor burns significantly cleaner than pure fuels being combusted on their own. Though this is not a perfect solution to carbon emissions the cleaner energy is still a major step forward in the need for both clean and renewable fuel sources to supplement our current energy needs throughout the world.

The Earth is heated unevenly by the sun because of its shape. Whilst the equator gets maximum heat, the poles get the least amount of heat. Along with this, land heats up more quickly than the seas and oceans. This differential heating creates an atmospheric convection system between the earth’s surface and stratosphere, and the energy of the system is stored in the wind movement.
The energy from the wind can be harnessed via a wind turbine. As the changes in wind pressure occur, the blades of the turbine move. This results in the conversion of the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy. The latter is carried through the shaft of the turbine to the generator where it is converted into electrical energy and used for different purposes. Wind energy is the cleanest form of renewable energy. However, it is also associated with a number of pros and cons. Let’s take into consideration each one of them.

Eco-friendliness

The amount of land used for the construction of a wind turbine is an issue of debate. The advocates of wind energy state that the amount of land needed for building a windmill is only equal to the dimensions of its base. All the remaining space can be used for farming. According to them, the farmers can earn lots of money by renting out a portion of their land to companies that harness wind power. They can even build their own windmills and lease them out.
The opponents, on the other hand, believe that space occupied by the wind turbine is many times more than the dimensions of the base. Apart from the area occupied by the base, safety zone is needed, which should be least 5 acres. Besides this, all the trees within 30 acres should also be cleared. Transmission lines have to be laid and roads have to be built for the upkeep of the turbine. For one megawatt of power output approximately 50 acres of land would be needed.

Another issue of distress is the birds that are killed by the movement of the blades. Advocates of windmills state that hundreds of birds are also killed by pollution, planes, and other stationary structures. The opponents insist that the percentage of birds killed by windmills is far greater than those killed by pollution or planes. Noise is another disconcerting aspect of wind turbines. The blade movement produces a lot of noise.

Reliability

This is another issue of concern. The modern electrical grids are designed to operate efficiently 99.9% of the time; the remaining 0.1% of inefficiency can be easily handled. The situation is a bit different with regards to the wind turbines. They are operational only when the wind blows. Furthermore, if the wind doesn’t blow at constant rate, it becomes difficult to manage the power production. Unlike electrical grids, wind power is not dispatchable — it cannot be started immediately if the wind is not blowing.

Cost

Wind turbines do not require expensive boilers, reactors, engines and fuel, so they are relatively cheap. However, the money saved is spent on purchasing high-priced gearboxes, towers, propellers, electronic control systems and forth. Moreover, windmills have a capacity factor of 30 percent — if a wind turbine has one-megawatt power generation capacity, it will produce only 300-kilowatts of power. To maintain reliability, grid energy storage would be required to store energy produced on a windier day. Thus, the running cost of a wind turbine is somewhat high.

Availability

Windmills are typically built in sparsely populated areas. From there, the power has to be brought to those places where people are actually living. Transmission lines are used for power distribution, but they are also associated with transmission losses. To overcome this drawback, the cost of the wind power would increase further.

In plant life, solar energy is necessary for photosynthesis, the process in which plants generate energy and process nutrients for their growth by converting solar light for their own use by utilizing chloroplasts within their leaves and bodies. This process is necessary for not only producing food for other herbivores but also for producing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, allowing creatures such as ourselves to survive while maintaining a balanced world temperature. Solar energy is also responsible for generating wind currents, allowing for the spreading of spores and gametes in plants and fungi to allow their propagation over a wide area.

Once plant matter is consumed by herbivores or omnivores the creatures then require solar energy to provide their own bodies with energy as well, producing various B vitamins such as B-12 to energize and stimulate creature processes. Solar energy even plays a more subtle role in regulating our moods as well, with our bodies adapting and adjusting throughout the different seasons as sunlight is more or less plentiful. In the winter or during rainy seasons, for instance, many people feel more depressed and less energetic than usual, while the summer tends to see more positive feelings and productive work styles. This trend is commonly referred to as “Seasonal Affective Disorder” and is common among not only people but many animals as well.

Solar energy is even responsible in part for the generation of oceanic waves and currents as well as regulating the salt/fresh water mix through the melting and re-freezing of the polar ice caps. This provides both a living environment for many creatures living in the ocean as well as energy via nutrient transfers in the water across vast areas as the oceanic currents circle and deposit shared nutrients across the globe. Further, through the melting of the ice via solar energy new fresh water is made available for countless ecosystems around the world that are dependent upon this cycle for survival. This can become so important that should the amount of solar energy in a particular region fluctuate it could mean substantial damage to an existing ecosystem and may cause some systems to collapse entirely.

Finally, in a commercial sense solar energy has helped provide an alternative power source for many individuals, both through the usage of photovoltaic energy cells for harvesting direct energy from the sun’s rays as well as through harvesting wind and hydro power, both byproducts generated from solar energy. This has allowed many people to utilize effective renewable energy in a number of different ways and has helped reduce energy consumption in many countries, thus providing a cleaner, safer environment for people to live in. This is especially important now as our oil reserves are depleted more and more each year and other traditional fuels are becoming less readily available, paving the way for alternative energy.

Hydro energy has primarily become popular worldwide in both the form of hydroelectric dams and tidal generators along coastal areas due to the fact that it is a highly clean and renewable source of energy. This means that most hydroelectric sources for power can produce electricity virtually indefinitely as long as they are maintained and the flow of water remains constant. This combined with little to no pollution output makes hydroelectric energy a very desirable alternative to other energy sources that can be found due to the fact that it can be easily maintained and runs off of a virtually limitless fuel source. It is also able to produce electricity at a relatively cheap rate compared to other sources as well due to its low maintenance and lack of need to purchase fuel for power.

The primary downside of hydraulic energy, however, lies in the fact that the establishment of hydroelectric generation plants may cause damage to the environment during their establishment phase. This can include the flooding of some areas during the process of building a dam that can actually destroy many natural habitats as well as historical areas as well as the disruption than they be caused in coastal areas during the establishment of title generators that harness the natural flow of the ocean’s current in order to turn turbines to generate power. This has led to a large debate amongst many environmental activists as to the actual benefits of hydro power and whether or not alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power are actually more beneficial that would have less of an impact on the environment as a whole.

Regardless, hydro power has become and maintained itself as a major player in the world market. In regards to energy production, large hydro energy plants are being established in many areas around the world today in order to assist with providing for the energy needs of people. Still, the pros and cons of the situation need to be weighed out at each phase and careful calculation of the actual benefit that can be gained for the construction of a hydroelectric plant needs be weighed against the potential destruction that can be caused to both the environment and the potential loss of historical landmarks as well. These considerations are particularly important in countries such as China and Egypt where a vast majority of ancient history lies along natural water flows that could potentially be lost forever if hydroelectric power plants were to be established without consideration for the consequences.

Solar energy makes a vital part of the energy plans of China, but the stress appears to be more on the commercial value of solar energy rather than the environmental impact that one generally associates with a green energy form such as solar energy. China would definitely feature in the top five lists of the world’s solar panel and cell manufacturing countries. But the fact that only one or two percent of the produce is retained for use in the country is a cause of concern. There are two ways of looking at this situation. For some, China plays the role of a supplier of solar energy based equipment to the world. Others contend that China would be better off stressing upon the need for its own industries to take to clean energy forms rather than using solar energy as a merely profit making market. All said and done, there is no denying the fact that China has a major role in creating sufficient supply of solar equipment for the world.

China’s Energy Ministry is also in pursuit of a solution to the imminent energy crisis. The recent policies regarding simplification of approval grants to solar power projects seem to be steps in the right direction. On similar lines, the process of setting up power plants based on conventional means such as fossil fuels has become difficult. This is an obvious attempt to divert people and organizations towards solar energy and other environment friendly energy forms through the provision of economic enablers in the form of subsidies and incentives.

Programs like ‘Golden Sun’ also work towards popularizing the concept of solar energy. Granting subsidies to people who install solar power systems at their homes is also a step in the right direction, and has already given favorable results. The offsetting of installation costs associated with large scale solar power plants through increased responsibility on other well settled sectors like construction and finance also promises to rope in more and more households into the list of solar powered ones.

The research programs in the country are in hot pursuit of success as regards the triple-junction thin-film silicon cell structure of solar cells, which would improve the conversion efficiency of the solar cells. Another important aspect of the whole solar energy situation in China is the problem of excess polysilicon production. The derivatives and by-products of polysilicon manufacturing are polluting and poisonous. Chinese industries have failed to keep a tab on the pollution caused by polysilicon production, and this has posed a valid question mark. The recent future is expected to clarify the Chinese stand on the scheme of things as far as clean energy forms in general and solar energy in particular are concerned.

The Solar Impulse project is the brainchild of Swiss balloonist, psychiatrist and inventor, Bertrand Piccard. Piccard was the first to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon and within the next 5 years hopes to go one better by flying a solar powered plane on an approximate equatorial route round the Earth.

The project faces immense challenges if it is to succeed and sees its goals as unachievable without pushing back the current technological limits in all fields. The result of tackling these challenges is the prototype plane, HB-SIA. Construction of HB-SIA started in June 2005 and it undertook a successful maiden flight on 3rd December 2009. The design goals of HB-SIA are to:

- validate the design and material choices;
- test the planes unique design characteristics;
- to gather and store sufficient energy to allow a 36 hour flight.

This will pave the way for a later design, HB-SIB, to undertake the full circumnavigation of the globe.

HB-SIA is a large plane, in appearance similar to a large glider. Its physical likeness to a modern day jet lies only in its wingspan, which is comparable to an Airbus 340. It has a tiny 1.3 cubic meter cockpit which houses a single pilot and instrumentation. Beneath its 63.4 meter wingspan are mounted four gondolas, each housing a 10 HP motor which each drive a 3.5 metre dual blade propeller. These engines provide the plane’s sole forward thrust and will keep the plane at a steady speed of 75 km/h. At 75 km/h there will be sufficient balance between the energy gathering mechanism, its storage and its use to allow the plane to fly the required periods under its own power. Each propeller is fitted with a governor which limits its rotation speed to the range of 200 to 4000 rpm.
The gondolas also house a thermally insulated lithium polymer battery set and computer control circuitry. At the anticipated flight altitude of 8500 meters, the ambient temperature of about -40 degrees C will impact battery functionality unless controlled.

One of the few constants in the design specification is the amount of energy available through sunlight. Over 24 hours, the incident sunlight falling on a square meter of the earth’s surface amounts to about 250 Watts. By employing 200 square meters of photovoltaic cells with a total efficiency of about 12 %, the power available to the plane’s rotors equates to about 6kW, or 8HP. This is comparable to the power available to the Wright brothers when they made their first powered flight in 1903. Although the energy efficiency of the PV cells could have been increased, there would be an accompanying increase in the weight of the plane. The weight increased would have significantly penalized the plane’s flight during non-daylight hours.

The take-off weight of HB-SIA is about 1600 kg. In order to optimize the plane’s weight, the skeleton of the plane is constructed as a honeycomb of lightweight carbon fiber. The underside is spanned with flexible film while the upper, sun-facing areas are covered with solar paneling. In order to maintain stability, 120 rigid carbon fiber struts bind the honeycomb interior. To maximize the available solar panel areas, a wingspan of 63.4 meters is required.