LENR: REALITET ELLER ILLUSJON?

Civitia har utgitt et notat som igjen tar opp temaet LENR - og lignende teknologier.
http://www.civita.no/publikasjon/nr-14-2015-lenr-en-ny-billig-og-forurensningsfri-energi

Den gangen Microsoft grunnlegger Bill Gates stod på TED og snakket varmt om kjernekraft i garasjen - basert på avfall fra tradisjonelle atomkraftverk, så fant jeg det så spenstig at jeg måtte skrive om det her på bloggen. Vet ikke hva som har skjedd videre med dette prosjektet, men skal sjekke litt rundt....  

Energy consumption in 2040

Statoil invites to a discussion on future energy demands/consumtion June 5th .... http://conventor.com/statoil/perspectives/index.php

Electrical Power cables to Europe

1. Øystein Stray Spetalen gets a lot of coverage for his ("ostrich-like") opposition to new power cables to Germany and England. 
2. Centralization and bigger cities are more climate-friendly than small villages and farms   
3. Profitable ways to limit CO2 emissions? (with a picture of a cow in DN) 
4. The head of IFE says nuclear power must be added to the mix 

1) Power cables: for me it's obvious that the climate change is a global issue and that energy should be "produced and consumed" where it is the least stressful for our climate. When good projects are dismissed in Norway due to low electricity prices while the rest of Europe are living with a far higher electricity prices (and thus pay more per tonne of CO2 saved) - we should react. It is not justifiable to subsidize gasoline in Brazil, and likewise - it is not acceptable to keep artificially low electricity prices due to deficiencies in the infrastructure = limited capacity between Norway and EU). See what high electricity prices in Europe has done with people's habits - such as turning off lights in rooms they are not using.

2) Many romanticize living in the countryside, but are they aware of the fact that our climate footprint is reduced when we live close to each other in big cities? (Distribution of goods, trash / sewer, transit, demand for heating / heating, etc..).

3) Profitable CO2 projects: with the image of a cow, DN yesterday wrote a good article on the CO2 footprint of producing red meat vs white meat vs vegetarian. When we also get the aforementioned subsea cables to Germany and England - we can more easily see a direct correlation between the choices each of us makes and the global climate change.

4) Nuclear power: the fact that nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases (during production) has been known for a long time - and it is not surprising to anyone that the head of Institutt for Energiteknikk is positive to nuclear power. After the disaster in Japan (tsunami and its consequences for nuclear power plant) many countries have decided to reduce their reliance on nuclear power. It is therefore a bold move by the IFE director to go public today with a statement that we must add nuclear power to the energy mix - to reach our CO2 targets. I am hoping for a sober debate. (Some time ago I wrote in this Jahus blog about Bill Gates' project that at its core has the production of nuclear power in the garage at home - based on waste from normal nuclear power plants).

Launching another blog...

I was previously very interested in everything that had something to do with the global warming discussions and environmental issues. As a consequence of this - I decided to upgrade our house from 1971 to a "JAHUS" standard. Hoping that others would follow in my footsteps, I wanted to share my experiences in this blog. I also followed up with comments and links to relevant articles and forums (like presenting the idea, backed by Bill Gates: a micro-nuclear-powerstation in your own garden/house). I am of course still very concerned and interested in these questions, but more of my "innovation energy" these days is being directed towards improving public services and the program called Innovation@Altinn. I have therefore launched a new blog (in norwegian): http://bedreoffentligetjenester.blogspot.no/2013/08/velkommen-til-bloggen-som-fokuserer-pa.html

Long time - no see...

Sorry, for entering silent mode without any warning.

This silence does not in any way mean that I think that cuts in CO2 emissions / energy usage is less important now than in 2009 and first half 2010. I still follow the activities in our local- and the global arena, but because I recently joined CapGemini I do not currently have time to share my thoughts on this blog.

CapGemini is in the forefront when it comes to Smart Energy Services - so maybe I'll be back before you know it :-) 
Smart energy services   

Au revoir!

     

Putting sunglasses on the sun

Event 1: Iceland volcano eruption
The volcano eruption on Iceland has had a dramatic effect on air-traffic in the northern part of Europe. Yesterday, no airtraffic was allowed in Norwegian air-space (not even emergency helicopter flights were allowed). The problem has later spread to England, France, Germany etc. Why do I mention this event here?

1) Not since "9-11" 2001 have the videoconference companies been more active. They say that companies should use their technology rather than airplanes (with CO2 emissions)

2) One of the geo-engineering options is putting man-made "sunglasses" on the sun. The real life example of a similar effect can be observed  now (though in small scale). Many thousands of years ago a big volcano eruption in (what is now) Indonesia caused our planet to reflect enough heat from the sun to cause an ice-age on planet Earth. 200 years ago we lost one summer due to a similar effect after a volcano eruption on Iceland (the temperature can drop and leave us with a very long "fall season").            

Volcanic ash cloud: no flights out of Britain
Norway's Stranded Prime Minister Uses iPad To Govern From U.S.

Event 2: Weak energy results in Enova

The Auditor General has conducted an investigation of Enova SF's operation and management - and the final report was sent to Parliament on April 15th 2010.


Enova SF is a public enterprise owned by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. It's main mission is to contribute to environmentally sound and rational use and production of energy, relying on financial instruments and incentives to stimulate market actors and mechanisms to achieve national energy policy goals.


Enova's realized energy results are considerably lower than the established goals. This is true both overall and for the goals related to the heat and wind power. The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and Enova should to a far greater extent follow up on supported projects - verifying that they actually result in new environment-friendly energy production or energy savings, says Auditor General Jørgen Kosmo.

The aim is that Enova through his use of instruments to trigger projects that provide new environmentally friendly energy production and energy savings equivalent to 18 TWh / year by the end of 2011. Auditor General's investigation shows that the realized energy results are generally even lower than Enova's final reported results.

Comments 2:  I heard this on the news this morning, and I hope that the report will trigger a new discussion on how to reach our goals - both for renewable energy and of course the very important energy savings potential ("the greenest energy is the energy not used").

When the Climate and Pollution Control Directorate (Klima- og forurensingsdirektoratet) earlier this year presented their comprehensive report on how to reach our energy savings/CO2 cuts (Klimakur 2020: the target for cuts =12 million tonnes of CO2), they did not highlight energy savings in buildings as a major contributor. The reason for this is that energy saved is mostly clean energy (hydroelectric power from waterfalls). I think that this must- and will change, and Enova should be used much more actively to encourage energy saving in the more than 1 million old drafty homes in Norway. 

• Statnett is already planning major investments in the grid - allowing Norway to import/export electricity. When this has been implemented you could say that:
• 1 KWh clean energy saved in a "Jahus" in Norway reduces the CO2 emissions in Europe by between 0,5 and 1 kg of CO2 (coal-fired powerplants)
• Norway can take the role of Europe's battery: supply of clean energy (send more water through the turbines) when solar-, and windpowered energy production is temporarily reduced/stopped because of weather conditions.
• Aligning energy prices with the rest of Europe and potentially adding a new tax on electricity, will increase the electricty bill for normal families, but will....
• Reduce the purchasing power: the indicators our central bank follows say that the temperature in the economy is at a point where a hike in the interest rates should be used to reduce the pressure in the economy (inflation). Rather than do this, we could introduce higher electricity prices (same effect - but also driving energy savings)    
• Our social-democratic government believes in a redistributing some of the wealth from the rich to the less fortunate. Higher electricity prices will affect the rich more (with bigger houses and multiple summer/winter houses).      
• My wishlist includes: cheap loans, more grants from Enova and tax-relief
• More projects will get started and more energy is saved
• More activity and higher employment is a plus in these difficult financial times 
• Indoor climate is improved in these houses: which potentially could reduce lost production capacity due to sick leave (a hot topic these days in Norway)    

"Spend more (and more wisely) to encourage energy savings - and less on renewables"

Progress (status):
I discovered the other day that the "used" air leaving the house now holds 18.8 C. I checked the ventilation aggregate and noticed that the heat exchanger was off (the rotor wasn't rotating). I asked the Project Leader a week ago, but have not received an answer. 

I know that the aggregate is supposed to automatically detect when it's summer, but something must be wrong when the rotor does not operate and the supply air temperature is lower than the exhaust air (and both are below the desired room temp)?

On extra hot summer days, the temperature of the "used" air will be cooler than the outside air (closer to the ideal temperature because of the cooling effect of the heatpump) - and I would therefore expect the rotor to operate and provide "cool-exchange" in the same way we get heat-exchange during the winter?

Other relevant data:

• External temperature 11C
• Temp out of the aggregate 14C
• Temp out to the living room 21C
• And as mentioned, the temperature out of the unit / house 18.8C

Climate meeting in London

Event 1: How to find 100 billion USD ?
One of the importat breakthroughs during the conference on climate change in Copenhagen was an agreement that in 2020 developed countries will provide $ 100 billion annually to climate-projects in developing countries. The money will be allocated to emissions control and climate adaptation.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently named members of a high-level advisory group on mobilizing Climate Change Resources. The group is led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Gordon Brown of Britain.

Money is one of the most important and difficult issues in the climate change negotiations. The unanswered question is how the find the $ 100 billion annually to climate-projects in developing countries. This challenge must be solved if there is going to be a new international climate agreement. The financial crisis has not made this task any easier.Tomorrow the 19 people in this high-level advisory group will meet in London to try to find a solution.

From the USA comes Lawrence H. Summers, president Barack Obama's principal economic adviser. From China comes Deputy Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao. India, Brazil and South Africa are included - and of course Mexico, who will host the next major climate meeting. Among the members are also the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the economist Nicholas Stern and investor George Soros.

In reality, Ban Ki-moon set up a forum for negotiations outside of the official climate negotiations. Agreement between the countries in the group, will lay the foundation for unity in the formal UN negotiations.

Event 2: First high-energy collisions carried out in Geneva

The first high-energy collisions between particle beams have taken place at the Large Hadron Collider, ending more than a year of frustration for scientists in Geneva.

Collisions occurred just after noon BST, five hours after scheduled, but well within the time frame expected by scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN).

"This is a major breakthrough. We are going where nobody has been before. We have opened a new territory for physics,” said Oliver Buchmueller, one of the key figures on the project.

The atomic particles smashed together in head-on collisions, with each beam having an energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts, three times the previous record. By creating ultra-high energy collisions, scientists are mimicking the conditions moments after the Big Bang.

"It's a great day to be a particle physicist," said Professor Rolf Heuer, the director-general of CERN. "A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends."

Link to CNN.com

Progress: The snow is melting
Still no word from the subcontractor who has been measuring the heatloss from the ventilationsystem in the attic. Now that the outside temperature is above 0C every day - we will of course not see icicles until next year, but I still hope that they will improve the isolation of the pipes as they have promised. Not only will it hopefully reduce the icicles problem, but it will also improve the overall energy efficiency of our "Jahus" (more heat reaches the livingroom).

I do not want to accept the proposal to move the heatpump (which will cost me ca 1000 USD) until the other issues have been solved.