Solar cookerA solar cooker is a device which uses the energy of direct sunlight to heat, cook or pasteurize drink and other food materials. Many solar cookers currently in use are relatively inexpensive, low-tech devices, although some are as powerful or as expensive as traditional stoves, and advanced, large scale solar cookers can cook for hundreds of people. Because they use no fuel and cost nothing to operate, many nonprofit organizations are promoting their use worldwide in order to help reduce fuel costs and air pollution, and to help slow down deforestation and desertification.
Environmental impact of electricity generationElectric power systems consist of generation plants of different energy sources, transmission networks, and distribution lines. Each of these components can have environmental impacts at multiple stages of their development and use including in their construction, during the generation of electricity, and in their decommissioning and disposal. These impacts can be split into operational impacts (fuel sourcing, global atmospheric and localized pollution) and construction impacts (manufacturing, installation, decommissioning, and disposal).
Solar furnaceA solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. Parabolic mirrors or heliostats concentrate light (Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may reach , and this heat can be used to generate electricity, melt steel, make hydrogen fuel or nanomaterials. The largest solar furnace is at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France, opened in 1970. It employs an array of plane mirrors to gather sunlight, reflecting it onto a larger curved mirror.
ThermoeconomicsThermoeconomics, also referred to as biophysical economics, is a school of heterodox economics that applies the laws of statistical mechanics to economic theory. Thermoeconomics can be thought of as the statistical physics of economic value and is a subfield of econophysics. It is the study of the ways and means by which human societies procure and use energy and other biological and physical resources to produce, distribute, consume and exchange goods and services, while generating various types of waste and environmental impacts.
Hot air engineA hot air engine (historically called an air engine or caloric engine) is any heat engine that uses the expansion and contraction of air under the influence of a temperature change to convert thermal energy into mechanical work. These engines may be based on a number of thermodynamic cycles encompassing both open cycle devices such as those of Sir George Cayley and John Ericsson and the closed cycle engine of Robert Stirling. Hot air engines are distinct from the better known internal combustion based engine and steam engine.
Virtual waterThe virtual water trade (also known as embedded or embodied water) is the hidden flow of water in food or other commodities that are traded from one place to another. The virtual water trade is the idea that when goods and services are exchanged, so is virtual water. Virtual water trade allows a new, amplified perspective on water problems: In the framewond balancing different perspectives, basic conditions, and interests. Analytically, the concept enables one to distinguish between global, regional, and local levels and their linkages.
Andasol Solar Power StationThe Andasol solar power station is a 150-megawatt (MW) concentrated solar power station and Europe's first commercial plant to use parabolic troughs. It is located near Guadix in Andalusia, Spain, and its name is a portmanteau of Andalusia and Sol (Sun in Spanish). The Andasol plant uses tanks of molten salt as thermal energy storage to continue generating electricity, irrespective of whether the sun is shining or not. Andasol is the first parabolic trough power plant in Europe, and Andasol 1 went online in March 2009.
Turbine-electric powertrainA turbine–electric transmission system includes a turboshaft gas turbine connected to an electrical generator, creating electricity that powers electric traction motors. No clutch is required. Turbine–electric transmissions are used to drive both gas turbine locomotives (rarely) and warships. A handful of experimental locomotives from the 1930s and 1940s used gas turbines as prime movers. These turbines were based on stationary practice, with single large reverse-flow combustors, heat exchangers and using low-cost heavy oil bunker fuel.
Economic stagnationEconomic stagnation is a prolonged period of slow economic growth (traditionally measured in terms of the GDP growth), usually accompanied by high unemployment. Under some definitions, "slow" means significantly slower than potential growth as estimated by macroeconomists, even though the growth rate may be nominally higher than in other countries not experiencing economic stagnation.
DesertecDESERTEC is a non-profit foundation that focuses on the production of renewable energy in desert regions The project aims to create a global renewable energy plan based on the concept of harnessing sustainable powers, from sites where renewable sources of energy are more abundant, and transferring it through high-voltage direct current transmission to consumption centers. The foundation also works on concepts involving green hydrogen. Multiple types of renewable energy sources are envisioned, but their plan is centered around the natural climate of the deserts.
