Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
design technology which has been bought by the Danes who have led the
industry”, Dr Staunton explains. “But the market in wind is beginning to
split, into onshore, where US and Danish companies maintain their pres-
ence, and offshore, where the UK is a natural market because of its good
wind-resources in relatively shallow coastal waters and its experience in
oil and gas-rig work.”
The Carbon Trust is particularly looking at ways in which the UK can
become a leader in offshore wind-installation, operation and mainte-
nance. This involves everything from modelling the optimum array of
And there is now another way of achieving the other purpose of street lighting
- guiding drivers at night. A UK company called Clearview Traffic has developed
“solar lite” road studs. These don't need to reflect headlights of cars but derive
enough of their own energy, according to the company, from “a few hours of
sunlight” to emit their own light from dusk to dawn for ten consecutive nights.
These road studs are visible up to a kilometre and can light up the road some
way ahead for the driver beyond the range of headlights. Whether or not these
solar studs can or should entirely replace street lighting is a larger question,
with the issue of crime on city streets also figuring in the debate. But there will
be some roads where overhead lighting can be safely removed or reduced.
Perhaps if or when street lamps are removed, a few electrical power points can
be left behind for electric car drivers to recharge.
Computer efficiency
Computers can help us use energy more efficiently,
but they can also waste it. What is particularly wasteful is the power that
computers, and all sorts of consumer electronic gadgets, consume when
they are not being used, but left in standby mode. There are a variety of
EU proposals to require manufacturers to reduce their products' electricity
appetite on standby. But a UK start-up company from Sheffield, with the
cutsey name of Very-PC, already has remedies to offer. By assembling more
efficient fans to keep computers cool and modifying the voltage of some
components and the power management software, Very-PC says it can reduce
the hundred watts per hour used by a computer that is turned on but doing
nothing to less than thirty watts.
In an interesting aside, Very-PC's managing director, Peter Hopkins, was ridi-
culed in 2008 when he presented for his business idea for energy-efficient com-
puters to the group of entrepreneurs on the panel of the
Dragons' Den
televi-
sion programme. As the
Sunday Times
amusingly related, one of the “Dragon”
entrepreneurs told Hopkins that he had “a pretty averagely crap business…this
isn't Very-PC, it's very poor, you need to go back to the drawing board”. Luckily,
Hopkins did not take this advice, and is now running a thriving business. That is
an uplifting lesson for any down-hearted green-energy developer.
